As many St. Louis Cardinals watchers know, the club engaged the communications firm led by former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer to guide them through Mark McGwire’s re-entry into baseball.

The message delivered did not resonate well as McGwire insisted his use of performance enhancing substances was for recovery reasons only and did not assist his impressive home run totals – his primary claim to fame as a player.

As the architect of the Big Mac rollout, Fleischer took a fair amount of heat. Now, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports the National League champion Phillies have not retained Fleischer’s services. Used as a speaker last spring for media training for players, he was replaced by a competitor for 2010. Anonymous organization members did not offer positive comments on Fleischer’s effectiveness.

The paper also notes that Major League Baseball no longer employs Fleischer Sports Communications, having used them from 2005-09 when steroids was a more prominent issue for MLB. The source referenced noted the parting of ways was amicable.

Fleischer’s McGwire strategy began with a short general release followed by a hour-long interview with Bob Costas and a series of individual calls to key media members. McGwire’s time at the Winter Warm-Up fan event was the best and worst of times, as he was greeted with a long ovation from fans, but a poorly-arranged meeting with the general media flopped badly.

From the process perspective, McGwire recovered somewhat by meeting with the media several times once he arrived in Florida, though the major concern with his message will apparently remain.

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Better late than never, I decided to salute Rigoli now, which I did first and foremost in my weekly column at the Globe-Democrat. Due to space limitations and the need to be net, I didn’t include everything, hence, this post. So read that article first and then come back here for the rest of the story.

The base criterion for induction in the PBSHOF is a minimum of 20 years of professional scouting experience. Selection is based on a combination of quantifiable success in the field, contributions to the game in other areas, professional or amateur, and involvement and dedication to the local community.

The PBSHOF is the brainchild of The Goldklang Group, operators of four minor league franchises located in Charleston, SC, Ft. Myers, FL, Hudson Valley, NY and St. Paul, MN. Plaques of the inductees are proudly displayed at the appropriate park, with annual ceremonies at each to honor the new inductees nearest that area of the country.

I highly commend The Goldklang Group’s now-three year effort to draw attention to scouts’ invaluable contributions at the very foundation of the game of professional baseball, often overlooked by others. Vice President Tyler Tumminia spearheads the efforts.

The 2010 honorees will be as follows: At Charleston, Jax Robertson (Pittsburgh Pirates); at Fort Myers, Terry Ryan (Minnesota) and Dave Yoakum (Chicago White Sox); at Hudson Valley: Bob Miske (New York Yankees) and at St. Paul: Ken Stauffer (Tampa Bay).

2009’s inductees were Tom Greenwade (New York Yankees), Marti Wolever (Philadelphia), Joe McIlvaine (Minnesota), Rigoli, Rene Mons (Milwaukee), Roland Johnson (New York Mets), Al Goldis (long time scout), John Barr (San Francisco), Bob Fontaine (Toronto), Gary Hughes (Chicago Cubs), Tom Burns (Toronto) and Howard McCullough (Arizona).

The inaugural class of 12, inducted in 2008, are John Tumminia (Chicago White Sox), Tom Giordano (Texas Rangers), Tom Kotchman (Los Angeles Angels), Rudy Santin (San Francisco Giants), Lennie Merullo (MLSB), Buzz Bowers (Boston Red Sox), Lon Joyce (LA Dodgers), Donny Rowland (New York Yankees), Brad Sloan (Los Angeles Angels), Art Stewart (Kansas City Royals), Phil Rizzo (LA Dodgers) and Hep Cronin (Atlanta Braves).

Congratulations to all these scouts, especially Joe Rigoli. Last summer, I ran into him at Citi Field in New York. Though we chatted briefly, I didn’t know to congratulate him. Sorry, Joe, and belated best wishes on becoming a Hall of Famer!

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Kill the supervisors…

The problems with MLB umpiring run deeper than the supervisors, but there are unions and processes to follow. Yet there have been three firings.

Geek-a-palooza

This past weekend in Boston, the fourth annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference was held, with over 1000 in attendance. Among the panelists discussing the use of analytics was Cardinals assistant GM John Abbamondi. Here is a very good recap.

Changing channels?

Though the blood of the Cardinals part-ownership of KTRS would seem to trump the history of the team’s relationship with KMOX, the subject of the radio broadcast rights shifting is at least being discussed again.

BP puts Cards at bottom

Baseball Prospectus has followed up their individual player rankings by system and their top 100 with their organizational rankings, with the Cardinals sitting at #30 of 30. Compared to some other rankings, this feels somewhat subjective, though there may be some methodology behind it that I cannot see.

HGH testing unclear

The commissioner says he doesn’t know if or when testing for HGH in minor leaguers will be ready. Doesn’t make you wonder why they announced it, then? (Also note Bud Selig’s comments defending MLB’s minority hiring near the bottom of the piece.)

In the spirit

This link was posted on The Cardinal Nation message board and the video is so well done I decided to share it here, as well. It should put any Cardinals fan in the right frame of mind for the upcoming season.

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My friend Jason Grey at ESPN posted his top 100 prospects list for their Insider members on Friday. His list distinguishes itself from other well-known rankings in that it is based solely on players expected to make a big league impact this season. In other words, that hot first-round phenom on track to debut in the majors in 2013 is nowhere to be found.

While the orientation is for fantasy use, don’t be confused or concerned about its source. Jason is a pro – a real, trained scout who sees literally hundreds of games each year and is well-ingrained in that community. For example, within an hour of Lance Lynn having completed his three-inning outing on Friday, Jason and I compared notes, each of us having received reports from different scouts at Roger Dean Stadium that afternoon.

Four St. Louis Cardinals made Grey’s list. In fact, they are all in the top 50. I thought it especially timely given Lynn’s impressive outing his first time out.

With the permission of Jason and ESPN, his Cardinals capsules follow. Please respect the rights of the owners and do not reproduce the details elsewhere.

24. David Freese

Freese turns 27 in April and was in a similar position last year, with a chance to win the third base job, but ankle problems stemming from a January car accident were more serious than he let on, and he eventually underwent surgery. He’s a career .308 hitter in the minors, with a .384 on-base percentage and .484 slugging percentage in almost 1,500 at-bats, and his short stroke, bat speed and ability to go the other way with power should allow those numbers to translate well to the major league level. He does tend to get streaky and is prone to going through stretches in which he chases too many pitches, and the signing of Felipe Lopez definitely has the potential to cut into Freese’s playing time, but he’ll be given a chance to take a starting job and run with it.

32. Lance Lynn

The fifth spot in the Cardinals’ rotation is up for grabs, and even if Lynn doesn’t win it during spring training, he might get it at some point this season. A supplemental first-rounder in the 2008 draft, Lynn has cruised through the minors thanks to his good sinker and command of his secondary stuff, finishing with a 2.92 ERA in 22 Double-A starts last year. He doesn’t really have an “out pitch,” but can hit his spots and keep his mistakes in the ballpark, giving him a chance to have some sneaky value if he gets an opportunity.

43. Allen Craig

Craig has a good shot at winning a backup spot in the Cardinals’ outfield, and in the past three seasons, he has played everywhere but catcher and center field in the minors (though he’s not really too good at any of them). His best position is first base, but that’s, um, filled in St. Louis. However, that versatility might allow him to stick with the big club, and the bat can do the rest. The 25-year-old hit .322 with 26 homers at Triple-A last season, which followed a .304, 22-homer campaign at Double-A in 2008, and a .311, 24-homer campaign in Class A ball in 2007. Sensing a bit of a pattern emerging here? He squares up the ball consistently with good hip rotation and loft, and he’s willing to work the count. Playing time could lead to surprising numbers.

