The deck looks stacked against the rebuilding Cards

Tony La Russa's 2008 team is already facing serious injury trouble. AP

JUPITER, Fla. -- The Cardinals have three new starters among their eight every-day players, and a fourth one if you count whoever is going to take over right field for the injured Juan Encarnacion, who was a regular for almost all of last year. They have a Cy Young winner and a two-time All-Star in their rotation -- if, that is, those guys ever manage to extricate themselves from the disabled list.

They have a new general manager feeling his way around, and a bunch of young players doing the same, all of which lends a strange, new, mysterious air to training camp. An air, you might say, of rebuilding.

Just don't say that to the Cardinals.

"A lot of people are trying to characterize it that way," says the team's new GM, John Mozeliak. "My only thought on that is, obviously, we're going to have a $100 million payroll. More than that. If we were going to take the strategy of rebuilding, I think we would have done a lot more to pare the dollars."

The Cards, as it turns out, have done just about everything but slash payroll this winter. Some of what they did was forced on them, and sometimes they forced the issue. To recap the headlines:

• In early October, the team canned longtime GM Walt Jocketty and, a month or so later, stunned many observers by hiring Mozeliak, a front-office regular with the scouting and player development parts of the team who is entering his rookie season as the top dog.

• Free-agent shortstop David Eckstein, a fan favorite if not a favorite of the scrappy-hating statistics-conscious, took a one-year offer for $4.5 million from the Jays.

• In December, longtime center-fielder Jim Edmonds was traded to the Padres.

• Finally, in January, third baseman Scott Rolen, at nasty odds with manager Tony La Russa, was granted his wish and was traded to the Jays for Troy Glaus.

It was, all in all, a winter of stunning upheaval for the 2006 World Series champs. The Cards, 78-84 in '07, enter the season with a new third baseman (Glaus, for Rolen), a new shortstop (probably Cesar Izturis, for Eckstein) and a new center-fielder (former pitcher Rick Ankiel, for Edmonds). Late last season, right fielder Encarnacion, while standing on the on-deck circle, was hit in the eye with a wicked foul ball, fracturing his eye socket and endangering his career. Skip Schumaker, a 28-year-old who has never been a regular, is his likely replacement for '08, though that competition is still open.

Those changes, alone, promise to make getting back on their feet a difficult proposition for the Cards. But they still have a couple of other problems that they're working around -- injuries to the aforementioned starting pitchers, Chris Carpenter and Mark Mulder. Carpenter, trying to bounce back from elbow surgery, hasn't pitched since Opening Day of last season. Mulder, who had rotator cuff surgery in September of 2006, started three games last September before undergoing another shoulder procedure.

Both are expected to return at some point this season, maybe May for Mulder, probably a couple of months later for Carpenter. But nobody knows, for certain, when they'll be back. That'll leave the Cards with a rotation of Adam Wainwright, Braden Looper, Joel Pineiro, Anthony Reyes and either Matt Clement, Todd Wellemeyer or Brad Thompson

Is it any wonder the Cards looks like they're rebuilding?

"Our goal," says La Russa, "is to be in contention when those guys [Carpenter and Mulder] get back."

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