Rafael Furcal

On Thursday several of the questions we as St. Louis Cardinals fans had were answered. With those answers came more questions, though. Let’s discuss!

Rafael Furcal. Last fall, we all remember Furcal hurt the ligament in his elbow on his throwing arm. This paved the way for a pretty impressive final month and equally impressive postseason for Pete Kozma. Furcal decided that he wanted to avoid surgery and opted instead to rest and let the ligament heal on its own.

Well. You know how well that usually goes.

That’s right.

Not well at all.

Furcal is going to have Tommy John surgery under the care of Dr. James Andrews. It has been reported that a position player can recover from this surgery in eight months. So, Furcal is going to miss all of the 2013 season. … Guess what? Had he went ahead with the  surgery in the fall he could have been ready for play by early to mid season. But, by waiting, he does have a full season and then some to recover. … This was the final year of a two year contract. So. That’s. Great. Right? Yeah!

So this does leave us with the question of who plays shortstop. Obviously, Kozma has earned a shot. But, just as suspected, the armchair general managers of Twitter and the Interwebs have all the answers!

Get this straight!

It is not wise to sell every valuable prospect we have for Troy Tulowitzki. Why? Think about it! Shelby Miller and Oscar Taveras. For Tulo? That’s a lot for a player that’s been quite injury prone lately. Not to mention his sizable contract.

And trading Mikel Cleto back to Seattle for Brendan Ryan? Oh dear. People? Really? I know a lot of you are defense over offense types, but Brendan Ryan? I just can’t with Booger, y’all. No. His attitude sucked. I… No!

Basically, several names have been thrown about for various players and prospects. But let’s remember who the GM is and who the GM isn’t. OK! I get the impression we get Pete Kozma as the guy at short. Maybe he gets spelled by … Ronny Cedeno… Daniel Descalso and maybe even Ryan Jackson. Mo will see how this goes and maybe by the trade deadline we will have a nice veteran shortstop to help us through the last of the season and through the postseason.

Here’s what I am telling you.

Relax.

Trust. In. Mo. Y’all!

We cheer for the Cardinals, OK!

Now, the other question that got answered Thursday … That pesky starting rotation and bullpen question!

Trevor Rosenthal will be in the bullpen. Meaning the 5th spot in the rotation is now a battle between Shelby Miller and Joe Kelly.

Rosenthal was amazing out of the bullpen late last season for the Cardinals. He will definitely be an asset there again this season!

So the battle drawing down to Miller and Kelly is really no surprise. It will be interesting to see what happens in this situation for sure! Either way, both of these guys will have a big impact on the club this season as I still have questions about a certain left-handed pitcher that was a little gimpy last season.

That said… We should all relax and watch it play out.

With a few more weeks, it’s still an interesting Spring Training we are watching unfold.