47. Jaime Garcia

Garcia is likely to start the year in the minors as he continues his recovery from Tommy John surgery in 2008. He still needs to build up some innings after throwing just 263 of them combined over the past three seasons. He was good enough in the Triple-A playoffs in his late-season return last year to be optimistic about him contributing at some point for the Cardinals with his good curve, solid low-90s sinker and new cutter. The elbow problems have limited his development, but he’s still just 23 and projects as a middle-of-the-rotation starter.

Again, to see the full list, read all of Jason’s in-depth reports, and much more, become an ESPN Insider today. I subscribe and recommend it highly. You can get an even better deal if you first subscribe to ESPN The Magazine (which, by the way, has a great cover story on Albert Pujols this week.)

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As I often do around this time of year, I just took a peek over at the yellowed betting slip from the Luxor Sports Book in Las Vegas that is stuck up on the board next to my desk. It reflects my bet from five years ago this week, February 28, 2005, when I laid down a whopping $20 on the St. Louis Cardinals to win the World Series. I received 6-1 odds, meaning I could have won $120.

I was not only betting on a bounce back from the disappointing sweep by the Boston Red Sox in the 2004 World Series, but the excellence of Albert Pujols and Chris Carpenter as well as the nostalgia value of the final season of Busch Stadium II.

As most readers here probably know, the 2005 Cardinals won 100 games again and Carpenter and Pujols took home the game’s highest individual honors, the Cy Young Award and Most Valuable Player Awards, respectively. Yet the Houston Astros ended the Cardinals’ dream in a six-game National League Championship Series.

The old slip reminds me why I don’t bet.

Still, I find it interesting to look at what kinds of odds those who are willing to put their money down this year are seeing.

I checked out three online betting sites, where the Cardinals vary from 9-2 to 11-2 odds to win the National League. The Phillies are favorites, with the Dodgers and Cubs behind the Cardinals.

Here are their odds for the World Series. I added in the Yankees, since they are the favorites to repeat. The Cardinals range from 11-1 to 13-1 to take it all this year.

Right before I ended my search, I ran across an even more interesting site. betED.com also provides an over-under bet on number of wins in the 2010 regular season for each MLB club. I am assuming that all betting lines opened at -115, meaning you would need to bet $115 to win $100.

I imagine that odds have shifted from there based on betting interest. As you can see below, the Cardinals’ over/under is 88 ½ wins. If you are the optimist and think they will win at least 89 games, you only have to bet $110 to win $100. The pessimists must be out in greater volume, as it will take a $120 bet to collect $100 on the under, 88 wins or fewer.

No word on whether these lines shifted with last Friday’s word of Felipe Lopez’ signing. I am betting, er… guessing not.

Perhaps it is not surprising, but the largest deviations have occurred with the New York teams. If you believe the Yankees will win 94 or fewer games, you can earn $110 on your $100 bet. On the other hand, if you think 95 or more victories will be the result in the Bronx, you have to lay down $140 just for a chance to collect $100. The poor Mets, starting at an incredibly optimistic over/under of 89 wins, have trended in the opposite direction with the smart money on them doing more poorly.

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It takes a lot of guts to write an article ranking Major League Baseball’s general managers. Tim Marchman at Sports Illustrated apparently is not afraid of the inevitable criticism as he has undertaken such an endeavor.

Unfortunately without much of a defined process to seemingly guide him, what we get is Marchman’s assessment of potential more than anything that can be truly analyzed. Yet because of what it is and where it is, the article is bound to get a lot of attention as people like me all over cyberspace write about their concerns over ‘So-and-so GM being only ranked xxth.’

As a St. Louis Cardinals watcher, I am actually less concerned about where the club’s leader stacks up numerically as I am about some of those ahead of him.

Still, I have to admit that I was initially a bit surprised that John Mozeliak is considered a second-division player, sitting at #18 of 30. Mo seems to be shrugged off as riding the coattails of some combination of Albert Pujols, Tony La Russa and Walt Jocketty’s leftovers. No mention was made of the moves to lock up young talent like Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina cheaply, for example.

Then again, realizing Mo has only two years in the job, one of which was a playoff miss and the other a quick exit, I guess I could see it. That seemingly obvious point was not made in the article, however.

That is, I thought I could accept it until I noticed Marchman placed Mo two spots lower than Jim Hendry of the Cubs! I guess Mo needs to make a boatload of bad signings like Alfonso Soriano, Kosuke Fukudome, Milton Bradley, etc. while blowing millions so he can move up the list.

There seems to be a major difference between us in how we gauge a top general manager. I am a believer in recognizing results, though Marchman seems more enamored with improving bad situations, giving credit for perceived progress.

He mentions his criteria include “success”, though not necessarily winning. Go figure. Other factors include “not doing stupid things”, “efficiency”, and “tenure”. He “spares” us by not sharing his formula, though he apparently at least has one for efficiency. Further, the period of time considered is not divulged.

I buy that progress is good, but no one should care if a team improves from last place to second to last, for example. Boatloads of prospects are only beneficial if they eventually deliver championships. After all, this isn’t a sport where style points are awarded for good form.

So many baseball wonks these days are in love with Jack Zduriencik in Seattle, including Marchman ranking him #5. Yet that team still hasn’t won anything. I guess they value paper improvement because one Jack Z. move never mentioned, the simple addition of the well-known hothead Bradley, could single-handedly destroy the Mariners this season before they break their eight-year playoff drought.

Whiz kids Jon Daniels of Texas (#7) and Arizona’s Josh Byrnes (#11) score points for talent collection and for supposedly showing progress. Daniels has neither won a division nor even made the playoffs as a wild card. The Diamondbacks struggled to a total of just 70 victories last season, a slide of a dozen wins from the year prior and 20 fewer than two years ago, while finishing in last place in the NL West in 2009. Now that’s success! (Edit: Count Baseball Prospectus among those unimpressed by the supposed level of talent assembled by Byrnes, as Arizona’s farm system was just ranked #29, only ahead of the Cardinals.)

Then there is Doug Melvin in Milwaukee at #6. #6? The guy is running a franchise that most recently finished in first place 27 years ago and has won a grand total of one playoff game in their only appearance since. His 2009 Brewers finished below .500 in a soft NL Central.

Saying Theo Epstein and the Red Sox (#2) “deserve more hype than they get” sounds like something read straight off an ESPN studio cue card. The Cardinals have made hay picking up a number of Theo’s mistakes in recent years, though I can’t argue with his pair of titles. At least he made much of the money spent pay off.

There are also what I think are good, underrated choices in the top ten like Larry Beinfest of Florida (#4) and Dan O’Dowd of Colorado (#7), GMs who have done quite a bit with less to work with.

Between #10 and #14, Marchman gives curtain calls to GMs that once were hot, but now are not. These rankings seem to be lifetime achievement awards for the likes of Oakland’s Billy Beane (#10), Andy MacPhail of Baltimore (#12), Dave Dombrowski of Detroit (#13) and our old friend, Cincinnati’s Jocketty (#14).

Other than the Tigers’ World Series run in 2006, the moves these teams have been making in recent years have yet to translate into anything tangible. Even Detroit has fallen on harder times since. Then we have Beane, with one playoff team in his last six and a last-place finish in 2009. I guess because he is a genius, he gets to stay in the top ten for old-times sake, because he sure hasn’t done anything lately to justify it.

I realize that spring is the time for baseball optimism, but I will take a winning GM every time over one living off past successes or a supposed up-and-comer who has yet to achieve anything but looks stylish in trying.

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I will be the first to admit that spring games don’t mean anything… Or do they?

Certainly, the St. Louis Cardinals don’t get the in-season pleasure of meeting the Florida Marlins and New York Mets almost half the time as they do in Florida this March. Yet, as the old line goes, “Winning becomes a habit.”

