Izzy Worth Keeping?

Cesar Izturis has struggled this spring. Compared with his younger, more promising counterpart, Brendan Ryan, there really is no comparison:

	AB	BA	OBP	SLG	HR	RBI	R
Izturis	26	.115	.179	.192	0	0	3
Ryan	24	.292	.393	.375	0	2	2

If Spring Training is a time to prove yourself, Brendan has done a much better job proving himself than Cesar. Perhaps the biggest disappointment with Cesar this year is the errors - he's made four compared to Ryan's zero. We must remember sample sizes in all of our discussion, because anyone can have a slide that lasts longer than a week, but the reality is Izturis has not shown much in his short time in a Cardinals uniform and has done nothing to prove the naysayers wrong. Miles hasn't done much either, despite getting 27 AB's so far - .185/.241/.222.

As the spring season goes on, we will be able to compare Ryan and Izturis' progress more closely. If Izturis continues to struggle, something needs to be done about the redundancy of having non-hitting middle infielders on this team. Quite honestly, this is probably the worst middle infield in Cardinals history.

There remains an option out there that has been brought up before at Future Redbirds - Ben Zobrist. After the acquisition of Jason Bartlett, the Rays have made Zobrist expendable, and he is lighting it up in ST so far: .421/.522/.632 in 19 AB. The Cardinals could afford to give up a lower level pitching prospect to add another option at shortstop, although the Rays have notoriously been hard to work with in the past. Like the starting rotation, something need to be done about this infield. Something.

In other news, Bernie and Viva El Birdos are continuing the push for Kyle Lohse. This isn't going to stop until a move is made. The rotation as-is is looking pretty ridiculous at the moment.