"Because having the same personnel, but just in different roles, means an improved bullpen.

Cardinal bullpen ERA, Mar-May 2011: 3.33
Cardinal bullpen ERA, Aug-Oct 2011: 3.30"

we didnt have all the same personnel, we got rid of miller franklin, batista, tallet, and augenstein who all started the season on the roster and instead got salas, sanchez, rzepchinski, and mccllelan added to bullpen

and in all fairness, era isnt the best way to measure bullpen effectiveness. With less innings pitched than starters, era in a bullpen is more likely to be inflated due to a few bad outings, and it also does not factor in inherited runners and game situations such as whether a team was just using their worst reliever in a blowout loss to save their good arms while in a close game they have arms that are clutch

but also, as for having same personnel but in different roles meaning an improvement in bullpen, it most certainly would- think of it this way, if you were pitching estrada or braddock in the 9th innings of 1 run games while you were pitching axford or k-rod in blowout losses while you were down 5-6 runs or blowout wins when you were up by 5 runs and could afford to give up a few runs, would it not cost your team more wins while not necessarily changing the overall bullpen era too much by having them in different roles......... thats the boat the cardinals were in when they were using franklin as their closer and batista as their set-up man while sanchez and salas were only given minor roles at first until they proved their worth and got more important roles in tight games which helped the team immensely

Cardinals bullpen is still not anywhere close to as good as the Brewers. Cardinals rotation isn't better than the Brewers'.

Cardinals lineup is slightly better, but only if everyone stays healthy or plays to the same level they did last season all this year. But there's less than a 1% chance that will happen. Berkman will regress back to where he was in 2010. Beltran and Furcal will miss at least 150 games between the two.

beltran remained fairly healthy last season and i think he will play 125 games while missing time with at least 1 dl trip. If beltran will be able

berkman will regress a little from last season but i dont think it will be as bad as 2010, im expecting production similar to 2009 at least which is still pretty solid

Furcal im kinda down on as well, i dont know what to expect but i hope cards will make a midseason move if he is not working out

I think the cards will finally get a healthy season from freese though which will help immensely, although he has an injury rep, getting hit by a pitchi in the hand wasnt really his fault, I think holliday will also have a better and healthier season, last year was kinda weird for him with appendicitis and other issues, but over his career he has been very durable and last season looks like a fluke in that regard

I think when craig gets back, we will have a very formidable lineup and solid bench depth as well

I like our lineup against the brewers, but brewers is still solid

Rotations, I agree, the Brewers have a much better starting rotation, the cardinals might have been close with Carpenter since we get wainwright back as well as garcia i think will improve and lohse was solid last season, though while he would have regressed in most likeliness, so wolf should regress for your team as well this season. however, since no timetable is set for carp, the cards cant count on him pitching at all this season which is a huge blow so the brewers rotation is clearly better

Bullpens, i think you undervalue the Cardinals bullpen. We do not have big name 1-2 guys like you do in axford and k-rod, but although young, sanchez, salas, motte, rzepchynski, and k-mac have shown tremendous value out of the bullpen and are a solid main core of the bullpen. I think we have enough solid arms that we should be able to win a lot of close games as should the brewers

Benches, with 4 outfielders who are all solid in craig jay beltran and holliday, I also htink that tony cruz or anderson will be surprises and better offensive backup catchers than we had in the past who we can actually use as pinch hitters. Descalso and schumaker are competant backup infielders I think we might have an edge on bench

I am of course biased to my team, as you are biased to your own teams, its hard to be 100% objective in accessing your teams chances as you want to see everything in the positive light instead of worst case scenario, but i try to maintain a somewhat realistic view as well

Ive been getting impatient waiting for baseball season to begin, ive visiting relatives in milwaukee and attending the april 6th and 7th games of the cards first seasons series against the brewers, should be a fun one

It'll be interesting to see how the whole bullpen situation works with La Russa. He knew how to make all those people work at the end of the season and the playoffs because he's La Russa. The dude swithces 9394854959594945 pitchers every inning. Although I think that goes for the Cards in general this year. No La Russa or Pujols. Weird.

"sanchez, salas, motte, rzepchynski, and k-mac" "solid main core of the bullpen"

Veras and Loe are a "solid main core" of the Brewers bullpen. Decent relievers, but I doubt you'll find anyone that would feel comfortable with a bullpen made up of nothing but pitchers like them. Although I guess they would seem like a step up from the guys in the Cardinals bullpen.

I say the Brewers will finish with the NL Central and a record of 92-70.

As with any team, injuries can derail any hopes of winning. Brew should be right up there
battling for the NL Central title. Need Gamel to at least come with 75% of a typical
Fielder year.

That's asking a lot of him. This is Moneyball's philosophies in play:

Gamel, Ramirez and Gonzalez need to equal close to the production of Fielder, McGehee and Betancourt. Not so bad when you look at it in that perspective, Ramirez and Gamel should be able to work together to produce.

Fewer holes in the lineup this year. If Lucroy can improve, lineup could be pretty sneaky good.

while i think latos is a solid pitcher, he is going from one of the pitcher friendliest parks to an absolute bandbox, so i think he will disappoint and their starting rotations while better wont be as improved as expected

they also have some rookies starting on the field next year and im always weary to name a rookie as an upgrade no matter how poor the veteran they are following was

with madson injured, their bullpen looks to be worse than last season as they now dont have cordero or madson to close

Im not saying they are worse in all those ways, but i just fail to see how they are upgraded at all from last season
everyone was high on them last season but i had predicted that the brewers would be the cards competition in the division and i was right

The Brewers I think are a little worse than last season and that whil they have tried to upgrade around the loss of fielder, that it will still hurt, but i think they will still be competitive and it wouldnt surprise me to see wildcard come from NLC again in either the cards or brewers, i think the brewers would have been better off if they would have gotten rid of k-rod and spent money elsewhere, 8 mil is far too much for a set up man, that still puzzles me,

For the cards, i think we are better than we were at last seasons beginning, not necessarily better than we were at last seasons end, we can make adjustments mid season as can brewers,

but with carp out, we will definitely need wainwright to stay healthy or we could fall into trouble

Now that Yuni is gone all we gotta do is get rid of Gomez and the division is a lock.

Yea Gomez really held us back last year...

A 225 average was a great year.

he didn't play every day, a lot of teams have bench players that don't hit that well, you're not held back by one bench guy that plays great defense but can't hit.

what he said

This is a 2 team race between the Cardinals and Brewers. The Reds, especially with Madsen out now, not so much.