Last spring’s 19-12 record by the Cardinals was third-best in the then-16 team Grapefruit League, with only the Yankees and Braves having put together a better mark, and it was second-best in the mythical spring National League Central Division behind Milwaukee.

Only twice in Tony La Russa’s 14-year tenure did his Cardinals club not post a winning spring record, in 2003 and 1998. Not coincidentally perhaps, St. Louis missed the playoffs both years.  Only in three years was the Cardinals’ spring record not among the top two in the NL Central.

In the small consolation department, even when the Cardinals had a below-.500 spring record, there were still either two or three NL Central clubs that fared even worse. Note the two sub-.500 springs of 14 (in bold) and three sub-.500 regular seasons of 14 did not occur in the same years.

As another firm reminder not to read too much into this, the Cardinals’ best spring under Tony was their .656 (21-11) showing in 1997. That club went on to miss the playoffs in the regular season and in fact, posted La Russa’s worst single-season mark as Cardinals manager at .451 (73-89).

In the aggregate, La Russa’s Cardinals have been 20 points better in the spring than in the regular season, .564 to .544.

St. Louis Cardinals spring training and regular season results, 1996-2009

Other spring training-related articles you may have missed:

“St. Louis Cardinals spring training radio and television schedules” (XM schedules being added)

“Cardinals spring training rosters and numerology”

“Cardinals spring training ticket prices this decade”

“Cardinals spring training demographics”

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Go to kxno.com for the live stream.

In great news for Cardinals fans in Iowa, KXnO recently announced their joining the Cardinals baseball network for the 2010.

For Scout.com subscribers who miss it, I will post the audio at TheCardinalNation.com following the segment.

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It was a much different time for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1995. The club was in the midst of its eighth consecutive year of missing the playoffs, comparable to the current futility string held by the Seattle Mariners.

Beloved leader Whitey Herzog was long gone, owner Gussie Busch had died in 1989 and disinterested Anheuser-Busch executives were not providing necessary leadership or financial support. Their field manager since 1990, Joe Torre, was a link back to better times in the early 1970’s. Unfortunately, the former Most Valuable Player had retired from active duty 15 years before and the team on the field wasn’t good enough to contend.

47 games into the 1995 campaign, new general manager Walt Jocketty sacked Torre after Joe had posted a 351-354 record at the helm of St. Louis. At that point, having been fired from his third major league managerial job (New York Mets and Atlanta Braves), Torre had never led a team into the World Series nor did he appear in one during his 18 years as a player.

Just a week after Anheuser-Busch made their surprise announcement of their intention to sell the Cardinals on October 25, 1995, Torre was named the manager of the New York Yankees.

Ten days prior, then 51-year-old Tony La Russa had been introduced by Jocketty as the new skipper of the Cardinals.

In a charity appearance in Los Angeles this past weekend, Torre provided insight into the interlocking wheels that were spinning at the time. He was he was the Yankees’ choice as general manager, a job he turned down, but was the fourth priority on the candidate list to become the team’s manager, after La Russa, Davey Johnson and Sparky Anderson.

“Davey Johnson had already committed to Baltimore,” Torre told MLB.com. “Tony La Russa took over for me in St. Louis, where I was fired, and Sparky didn’t want to come east. And there I was, the great choice.”

Despite the roads taken having been excellent for both men, I can’t help but wonder what might have been with Torre as the GM and La Russa the field manager of the Bronx Bombers – not to mention how the fate of the St. Louis Cardinals would have been altered.

Of course, Torre did pretty well on his own, having one of the most successful managerial runs in MLB history while with New York. He led the Yankees to World Championships in 1998, 1999 and 2000 and to American League pennants in 2001 and 2003. Despite three first-place finishes, four consecutive non-title seasons followed, which led to Torre’s departure for Los Angeles. As Cardinals fans are painfully aware, Torre’s Dodgers dispatched the Cardinals in three straight in the 2009 National League Division Series.

La Russa didn’t fare too shabbily either. His 14-plus years of continuous managerial service with St. Louis is a club record, as is his 1,232 wins in the uniform. La Russa’s Cardinals teams have posted winning records in 11 of those 14 seasons, won eight division titles, two National League Pennants and the organization’s tenth World Championship in 2006.

While we will see both men inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame one day, it is still natural to wonder, “What if?”

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“What goes up, must come down,” went the 1960’s song “Spinning Wheel.” So it may follow for the signs designating “Mark McGwire Highway.”

According to an AP report, on Monday the Missouri State Senate voted unanimously in approval of Senate Bill 841, which includes renaming a six-mile segment of Interstate 70 in St. Louis from “Mark McGwire Highway” to “Mark Twain Highway.” The road was selected to commemorate McGwire’s then-record 70 home runs hit during the 1998 season.

Apparently the 34-members of the Senate were not among those who gave McGwire a standing ovation in his first public appearance as the St. Louis Cardinals new hitting coach at the Winter Warm-Up fan event in January.

Twain is a national treasure best known as an author and humorist, traits not associated with the former slugger, under criticism for his admission of steroids use as he amassed those records as a player.

Perhaps the choice of Twain, born as Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, MO in 1835, was made so most of the real estate on the existing signs could be reused.  A more inappropriate, yet equally resource-saving alternative, “Jay McGwire Highway,” likely did not receive any serious consideration from the lawmakers.

To formally change the road’s designation, added in 1999, the measure must still pass the State House.

In acknowledgment of the occasion, I thought I would share a few of Twain’s countless timeless quotes, courtesy of twainquotes.com.

“By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity–another man’s I mean.”

“When a person cannot deceive himself, the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.”

“There is no suffering comparable with that which a private person feels when he is for the first time pilloried in print.”

“The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a man only tells them with all his might.”

“The public is the only critic whose judgment is worth anything at all.”

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While the eyes of baseball watchers are fixed on Florida and Arizona as the annual fight by too many players for too few jobs heats up in spring training, pitcher John Smoltz remains at home, without a professional contract for the first time in almost a quarter-century.

The big story of the weekend was the rumor that the 42-year-old’s next job might not be as a baseball pitcher for hire, but instead as a United States Congressman.

Active in Georgia Republican causes, Smoltz immediately surfaced as a person likely to be approached to consider replacing retiring U.S. Representative John Linder. The 67-year-old, nine-term Congressman made a surprise announcement on Saturday that he will not be running again in 2010.

Contenders will need to make their decisions relatively quickly, as a July primary looms and Democrats are already mobilized for a run at the seat, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Smoltz has appeal compared to other possible entrants into the race due to his name recognition, past political work and financial status.

The professional athlete Smoltz continues to work out and has neither said he will retire from baseball nor that he will wait until mid-season to sign, such as other veterans like Pedro Martinez have done in recent seasons.

In other words, at this point, Smoltz’ future plans in baseball are uncertain.

A report from the Chattanoogan in Tennessee indicated that Smoltz’ initial reaction when learning of Linder’s retirement and his name being mentioned as a successor was one of surprise.

“Smoltz immediately indicated he felt there was a mixup, and then playfully said that he was sure a number of his friends were having some fun with this information,” the paper reported.

The Journal-Constitution writer who broke the initial story reached Smoltz on Sunday. The pitcher made it clear he has no immediate political aspirations.

“It’s not in my plans,” the pitcher told the paper.

So apparently those Cardinals fans hoping for a Smoltz return to St. Louis in 2010 don’t have to give up yet.

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Remember the old line of jokes revolving around the titles of “the shortest books ever written”? You know, like “Tony La Russa’s Favorite Recipes with Beef” or “Why MLB’s Television Blackout Rules are Fan-Friendly”?

