Congratulations Cardinals!

Well we have a new World Series Champion! Congratulations to one of the greatest managers in the game; Tony Larussa and one of the greatest if not the greatest player in the game; Albert Pujols. With the forgotten and thrown away Jeff Weaver, Most Valuable Player scrappy David Eckstein and one of the more underrated GMs Walt Jocketty!

On a GM side, how was this team built? Here's the 25 man World Series roster composition:
11 free agents
6 draft picks
1 purchase
7 trades (including two in-season, one in 2000(Jim Edmonds), one in 2002(Scott Rolen)

No players were acquired through waivers or the Rule V draft.
So they bought their team through free agency right?
Wrong, check out these free agent signings and their first season salary:
Chris Carpenter...$300,000
Randy Flores...minor league deal
Josh Hancock...$355,000
Jeff Suppan...$1,000,000
Gary Bennett...$800,000
Scott Spiezio...minor league deal
Preston Wilson...minimum deal in-season 2006
So 7 of the 11 free agents were signed to deals paying them $1 million or less in their first year. Taguchi I'm not sure of but it seems he was paid $1.2 million in his first year. This leaves big money signings David Eckstein, Jeff Suppan and Juan Encarnacion. Not exactly buying a team there. How the Cardinals were built was to build loyalty, they signed guys who were down and almost out and waited it out for them to get to a position to make an impact. They traded for Rolen and Edmonds who signed lucrative extensions to stay trhere because they felt the love from the fans and the organization. That's something to be proud of!

On a more important note...the off-season has started :) I'll post the final two parts of the Ricciardi project tomorrow. I've had some e-mails asking me why I haven't really given grades or anything...because that's not my job. I want to inform using statistics, I have no expertise in judging general manager's moves because I'm not there for every conversation and I don't know what goes on in their offices.