Rafael Furcal has not played 150 games during a single regular season since 2009, and that was bookended by seasons in which he played 36 and 97 games. Last year was the first time Furcal had played more than 100 games since that 2009 season in Los Angeles, and even last season his playing time was curtailed by a torn ligament in his elbow.

In short, Furcal is not exactly Miguel Tejada in his prime when it comes to durability. Thus, it is not particularly shocking to read about Furcal’s elbow still giving him trouble. This time, it is a bone spur keeping him off of the field. It is not clear whether this will affect Furcal’s ability to start the season as the Cardinals’ shortstop. It is obviously troubling, given that St. Louis has its eyes on a return to the playoffs. The options if Furcal cannot go are not very appealing. But are they bad enough to force the Cardinals’ hand?

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After the Braves acquired Justin Upton, uniting him and brother B.J. Upton on the same team, our very own Jeff Sullivan got curious about brothers playing together, and presented some salient information on the brother effect. Or more to the point, the lack thereof. I became curious about it much after that (I’m slow), and while Jeff already did the pertinent research, nobody has ever accused me of doing pertinent research, so I thought today we could look at the best seasons put together by brothers on the same team.

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The impossible finally happened. Miguel Cairo retired. Cairo hung on for 17 seasons — he made his debut the season after Mariano Rivera. One would be hard-pressed to find one season in which he was much good. His highest seasonal WAR came in 1998 with the good ol’ Devil Rays at 2.7, and that was mostly due to 22 Total Zone fielding runs. That season and 1999 were the only seasons in which Cairo received more than 500 plate appearances, and he only got more than 400 in one other season — 2004 with the Yankees. Cairo could not really play shortstop, he was no defensive whiz at second, and as his career .264/.314/.361 (77 wRC+) line shows, he was, outside of a few lucky seasons, a pretty lousy hitter. Yet he hung on. And on. And on. And now he is going to be a working for the Reds. I think it is safe to say that teams liked and like having Cairo around.

Despite his limitations, over 17 years Cairo managed to have some very dramatic hits. In honor of his passing on to the next phase of his career of baseball, here are three of the biggest.

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The St. Louis Cardinals’ farm system is the envy of the league. ESPN’s Keith Law recently ranked the Cardinals’ minor-league teams Number 1 in his annual farm-system rankings, with Shelby Miller, Trevor Rosenthal and Oscar Tavares all in Law’s Top 100 prospects. Baseball America agreed.

But all is not well for the Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliate Memphis Redbirds of the Pacific Coast League. Their story is a warning that, even in a baseball-loving town, it isn’t always true that “if you build it, they will come.”

The Redbirds play in AutoZone Park in downtown Memphis. The ballpark, built in 2000, is nestled between high-rise office buildings not far from the Mississippi River. AutoZone Park is considered a jewel among minor-league ballparks. Baseball America named it the 2009 Minor League Ballpark of the Year. There are wide concourses, club seating, luxury suites and open-air party decks. It cost $80 million to build — a high price tag for a minor league ballpark.

And now, it’s awash in a sea of debt.

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Earlier Tuesday, word got around that the St. Louis Cardinals had called an afternoon press conference. Word got around because the Cardinals spread it. Immediately, there was some speculation that the Cardinals had made an acquisition. There was also speculation that the Cardinals were going to announce a long-term contract extension for a player or coach. But then there were whispers that the news conference would have to do with Chris Carpenter’s future, and many began to expect a retirement announcement. Carpenter has not retired, but retirement doesn’t appear to be far off.

Carpenter’s coming off major surgery, and he started throwing early on this offseason to test his body. Recently, he informed the Cardinals that he’s feeling similar symptoms to the ones he experienced a year ago. He’s going to get himself examined, but the Cardinals all but wrote him off for 2013, and they repeatedly referred to Carpenter in the past tense. This is not a Chris Carpenter retirement article, but you can consider it just one step below.