In this week when the news of Jay McGwire’s new book dominated sports page headlines and his older brother Mark called it “a sad day” for the McGwire clan of Pomona, California, I couldn’t help but wonder, ‘What if?’

What if Big Mac sat down to write a book of his own? What might it be entitled?

Continuing with the above theme of the shortest books ever, it could be:

“My Public Crusade Against Steroids,” by Mark McGwire

In a Friday column at the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, sports editor Rob Rains gives Jay McGwire credit for bringing the dangers of steroid use to the citizenry through his upcoming book, noting the younger brother’s religious awakening and hopes of a family reconciliation in the future.

Rains recognizes the irony in the likelihood that Jay seems aligned to become the anti-steroid spokesman that Mark pledged he would be five years ago but never carried out. Further, Rains expresses disappointment in Big Mac’s “personal and private perspective” on the entire situation. A major opportunity is being missed.

Until I see that Jay actually uses his 15 minutes of fame in a positive manner, I will reserve my judgment on his motives. After all, he could have limited his book to dealing with his own steroid demons, leaving Mark completely out of it. Of course, we all know that story most likely would never have seen the light of day. It seems to me that if Jay wants to get back on the same page with Mark, little brother could donate his book profits to anti-steroid initiatives.

Pulling out his much-larger checkbook in support of the cause is something Big Mac has done. During the infamous 2005 Congressional hearings, Mark had no choice but to listen and squirm as Donald Hooton told the painful story of how steroids and depression led to the suicide of his teenage son. McGwire has since quietly made a series of monetary donations to Hooton’s anti-steroids foundation in apparently significant denominations.

Yet McGwire did not honor another commitment he made while under oath on March 17, 2005 – to become a public spokesman against the use of steroids by youth. Perhaps the publicity-averse McGwire was badgered into agreeing and really didn’t mean what he said.

No, his generous financial donations cannot be ignored. On the other hand, a cynic might wonder if this isn’t just another example of a wealthy individual using cash to make an uncomfortable subject go away.

In recent interviews, McGwire has repeatedly stated his desire to “turn the page” and “move on from it.” He certainly is not required to do anything concerning steroid education with young Americans, having already made his meets-minimum, general-purpose apology.

One thing we have seen since Big Mac’s return to the public eye is that he is not a polished speaker and certainly does appear to be shy. Speaking out on any subject may be difficult for him.

Yet Big Mac grew his fame and his frame while making millions, buoyed by his use of those harmful substances whose names he conveniently asserts he can no longer remember. Couldn’t he do more in return than simply falling on his sword repeatedly? Instead, he seems content to merely fit in as a major league hitting coach and to try to sweep the broken parts of his past back under the rug as quickly and quietly as possible.

The fact remains that McGwire could do much more – if only he wanted to.

Since arriving in Florida this spring, Big Mac reiterated that he has no intention of becoming that national crusader against steroids, instead preferring to do his work behind closed doors.

“Like I said, I do that stuff privately,” McGwire stated on February 18. “I have always done charitable stuff privately and talk to people privately. That is the thing about me. I have never wanted to do anything just because there is a camera in my face and say, ‘This is what I am doing.’”

McGwire either doesn’t seem to understand or care that he could accomplish far more good for others by being in the public eye rather than out of it. He also doesn’t have a very good memory about this part of his past – or figures we don’t.

Big Mac, the home run hero, got behind several causes back in the good old days, including fighting child abuse and bed wetting. These laudable efforts seemed to vanish from view when the going got tough.

Quietly writing some checks, perhaps having some talks in private and turning the public page as quickly as possible is likely the path of least resistance, but is it the best one to follow? Does Mark really want little brother Jay to be the one to tell his story to the masses – the people who might actually take something positive from all this?

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With no actual games yet to report, this is the time of year the early media arrivals at spring training all over Florida and Arizona wear out the already-tired phrase, “Shlabotnik arrived in camp in the best shape of his career.”

So it was on Friday, albeit pre-Felipe Lopez by several hours, when generally-pessimistic Joe Strauss of the Post-Dispatch tweeted this:

“Cards impressed that 1B prospect Mark Hamilton has shed 20 lbs. Projects at AAA Memphis but he does hit LH. Never know…”

The 25-year-old is attending his first big-league camp after having been added to the 40-man roster in November to protect him from the Rule 5 draft. As Strauss notes, the Cards’ supplemental second round pick in 2006 is likely slated to return to Triple-A Memphis. I am not going to spend any time analyzing Hamilton’s chances to come north with the Cardinals as I just don’t see it happening.

My concern is more basic – whether or not there will be room for Hamilton to work more on his outfield play, even in Triple-A. After all, a reserve first baseman in St. Louis is baseball’s version of the Maytag repairman. As a professional, the big man, 6-foot-4, 220 pounds, has a grand total of one game of regular season outfield experience to date.

Though the left-handed hitter played some outfield in college at Tulane, Hamilton will find a very crowded competition in Memphis. Depending on who makes the major league club, the Redbirds may have as many as seven other outfielders on their 2010 roster, all with previous Triple-A experience: Nick Stavinoha, Mark Shorey, Shane Robinson, Jon Jay, Amaury Cazana, Allen Craig and Joe Mather. Add to that top prospects Daryl Jones and Tyler Henley in Springfield who should be ready for Triple-A before very long and something major has to give.

The Cardinals have been trumpeting Hamilton’s winter ball stint in the Dominican Republic as having been valuable for him to become familiar with playing left field. Though he made only one error for the Gigantes del Cibao, he lasted barely two weeks with the club before being released.

Hamilton didn’t get much time to work on his glove as he must have left his bat behind in the States. He played in 15 games going 9-for-47 with one double, two home runs, nine RBIs and 15 strikeouts. His slash line was .191/.298/.340.

Strauss’ kind remark regarding Hamilton’s ability to hit lefties stuck in my head as I recalled this stat from Mark’s aborted winter assignment. Against left-handed pitching, he went 0-for-13 with seven strikeouts. Granted, it was a small number of at-bats, but hardly a momentum-builder.

Looking at Hamilton’s career splits, his OPS as a professional versus left-handers is just .699. It might be tempting to stop right there. In all fairness, let’s look at his yearly numbers for signs of progress.

Coming off a string 2007 in which his 90 RBI led the system and he secured a berth in the Arizona Fall League, Hamilton’s career momentum stalled. His 2008 was injury-shortened and rough. From the left side, he did get on base, but showed no power. It was followed by his best season with the bat in 2009.

Any optimism or pessimism over Hamilton’s chances to hit in the majors would have to be predicated on his most recent season, only part of which was against Triple-A competition. In his third partial season in Double-A in 2009, Hamilton began on fire. He didn’t do poorly in Memphis, either, though his Triple-A at-bats versus lefties were limited, just 34.

How Hamilton will get the chance to demonstrate any ability in the outfield in the near term remains an even bigger question.

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For the second time in just two months, The Cardinal Nation Blog has been selected as FOXSports.com’s Blog of the Day, achieved through this site’s association with Yardbarker. What caught their attention this time was my unique spin on the Jay McGwire book non-story, “Mark, Jay and Dad”.

If you’re one of the many first-time visitors here and consider yourself a St. Louis Cardinals fan, please look around, register and join the discussion. I think you will enjoy the fresh new articles and daily commentary.

The link to my McGwire article is featured on FOXSports.com’s main MLB page just under Ken Rosenthal at the lower left under the heading “Blog of the Day” and “The McGwire brother book drama”, but there’s no need to go there, since the link will take you right back here…

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Not surprisingly, Jay asserts to ESPN that Mark did not tell the whole story – about what he used, how much he used or the perceived benefit – either to Bob Costas or in the subsequent carefully-scripted media tour that followed.

