The St. Louis Cardinals made the playoffs every season from 2000-2003, and when they take the field next April they will be looking for a similar start to the new decade as they aim to make back-to-back trips to the postseason. The Cards won the NL Central last year with a record of 91-71, but their celebration was short-lived, as the Los Angeles Dodgers swept them out of the playoffs in the NLDS. Despite the disappointing postseason showing, the future always looks bright when your roster boasts the NL MVP and two Cy Young candidates. Albert Pujols had another Albert Pujols-like season in 2009, winning his second straight MVP award, the third of his career, thanks to 47 home runs, 135 RBIs and a .327 average. Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright finished second and third respectively in the Cy Young voting. Carpenter went 17-4 with a sparkling 2.24 ERA, while Wainwright, in just his third full year of major league service, won 19 games while chewing up an impressive 233 innings and posting a 2.63 ERA. And of course when you consider that bench boss Tony LaRussa has the third-most wins of any manager in baseball history, the Cardinals are a team that should never be overlooked. The Cards already know what they will get out of those guys in 2010. Pujols is the safest bet in baseball for a plus-1.000 OPS, 40 homers and 120 RBIs. Wainwright will eat up a ton of innings and give right-handed batters headaches, and LaRussa will continue to accessorize with his trademark sunglasses while he keeps climbing the managerial wins ladder. The one exception on this list is Carpenter, who will always be an injury concern given his history. Tommy John surgery forced him to miss almost all of 2007 and 2008, and a rib cage injury had him sidelined for a month in 2009, and may have also cost him his second Cy Young award. But if he can stay healthy next season, he will probably be in the Cy Young race yet again. In his last five seasons, Carpenter has started at least 28 games three times, and in each of those three seasons he?s had a top-three finish in the Cy Young voting, including 2005 when he won the award. But the real key to a strong 2010 season for St. Louis will be power-hitting left fielder Matt Holliday. It?s not a coincidence that St. Louis began to pull away in the NL Central race when Holliday joined the squad. He led his new team to a 20-6 record in August, which solidified their place atop the division, and hit .353 with 55 RBIs in a little over two months in St. Louis. Holliday became a free agent at the end of the season but St. Louis offered him a whopping $120 million deal ? surpassing Pujols? $100 million extension for the biggest offer in club history ? to keep him in Cardinal red for the next seven years. If Holliday even comes close to living up to $120 million worth of expectations, the Cardinals have a very formidable middle of the order. Having two elite hitters back-to-back in the batting order is an equation that tends to be worth more than the sum of its parts. Nobody wants to pitch to Albert Pujols regardless of who is on deck, but opposing pitchers will be far less inclined to pitch around El Hombre when they know they have to deal with Holliday?s big bat next. Just look at how Mark Teixeira?s season turned around after Alex Rodriguez rejoined the Yankees lineup. Tex?s batting average was flirting with the Mendoza line for the first month of the season with Hideki Matsui hitting behind him. Enter A-Rod, and all of a sudden Teixeira turns into an MVP candidate, finishing with 39 homeruns, 122 RBI with a .292 average. But Holliday doesn?t help just Pujols. Skip Schumaker was an adequate leadoff man last year with his average just over .300 and an OBP of .364, but he only has two full seasons as an everyday player in the majors under his belt, and he lacks the speed on the bases that the top leadoff men in the game possess. Having a pair of big power bats cleaning up will really help compensate for that missing speed at the top of the order. The two-spot will also benefit from Holliday?s return, whether it?s filled by Rick Ankiel or Colby Rasmus. Ankiel?s productivity dropped off the map after his dramatic wall collision in early May, and the Cardinals camp doesn?t seem to be too interested in re-signing him for next season. Rasmus entered the 2009 season as the third-best prospect in the league according to Baseball America, and although the Cards would like to see an improvement in his .251 average and .307 OBP if he is going to continue to bat second in the order, his 16 home runs were impressive for a rookie. He looks to have cemented his status as the center fielder of the future for the Cardinals, which means Ankiel will likely be looking for a new home for the 2010 season. So if it is Schumaker and Rasums batting one and two, that?s a total of just three full years of big league experience at the top of the Cardinals order. That combination may lack the punch that many contending teams will boast at the top of their line-up cards, at least until Rasmus comes into his own as a major league hitter, but having two of baseball?s biggest offensive weapons cleaning up after them will make up for that. If Pujols is alone as the team?s big run-producer, opponents can treat him with that ?don?t let him beat us? approach, pitching around him walking him to avoid giving him a chance to do damage in big RBI situations. But with another elite power hitter like Holliday waiting in the wings, the meat of the Cardinals line-up is unavoidable. Nobody wants to pitch to either of those guys with runners on base, so pitching around Pujols suddenly becomes a much more dangerous strategy, and you can bet that the last thing opposing pitchers will want to do is walk Schumaker or Rasmus. Both of them should get plenty of good pitches to hit. That boost to the top of the order will be crucial because one offensive category that gave the Cards problems in 2009 was on-base percentage. St. Louis was 18th in the majors last season with a .331 team OBP, which was easily the worst of any playoff team. In fact, the top 6 OBP teams in baseball were all playoff teams. The World Series Champion Yankees were the best, followed by the Red Sox, Angels, Dodgers, Twins and Rockies. If the importance of getting on base regularly wasn?t obvious already, it should be now. Last year, the Cards were good enough to get by in a division without another serious contender, but once they hit the playoffs they couldn?t keep up with the Dodgers. If they want to not only win the division again but also find some success in the postseason, the Cardinals need to improve their OBP in 2010, and that starts at the top of the order. Holliday has a career .387 OBP and posted