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Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, which have typically appeared in the pages of Baseball Think Factory, are being released at FanGraphs this year. Below are the projections for the St. Louis Cardinals. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other 2013 Projections: Angels / Astros / Athletics / Blue Jays / Brewers / Cubs / Diamondbacks / Giants / Mets / Nationals / Phillies / Pirates / Rangers / Reds / Rockies / Royals / Tigers / White Sox.

Batters
The Cardinals have a number of hitters who’ve posted above-average offensive numbers over the last three years on the strength of high batting averages on balls in play. David Freese (.359 BABIP, 1200 PA), Jon Jay (.348, 1328), Matt Holliday (.333, 1879), and Allen Craig (.329, 857): each has posted a ball-in-play figure considerably above league average (which typically falls in the .290-.300 range).

The production of high BABIPs certainly can be a skill; however, as Dan Szymborski suggested recently with regard to Detroit’s Austin Jackson (who’s also posted high ball-play-numbers), it takes rather a large sample for that skill to reveal itself in the numbers. Accordingly, the ZiPS projections are going to appear conservative for players whose offensive value has been informed more considerably by his batted-ball profile.

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With Stan Musial passing away over the weekend, Jesse did a nice workup of his career numbers, noting that Musial stands as one of the best hitters to ever play Major League Baseball. But, the more I looked at his player page, the harder I found it to wrap my head around his combination of power and contact rates.

Musial struck out 696 times in his entire career, spanning nearly 11,000 plate appearances, and his strikeout rate was nearly half of his career average (5.5%) during his peak years. In 1943, Musial struck out 18 times in 701 trips to the plate, a strikeout rate of just 2.6%, the third lowest mark of the year. In that same season, Musial racked up 81 extra base hits, and he posted a .206 ISO, good for fifth best in baseball. We just don’t see guys who are elite power hitters and elite contact hitters much anymore.

Of course, the game has changed a lot over the last 70 years, with a drastic increase in strikeouts being one of the most prominent changes. A 5% strikeout rate today is more impressive than that would have been during Musial’s day, but while we have things like wRC+ that adjust for historical offensive levels, I didn’t have a great feel for what context adjusted metrics for the individual strikeout and power numbers would be. So, in order to get a better sense of what Musial’s numbers would look like if we brought them into the modern game, I decided to scale his numbers to the norms of 2012.

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On Saturday night, baseball lost one of its all-time greats. Stan “The Man” Musial, a Hall-of-Fame inductee who played 22 seasons for the St. Louis Cardinals, passed away at the age of 92.

I’ll leave the descriptions of Musial’s unique swing and the stories of contributions to the community to writers more eloquent and knowledgeable than I. FanGraphs is all about statistics, so let’s look at Musial’s career though his numbers.

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Allen Craig is a bit of a beast. Reading through last year’s list of accomplishments can be dizzying. Craig is also turning 29, and he only has one full season under his belt.

The reasons it took him so long to get here are specific: He got injured some, a legendary player blocked him at first base and his glove didn’t allow him to play where his team needed him. But there is a chance that he’s so very, well, Cardinal. Look around his team and you can see it. Matt Carpenter debuted in his age 25 season. David Freese (26), Adron Chambers (24), Shane Robinson (25) and Jon Jay (25) were all “older” debuts. Once again, there are specific reasons for each of these, and there’s also a chance this is part of the Cardinal Way.

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Armed with a new measure for offensive volatility (VOL), I wanted to revisit research I conducted  last year about the value of a consistent offense.

In general, the literature has suggested if you’re comparing two similar offenses, the more consistent offense is preferable throughout the season. The reason has to do with the potential advantages a team can gain when they don’t “waste runs” in blow-out victories. The more evenly a team can distribute their runs, the better than chances of winning more games.

I decided to take my new volatility (VOL) metric and apply it to team-level offense to see if it conformed to this general consensus*.

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