Tell us something we don’t already know, Jay. Timing is everything and your book is at least a year past its expiration date. Your profit window is literally shrinking by the hour.

Normally, this wouldn’t be enough for me to even notice here as I recognize that opinions regarding this issue have long been set. Further, among at least one camp, heavy McGwire fatigue has set in. I imagine that was part of the communications strategy carefully laid out in advance.

Big Mac has been accepted back into baseball and is happily tutoring Cardinals hitters. His Hall of Fame chances rest with the writers with the next mandate still ten months away. These points seem set.

Still, one nagging concern led me to this post.

McGwire generally scored well in terms of sincerity points during his admission tour, even as his misinformed message that PEDs did not affect his performance was appropriately trashed and elements of the rollout itself were bungled.

I have never felt totally comfortable with giving him a sincerity pass, feeling as if it was a professionally-driven attempt to dupe the public. The preparation behind the interviews, followed by a set series of talking points and canned phrases that Big Mac repeated over and over in his scheduled discussions, only added to my discomfort.

One rub regarded McGwire’s interaction with his father. During his tour stop at MLB Network, Big Mac noted that he struggled in breaking the word to both Tony La Russa and his family the day before, as if they would all be stunned by the “news”.

“I told my dad yesterday when I finally had to,” Big Mac tearfully admitted.

I can see how perhaps it was difficult for Mark to own up to it directly, but how in the world could admission of steroid use in his family be a surprise to his dad? Jay McGwire first got into them as a professional bodybuilder two decades ago.

If Mark’s use was news to his father, the only conclusion I could draw from that is that papa must have had some serious issues with ability to deal with reality as well. Jay’s book title says it all – the “worst-kept secret”.

Nothing on the surface would seem unusual. John McGwire is a well-known member of his community, for years a prominent dentist in Pomona, California. He cranked out five big boys, among them Mark, one-time NFL quarterback Dan and Jay.

Black sheep Jay apparently began using steroids in the early 1990’s and stopped in 1996. In between, he was a professional bodybuilder with the typical cartoonish caricature that goes with the sport. He also admitted introducing his older brother to steroids around the time dad talked Mark out of quitting baseball.

How could pop have not noticed his baseball-playing son subsequently getting bulked up? (Make sure you look at the various before and after photos of Jay in the ESPN article.)

“I remember calling him (his dad) in ‘96,” Mark told MLB Network. “I was so frustrated with injuries I wanted to retire. He’s the one that told me to stick it out.”

Perhaps dad kept his eyes covered, later accepted his son’s “I did not use steroids” statement and further did not know that behind the embarrassing Congressional testimony from 2005 was Mark’s desire to come clean.

Fast forward to 2009. When news of Jay’s book first came out, how do you suppose that was handled in the John McGwire household? Did family members tear those pages out of his newspaper? Apparently, the estranged siblings did not sit down for Thanksgiving dinner together with the rest of the clan.

Like I have said numerous times, I accept Mark McGwire’s “apology” in terms of him being the new hitting coach of the St. Louis Cardinals. That doesn’t mean I have to buy his entire story, hook, line and sinker, any more than I care about brother Jay’s money-making spin on the sad escapade.

Let’s face it. At this point, anything that comes out about any members of this family should not be a surprise to anyone. ‘Move on, there’s nothing to see here…’

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Welcome to first-time readers arriving here due to the first of my weekly Cardinals Minor League Notebook columns in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. With the start of major league spring training camp and minor leaguers reporting in less than two weeks, it is time for a refresh of the St. Louis Cardinals system roster matrix.

If you are new to the site and aren’t sure what the Cardinals organization roster matrix is all about, here is quick summary.

At the time of this posting, the St. Louis Cardinals have 285 players under contract from top to bottom. The matrix places each one at his current assigned level in the system as well as by position. It is kept updated throughout the season as transactions occur.

Nowhere else will you find this current and comprehensive single-page view of the entire Cardinals organization.

Its major scope in this update is to highlight those invited to each of the two spring training camps. The rosters upon which the players are listed generally reflect where they concluded last season or the type of contract they signed and frankly mean very little at this stage.

The 38 players on the 40-man roster, who received automatic invites to major league camp, are called out in bold. They have been joined at spring training by 19 non-roster invitees, denoted in italics.

147 more players will arrive in minor league camp starting on March 8. Starting from the top of the matrix, those players include all those not in bold or italics down through Batavia. All of the 2009 Johnson City players with the exception of two, John Durham and Kleininger Teran, have also been invited.

The final group of minor league camp invitees consists of eight designated players from the 2009 Gulf Coast League team and one from last season’s Dominican Summer League squad. These JC, GCL and DSL players are broken out separately below. (Players noted on the suspended or restricted lists are excluded until reinstated.)

In a look ahead, the two Johnson City players, the remainder of the 2009 GCL roster and a good helping of the older players from the Dominican Summer League and Venezuelan Summer League will join the spring camp leftovers in extended spring training, starting in early April. Along with this June’s draftees, these players will staff the 2010 Batavia, Johnson City and GCL clubs.

You may note that I separated the pitchers on the short-season rosters between 2009 draftees and returning pitchers. At this point, starting and relieving roles at the lower levels can and will change. There will also certainly be some positional adjustments coming.

Remember that to get detailed profile information on every single one of these 285 Cardinals players, simply check out their free player profiles now updated for 2010 at The Cardinal Nation / Scout.com. You can see bios, photos, videos, articles, news items, links to current season and career stats and much more – everything you need to know about a player in one place.

For example, this is the link to the 2010 roster page for Memphis. Click on an individual player’s name to be taken to his profile page. Here is Adam Ottavino’s profile.

This will be the version of the roster matrix I will be updating the rest of the spring, so now that you’ve found this page once, remember one of three ways to get back here. Bookmark the page, type “Roster Matrix” in the dark blue search box at the upper right or use the dropdown menu at the top of the page: “Players/Staff” > “Depth Charts/Roster Matrix”.

For details behind past 2009 rosters and 2010 transactions to date, check out the earlier versions of the Cardinals organization roster matrix as follows.

Link to previous matrices: Jan–March 2009, April 2009, May 2009, June 2009 July 2009-February 2010

Transactions

2/26: Signed IF Felipe Lopez. Signed 14 DSL players: C Fernando Baez, 2B Starlin Rodriguez, SS Rafael Medina, SS Junior Agustin, SS Daniel Barbuena, OF Amauris Capellan, OF Ronald Castillo, OF Eduardo Celestino, RHPs Ariel Gonzalez, Jean Carlos De La Cruz, Victor De Leon, Hansel De Los Santos, Eduardo Hiraldo and Arturo Toribio. Signed seven VSL players: C Jose Gomez, OF Jose Martinez (noted as Jo Martinez2 below), OF Jhohan Acevedo, RHPs Alberth Almeida, Silfredo Garcia, Anderson Gerdel and Geudy Guerra. New total 307.

The St. Louis Cardinals Organization Roster Matrix (effective 02/26/10)

Codes
(i): injured – on the disabled list
(t): temporary inactive list
(susp): suspended list
(L) left-handed pitcher
bold: on the Cardinals’ 40-man roster
italics: non-roster spring training camp invitee
(#+#) number of active players on the roster plus number of inactive (i+t+susp) players

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The 36-year-old, who grew up in Arkansas and now lives on a 500-acre ranch in Oklahoma, told the Post-Dispatch this:

“There are a few guys that screwed it up for everybody,” Franklin said. “If it wasn’t for the NFL guy a couple years ago bringing a weapon into a nightclub … you’ve just got to be smart.”

Franklin was undoubtedly referring to former New York Giants star Plaxico Burress, whose unfortunate self-inflicted wound led to the loss of his job and his freedom. The former wide receiver is currently spending two years behind bars.