a .417 mark with the Cards in 2009. So with Holliday locked up, all the Cardinals need is a strong supporting cast, and they should be ready for another playoff run. It?s easy to overlook a guy like Yadier Molina when you have names like Pujols and Holliday in the line-up, but the Cards? catcher won his second straight gold glove last season and was named to his first All-Star game thanks to a .293 average. Not bad for a six or seven-spot hitter. St. Louis lost Mark DeRosa and Troy Glaus to the Giants and Braves respectively, but the Cards can stick those losses in the ?so what?? file. DeRosa joined the team late last season and although he gave the team some flexibility on defence, his sub-.300 OBP won?t be missed. As for Glaus, he played in just 14 games in 2009, so losing him just frees up salary. Felipe Lopez has had his name bandied about as a possible replacement for DeRosa, and although his defence isn?t going to win him any gold gloves, his switch-hitting and .383 OBP from last year would be great assets to the Cards line-up. If they can get Lopez, they may bump Rasmus down in the order and fit Lopez in second, which would allow Rasmus to use his speed on the bases more often since he won?t have Pujols batting behind him anymore. On the mound, the Cards acquired veteran starter Brad Penny to bolster the back-end of the rotation. With Joel Piniero coming off one of the best years of his career just in time to hit the free agent market, the Cardinals may not be willing to meet his asking price, but with Penny in the mix they have a little more breathing room to move some pieces around in their rotation. They may re-sign John Smoltz, or Todd Wellemeyer... or both... or neither. Depending on how much they want to spend, the Cards could field a full five-man rotation of proven, veteran starters, but they could also let their free agents walk and bring someone up from the farm to be their fifth starter. Either way, with Carpenter and Wainwright holding things down on the front-end, pitching shouldn?t be a problem for the Cards next year. So things in St. Louis are shaping up nicely as they get ready to compete for another division crown next year, but what will they be up against? NL Central Rundown The Pirates will still be the Pirates in 2010. In other words, they will still lose far more games than they win, and will trade away all of their talented and popular players for prospects midway through the season. Pittsburgh had the lowest payroll in the league last year at just over $25 million, and that?s just not enough for the team to be competitive in a division where two teams were in the $100 million-plus club, and two more spend at least $80 million. Look for them to bring up the rear in the Central again next year. The Reds aren?t ready to be a contender yet either, at least not until they figure out how to get on base. They ranked 26th in the league in OBP last year, and their pitching wasn?t as strong as it could have been with Edinson Volquez missing so much time due to injury. He had Tommy John surgery in August, and although his recovery is reportedly going well so far, there is a good chance he won?t be game-ready until close to the All-Star break. Joey Votto?s bat will keep them above Pittsburgh in the division, but they don?t have enough behind him to do much better than fifth. The Astros got a nice surprise in Wandy Rodriguez last season, as he wound up with an ERA just over three in 205.2 innings of work. But while Wandy had an ace-like year, Roy Oswalt had an ERA over 4.00 for the first time in his career. If Roy can get his groove back the Astros have the makings of a strong rotation, but they also have considerable offensive struggles to overcome before they can make a run at the division title. For now, they can make a run at fourth place. The Brewers could be a dangerous team if they can find someone other than Yovanni Gallardo to start for them. He was Milwaukee?s only regular starter with a sub-5 ERA last season. Offensively they should be in good shape, especially if Casey McGehee keeps up the pace he set last season filling in for Bill Hall after he was traded to Seattle. As a rookie, McGehee hit .301 with 16 home runs and 66 RBI in just under 400 plate appearances, and he will be a nice compliment to Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun in the Brewers line-up if he can hit like that consistently. Another good starter or two and the Brewers would be a dangerous team, but they aren?t ready to hang with St. Louis or Chicago yet and will wind up in third. It will be the Cubs once again that really have the best chance to compete with St. Louis for the division. With arms like Carlos Zambrano and Ryan Dempster at their disposal it?s no surprise that the Cubs had an outstanding 3.84 team ERA last season, and Derrek Lee had another fantastic year at the plate with 35 home runs, 111 RBI and a .306 average. The Cubs also got rid of their clubhouse cancer Milton Bradley in the offseason, although a new distraction has emerged to take his place, as trade rumors have begun to swirl around Zambrano. But for now they are just rumors, and if big Z stays focused in Chicago, the Cubs will make some noise in the Central division. If Alfonso Soriano can turn back the clock a few years and regain the offensive form that made him an MVP candidate in 2006 and 2007, Chicago will push St. Louis to the limit in 2010. Just like Holliday protects Pujols for the Cards, Soriano and Lee together in a line-up is a deadly combo if they are both playing up to their potential. Soriano hasn?t played in more than 140 games since2006 however, and he is coming off a disappointing season in which he posted a .241 average and just a .303 OBP. If Holliday stays with the Cards and continues to swing the bat like an All-Star, the Cubs can only hope to keep up in the NL Central if Soriano can live up to his end of the bargain, and that looks like a pretty big ?if? right now. Both teams look well-equipped enough to make the postseason so don?t be surprised to see the NL wildcard team coming out of the Central, (although the Cubs always appear to be destined for much more than they actually achieve). But the Cards should have an edge in the race for top spot in the division, mainly because none of their division rivals seem to have taken a significant step forward. It?s almost impossible to argue against the fact that Pujols is the best player in baseball, and with Holliday re-signing, he will have another one of the game?s best protecting him in the batting order. They should have a solid order one through eight, and when you add two of the best pitchers in the league in Carpenter and Wainwright, that is a recipe for back-to-back NL Central titles.