St. Louis Cardinals 2017 Season Preview

Offseason Additions: Brett Cecil, Dexter Fowler, John Gant, Chris Ellis, Jordan Schafer, Zach Phillips, Eric Fryer, Gabriel Lino, Luke Dykstra, Wilfredo Tovar, Austin Wilson, Todd Cunningham, Chad Huffman

Offseason Subtractions: Matt Holliday, Brandon Moss, Jeremy Hazelbaker, Brayan Pena, Jaime Garcia, Seth Maness, Tim Cooney, Dean Kiekhefer, Jordan Walden, Jerome Williams

Point team prediction: 87-90 wins, 2nd place (wild card). Last season the Cardinals didn't do so great, yes they came within one game from getting the wild card, but they went 86-76. A lot of that was because of bad defense, and bad base running. The Cardinals also let some of the teams do better than them when the played them, teams that shouldn't be better than them: Milwaukee Brewers 13-6, and Cincinnati Reds 10-9 are a few teams the Cardinals should have been better against. The Cardinals right now look somewhat better than last season, because of Fowler and Cecil. Cardinals could use another bat or bullpen help at some point. But, they have the makings to be a good team. Doing well at home would help.

Starting rotation: Adam Wainwright, Carlos Martinez, Mike Leake, Michael Wacha, Lance Lynn

Bullpen: Seung-Hwan Oh, Trevor Rosenthal, Jonathan Broxton,  Matt Bowman, Miguel Socolovich (if Tyler Lyons isn't ready to start the season), Kevin Siegrist, Brett Cecil

Lineup:

1. Dexter Fowler, CF
2. Aledmys Diaz, SS
3. Matt Carpenter, 1B
4. Stephen Piscotty, RF
5. Yadier Molina, C
6. Jhonny Peralta, 3B
7. Randal Grichuk, LF
8. Kolten Wong, 2B
9. pitcher

Bench:
Eric Fryer, Jedd Gyorko, Matt Adams, Greg Garcia, Tommy Pham

Prospect(s) to watch:
Breyvic Valera could be someone to watch in camp, if he does well he could force Greg Garcia out of a job. Harrison Bader, Luke Weaver, and Rowan Wick (could see the MLB in 2017).

Fantasy Stud: Carlos Martinez

He evolved into an ace for the Cardinals in 2016. Martinez won a career high 16 games. The 16 wins were good for 5th in the National League. He started 31 games, and had 20 quality starts (good for 6th). He pitched 195.1 innings (10th), his era was 3.04 (9th). While doing all of that, Martinez was able to hold opponents' to a .233 batting average (12th).