Some writers have incorrectly assumed MLB’s action was a knee-jerk response to an incident in the NBA this season involving Gilbert Arenas. The Washington guard has been suspended indefinitely and faces criminal charges as a result of a gun-related episode. The difference between this one and Burress’ was that it played out inside the locker room rather than in a nightclub.

An MLB official told the AP that their policy had been put in place last July following the Burress incident, but was just now being formally posted. Union head Michael Weiner acknowledged the issue was negotiated with the players in advance.

The policy, which applies to players and employees alike, states that MLB “shall prohibit the possession or use of deadly weapons in any facility or venue owned, operated, or controlled by it.” Deadly weapons are defined as “any instrument designed primarily for use in inflicting death or injury to a human or animal.” Included are “firearms, explosives, daggers, metal knuckles, switchblade knives, and knives having blades exceeding five inches.”

While Franklin’s comments seemed out there, now that a couple of days have passed, I decided to look around to see if his position had any seconds from corners of the baseball universe.

If there are any, no one is speaking up.

The New York Yankees, a team never short on controversy, were remarkably quiet on the issue. Andy Pettitte and C.C. Sabathia shrugged their shoulders, saying they have never seen a gun in their clubhouse or any other. Spring training instructor, gun owner and Hall of Famer Goose Gossage, who played from 1972 to 1994, agreed and added that he has never even heard a story about one.

A story out of Pittsburgh noted that several of the Pirates players enjoy bow-hunting and brought their high-tech devices to the park. The quote offered was a joke from outfielder Brandon Moss, who had practiced his hobby at PNC Park on occasion.

“I guess I’ll have to switch to rubber tips (on arrows),” Moss said.

Players are competitive by nature and have long periods of downtime, which explains interest in varied hobbies such as golf, video games and even those involving weapons. Yet there seems proper a time and place for everything.

Perhaps there are a few who believe their fame and wealth also offer a level of entitlement beyond that of the average citizen. Yet there seems no doubt that the vast majority of Americans save those in law enforcement would face serious repercussions if they carried weapons into their workplace.

San Diego Padres pitcher Chris Young may have been speaking for the silent majority as he sees MLB’s policy simply formalizing standard practice.

“I think every clubhouse had the no gun policy before,” Young said. “They’re just making it official. But anybody with common sense knows you shouldn’t be carrying guns in most places.”

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Having been later than some to join the Twitter game, I recently shared my first-month thoughts about the hot social networking tool, both pros and cons. Now, I am going to take the next step to call out the identities of those I recommend St. Louis Cardinals fans who participate in Twitter should consider following.

As spring training officially begins, the amount of information being tweeted and re-tweeted is increasing considerably. Unfortunately, also growing is the level of noise.

Beyond being told what music is in their iPods and what they had for breakfast, perhaps my biggest pet peeve when following a baseball-related tweeter is the “yes-men” who re-tweet everything the beat reporters say, as if everyone who might possibly be interested doesn’t already follow the original source. (This is worse if you decide to monitor the team-related hashtags. See below.)

Filtering out the inevitable noise can best be attempted by carefully selecting those who you follow on Twitter and occasionally weeding out those who don’t give you what you want. That simple thought led me to adopt an idea I saw a Mets blogger undertake recently – to summarize the various team-oriented individuals pumping good stuff out into the Twitterverse.

Across all my personal interest levels, I have carefully selected 150 I currently follow, but will identify here the subset of 30 or so I think are most relevant to the masses of Cardinals fans. Some make sense for major league news only while others are obviously minor league-focused.

I probably won’t remember everyone and apologize in advance if I inadvertently left you or your favorite information provider off the list. If there are some notables you like that I have forgotten, please feel free to call them out below.

I won’t add explanation unless I think it is necessary to clarify the source. I am also not going to comment much on who tweets what outside of baseball as you can decide for yourself what interests you beyond Cardinals news and what does not, but all that follow offer ample Cardinals-related content.

Remember, if you decide after the fact that following someone isn’t working out, you can easily and immediately unfollow them. I did it with Jose Canseco most recently when he went off on a profane tirade. It was clearly the right decision for both of us.

To go to the Twitter home page of any of these to check out their recent tweets and perhaps follow them, you can either click on their names below or simply enter “twitter.com/xxxxxx” in your browser, where xxxxxx is any name listed. (Note that the capitals do not matter, but the underlines _ clearly do, such as with my account, B_Walton. Anywhere you see what appears to be a space in the linked names below, an underline _ is actually there.)

Post-Dispatch: stl_cardinals, JoeStrauss, dgoold, miklasz

Globe-Democrat: STLGlobeSPORTS, BJRains, RobRains

MLB.com: stlcardinals, MatthewHLeach

AP: rbfallstromAP

Rightsholder broadcast media: Fox_Sports_MW, JohnMarecek (KTRS radio), CardsNationShow (Channel 5)

The Cardinal Nation: ScoutStLouisMLB, B_Walton, Dustin_Mattison, jrocke217 (Josh Jones), stkerrick

A few of the Cardinals players partake, but I would imagine they are learning that its two-way operation can become a challenge. The latter two often use Twitter to share religious-themed messages.

Players: mattholliday7, MattPagnozzi, BlakeHawksworth

Cardinals team: MLBSTLCardinals (official team account), TonyLaRussa, jluhnow

Minor league affiliates: memphisredbirds, Sgf_Cardinals, RDSLetsPlay (Roger Dean Stadium, Jupiter, FL) QCRiverBandits

Blogs: C70, thebirdos, Future_Redbirds, PitchersHit8th, Fungoes

Of course, there are literally hundreds of national writers and sites that also tweet occasionally about the Cardinals, but my focus here has been the handful of team-oriented ones with which I suggest you consider when getting started.

Cardinals-related hashtags

Hashtags are keywords included in tweets, identified by a hash sign (#) preceding them. The advantage for the reader is to be able to search on and/or regularly follow a topic area based on its hashtag, rather than by individual tweeters.

The two hashtags that I both use and follow regularly are #stlcards and #hpgf. The first is self-explanatory. Its major downside is the volume of unwashed masses participating. Think of it as sort of the Twitter version of the Cards Talk message board, so be prepared to sort through considerably more chaff than wheat.

#hpgf is short for “hyperventilating prospect geek fraternity,” a term first coined by the Post-Dispatch’s Joe Strauss to poke fun at an overzealous subset of Cardinals minor league watchers. The #hpgf hashtag caught on as a quick way to summarize “Cardinals minor league prospect information” into just five characters, saving more of the 140-character maximum per tweet for content.

A final thought

Like anything else, Twitter can become a huge time burner or less politely, a major time waster. My recommendation is to start slowly with sources you think you know you want to follow and gradually work your way into it. If you have to step away from Twitter for a few hours or days, let the tweets go that appeared while you were gone. There will soon be plenty more where they came from.

Good luck and good tweeting, Cardinals fans!

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In my annual New Years feature at The Cardinal Nation, I registered a sad note in pointing out the 2009 death of Herman Franks, who was the oldest living ex-Cardinal player at the age of 95 when he passed away last March 30. I believe Franks was also the last living Cardinals player to suit up for the major league club in the 1930’s.

Don Lang has taken over from Franks as the oldest surviving former Cardinals player. The team’s 1948 third baseman will turn 95 years of age on March 15.

In terms of the living ex-Cardinals player that played the longest ago for the club, I believe Marty Marion now holds that distinction. The then-22-year-old played his first major league game with St. Louis on April 16, 1940. Marion is now 92 years of age.

The oldest Cardinals Hall of Famer still with us and also the one that played the longest ago from that group is of course Donora, Pennsylvania native Stan Musial, who debuted on September 17, 1941. Musial turned 89 last November.

My heightened interest in Musial these days caused me to uncover an off-beat and amusing story about a Musial-signed item, relayed by Allentown (PA) Morning Call columnist Bill White. A beloved former schoolteacher in the area, Miss Jane Christman, was buried just before New Years along with her most prized possession – a baseball upon which was written a personal message from Stan the Man himself.

I wonder how many more years will pass before we hear of the first Cardinals fan to be laid to rest with an Albert Pujols-signed item of memorabilia tucked alongside?

That article led me to another White gem, this Saturday piece summarizing his conversation with Freddie Schmidt. Turns out Schmidt had read about the late Miss Christman and her Musial ball and contacted both Stan and the writer, White.

Based on my research, I believe Schmidt is the second-oldest living former Cardinal, with only Lang having been born earlier. Schmidt celebrated his 94^th birthday on February 9. White identified Schmidt as just the sixth-oldest living Phillie. (Schmidt is the first player on the left in the second row of the 1946 Cardinals team photo pictured.)

A right-handed pitcher who appeared in 1944, 1946 and 1947 with St. Louis, Schmidt went 7-3 with a 3.15 ERA in 37 games as a rookie and added 3 1/3 scoreless frames of relief in the victorious World Series fight against the Browns. He missed the 1945 season due to World War II.

The native of Connecticut first signed in 1937 and worked his way up through the system, making his major league debut on April 25, 1944. After leaving the Cardinals in a May 1947 trade with Philadelphia, the right-hander toiled six more years in the minors.

Those who love baseball history and especially Cardinals history need to ensure you read White’s article recounting his meeting with Schmidt.

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This past week, the St. Louis Cardinals announced a new program for 2010 called Cards Cash. It is essentially stored money loaded into the barcode of your game ticket which can be used at any Busch Stadium register, including concession stands, kiosks and the Team Store.

The Cardinals have begun selling tickets with Cards Cash in the first three configurations that follow with the fourth coming in a couple of weeks:

• Holliday Pack –7 games and $7 per ticket in complimentary Cards Cash for each of the specified games ($49 total value Cards Cash added per pack)

• Outfield Loge Box Season Tickets – Full Season, Half-Season, and 27-game plans, with $5 per ticket in complimentary Cards Cash for each game ($405 total value Cards Cash added per seat for full season plan)

• Group Tickets – groups of 25 or more may choose to add Cards Cash to their tickets and receive $12 Cards Cash value for only $10, or $6 value for only $5.

• Single game individual tickets – when they go on sale in early March, a single-game Cards Cash feature will be offered in which fans can add Cards Cash and receive $12 value for only $10.

The first two Cards Cash configurations offer a good deal – if you were planning to purchase these plans, that is. In that case, you have found money, so to speak. If you want to use the stored value, great, but if you don’t, you still receive the value from the tickets you bought. (Update: As always, be sure to compare per-game ticket prices across packages.)

That is not so for the tickets that most people will buy, however – single game tickets and to a lesser extent, Group Tickets. In those cases, any money added to your ticket is nothing more than a loan to the Cardinals, which you can collect with interest – if and only if you follow all the rules.

Otherwise, you are sunk.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the concept and the use of new technology. It works well as a perk with the ticket packages. But until they work out the limitations in future seasons, the average fan has to be very careful when adding stored money to his or her single game ticket.

If you know you are going to the game and plan to spend more than $10 on goodies, go for it. Just understand there is no turning back.

As a public service, here are six questions and answers that illustrate the risk. (In case you can’t tell, I wrote these, not the Cardinals, but I do believe the answers are accurate.)

Q: If I added Cards Cash to a single game ticket, but find out later that I can’t attend the game, can I get my money back?

A: Sorry, no refunds on tickets or Cards Cash.

Q: Well, can I move my stored money to a ticket for another game, then?

A: No. If you don’t use the Cards Cash on the day of the original ticket, it is gone.

Q: If I don’t spend the total stored value on my ticket the day I am at the game, can I keep my ticket and use my Cards Cash later in the season?

A: No. See above. As an aside, you probably didn’t buy much at the game, as it doesn’t take much effort to make $10-$12 disappear pretty quickly.

Q: What if I lose my stored value ticket or it is damaged once I am in the ballpark?

A: It’s gone. It would be no different than if you lost a ten-dollar bill. (I hope you remember where you were sitting!)

Q: What if I can’t attend the game for which I bought a ticket with Cards Cash and give the ticket to a friend (because I would never deal with scalpers)? Where does my stored value go?

A: It stays with the ticket. You had better get your friend to pay you an extra $10 to cover your sunk cost and don’t forget to tell him he has a bonus.

Q: If I don’t spend the total stored value on my ticket the day I am at the game, where does my money go?

A: The Cardinals keep it.

It would seem that an interpretation was made that Cards Cash does not fall under the Federal Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, shortened to “Credit CARD Act of 2009”. Enacted by Congress and signed by President Obama last May, among the many provisions of the Act is protection for consumers who purchase certain types of gift and stored value cards through the establishment of a five-year mandatory expiration date.

Some states have enacted even stricter Gift Card Consumer Protection Laws, according to the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports, ConsumersUnion.org. Missouri is apparently not among these states.

The Credit CARD Act of 2009 specifically covers “general-use prepaid cards”, “gift certificates”, and “store gift cards”, but excludes “several other common types of prepaid cards, such as reloadable cards that are not marketed as gift cards, telephone cards, cards not marketed to the general public, and loyalty, award, or promotional cards,” according to the US Federal Reserve.

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Can you believe the number is four of seven?

Along with La Russa, Dave McKay, Jose Oquendo (pictured making the turn in a 2007 minor league spring training workout) and Joe Pettini, ex-middle infielders all, the Cardinals staff includes one ex-catcher in Dave Duncan, a pitcher in bullpen coach Marty Mason and of course, the new hitting coach and former first baseman in Mark McGwire.

La Russa, 65, signed his first pro contract with the Kansas City Athletics on the night he graduated from high school in 1962. He made his major league debut with Kansas City just one year later. La Russa did not return to the majors again until 1968, this time with the Oakland A’s.

Tony went on to play parts of four seasons in Oakland before concluding his big-league playing career with Atlanta and the Chicago Cubs. Overall, his professional career spanned 16 seasons as he finished, ironically, as a player/coach with the Cardinals Triple-A affiliate in New Orleans in 1977.

La Russa played at second base in 786 of his 1,028 minor league games and 63 of his 83 major league contests at second.

First base coach McKay, who turns 60 next month, was originally signed by the Minnesota Twins in 1971 and spent four seasons in the minor leagues after breaking in during August 1975. After the 1976 season, McKay moved to Toronto in the expansion draft, where he was in the lineup for the first game in Blue Jays franchise history.

After splitting time between Toronto and Triple-A Syracuse in 1979, McKay signed with the A’s in 1980. He played for Oakland through 1982 and returned to the minor leagues as a player-coach for the 1983 season before becoming La Russa’s bench coach in 1984.

McKay was primarily a second baseman in the majors, playing 385 of his 653 games there, also spending time at third and shortstop.

As a major league infielder, third base coach Oquendo is the most-known of the bunch for his playing exploits. Now 46, “Secret Weapon’s” professional playing career spanned 17 seasons, including big league time with the New York Mets (1983-84) and Cardinals (1986-95).

In 1990, Oquendo established single-season major league records for the highest fielding percentage (.996) and fewest errors by a second baseman (three). He also led the league in fielding in 1989 and compiled a .992 fielding average at second base for his career.

While Oquendo is famed for having played every position on the diamond as a Cardinal, his primary home as a major leaguer was second base. He played 649 of his 1163 career MLB games there.

Pettini’s professional career began when he signed with the Montreal Expos as a non-drafted free agent in 1977. In 1980, he was traded to the San Francisco Giants, where he played for four seasons. He was signed by the Cardinals and played for Triple-A Louisville from 1984 through 1986.

The Cardinals current bench coach breaks the mold as he was a shortstop, having played there in 106 of his 180 major league contests.

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I have been thinking about the made-for-pre-spring camp excitement surrounding the assignment of uniform number 3 to St. Louis Cardinals non-roster invitee Ruben Gotay. There are those convinced the number means the infielder is considered a front-runner to make the opening day roster.

We don’t need to look back very far to find history littered with bodies with pasts that look a lot like Gotay’s – former major leaguer with ample minor league time, especially most recently.

This doesn’t mean I am pounding on Ruben, a Caribbean Series teammate of Yadier Molina with Team Puerto Rico in 2007, the latter who maybe not so coincidentally happens to wear number 4. I am just pointing out a well-established pattern. Recent results indicate former MLB second-base retreads auditioned in Cardinals spring camp just haven’t cut it no matter what number was on their back.

Following are the players tried in similar circumstances over the last five springs. Only one of them ever made it far enough to claim a regular season major league roster spot with the Cardinals at any time, let alone opening day.

That lone survivor was Joe Thurston last year and the only reason he made it was due to opportunity elsewhere in the infield – all the third basemen who managed to eliminate themselves from contention. Once there, Thurston remained, but didn’t produce consistently and wasn’t asked back for 2010.

Of the others, one was cut by the conclusion of camp, while the remaining three toiled in Memphis for at least part of the subsequent season, a most possible 2010 destination for Gotay. Even with him included, the youngest at 27, the group averages the ripe old age of 31.

One common thread is terrible spring training results at the plate, a collective .207 batting average. They weren’t so hot defensively, either. They averaged two errors each, despite the briefest of cameos by Dave Berg in 2006 and Wilton Guerrero the previous March.

In terms of uniform numbers, while none had a number above 28, neither were any of the failed combatants issued 3 like Gotay. That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a recent number 3 working at second base in spring camp, however.

The group of NRIs does not include a pair of failed candidates in 2006. Believe it or not, coming into camp that spring, both Junior Spivey (pictured), wearing number 3, and Deivi Cruz, sporting number 35, were on the 40-man roster. That that didn’t last long and like the vast majority of the NRIs noted above, neither Spivey nor Cruz appeared in a regular-season game for St. Louis. Here is how they did in 2006 camp.

Of course as was evident in the Thurston case last spring, opportunity can pop up even when it is not expected. Someone else’s misfortune can open a door that previously looked to be closed.

Still, the future was far from bright for these infielders, even after leaving the Cardinals organization behind. Including Spivey and Cruz, of the earlier six, only two ever appeared in the major leagues again for any club following their brief stop in Cardinals camp. They are Jimenez (Washington, 2007) and Cabrera (Cincinnati, 2008).

Thurston is in the Braves camp this spring at least, though on a minor league deal of course, and Gotay still has his Cardinals bid in front of him. I don’t like the chances of either, though…

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In an update on a horrible story from last summer, the man accused of running over two St. Louis Cardinals fans with his speeding car outside Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park last July pleaded guilty on Tuesday to vehicular homicide and vehicular aggravated assault while intoxicated.

Now 20-year-old South Philadelphia resident Joseph Genovese Jr. ran a red light on Broad Street outside an afternoon Phillies-Cardinals game last July 10, striking St. Louis schoolteachers Cindy Grassi and Sandra Wacker.

Following two days on life support, Grassi, 53, died from her injuries while Wacker, then 36, was seriously injured. She suffered a traumatic brain injury, bruised lung and a broken leg which required her to spend months in recovery, first in Philadelphia, then back home in St. Louis. Doctors had to remove a part of Wacker’s skull to allow for swelling of the brain and when that piece of her skull was put back in place four months later, 69 staples were required.

The friends, who met as teachers at Mark Twain Elementary School in Brentwood, Mo., had traveled to a different ballpark each summer to watch the Cardinals play. Grassi had retired in 2007, while Wacker has now returned to teaching fourth grade.

Citizens Bank Park is relatively new, having opened in 2004, with wide boulevards and good sightlines in all directions. Yet nothing could protect the two teachers from Genovese’s speeding automobile. Prior to the accident, the man had bragged on his MySpace page of driving 120 mph on a drag-racing strip near the ballpark. After his arrest, his mugshot was featured on his MySpace page.

Genovese faces a sentence of up to 13 1/2 to 27 years in prison and will learn his fate on April 13.

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Pray for Annabelle Walters

I was honored to have been selected by the Walters family to bring their story of the 13-week premature birth of Annabelle Faith Walters to St. Louis Cardinals fans last Thursday. Since then, there has been an outpouring of prayers and support for pitcher P.J. Walters and his family from all over the Cardinal Nation.

I set up a special thread on The Cardinal Nation / Scout.com message board for fans to offer their thoughts. New grandpa Phillip Walters stops by with periodic updates. After five says, Annabelle continues to fight but remains in serious condition. Please continue to give your support any way possible.

Walters feature at the Globe-Democrat

I was asked to tell Annabelle Walters’ story to the readers of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, which I did in this article. This “touching” photo of P.J.’s fingertip in Annabelle’s tiny palm was sent along by Phillip Walters.

Minor League Notebooks coming

The Walters article is the first evidence of my new collaboration with the Globe-Democrat for the 2010 season. I will be joining their stacked Cardinals-focused line up with a Minor League Notebook column starting next Thursday, February 24 and running weekly all season long. When schedules align with need, I may also be pitching in with game coverage articles for a handful of major league contests during the upcoming regular season.

I am delighted to be given the opportunity to reach an increasingly-wider audience by Globe-Democrat sports editor Rob Rains.

Back on radio

As I have done the past few years, I will be joining afternoon hosts Ken Miller and Matt Perrault from KXnO FOX Sports Radio in Des Moines every other week for an update on the Cardinals. The exciting new news is that KXnO just signed a multi-year agreement to join the Cardinals Radio Network. Among the other Cardinals experts who appear regularly on KXnO is FOX Sports Midwest’s Pat Parris.

FOX Fantasy Guide / Scout Prospect Guide

Annual subscribers to The Cardinal Nation/Scout.com Total Access Pass prior to this January 8 should soon be receiving in the mail your copy of the 2010 FOX Fantasy Guide / Scout Prospect Guide. The prospect section of the two-part Guide includes the top prospects from all 30 MLB organizations, the annual Scout.com top 300 prospect list and much more.

As always, The Cardinal Nation is responsible for the St. Louis Cardinals prospects section and this year’s article was written by yours truly. There is also a full fantasy baseball section to help you prepare for your drafts.

For those who aren’t annual subscribers, soon, if not already, the annual Guide will be available on newsstands from coast to coast for the very-reasonable price of $4.95.

The Fantasy Baseball Guide 2010

As I do every year, I am a contributor to The Fantasy Baseball Guide 2010, which has been on sale for several weeks now for $7.99. In addition to my player capsules, picks and pans, mock draft participation and the like, my essay on taking the 2009 National League Tout Wars expert league championship is featured.

Following are some of the highlights of The Fantasy Baseball Guide 2010, edited by my long-time friend and fantasy league foe Peter Kreutzer, more widely-known simply as “Rotoman”.

• Winning strategies – tips from the experts who won their leagues
• Rookies – who to target this season
• An NFBC-style mock draft tp prep you for your own draft
• Who to target and who to avoid – the experts offer over 300 picks and pans
• The ever-popular and must-have cheat sheets

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Updated 2/13: Though I first posted this four weeks ago, on January 17, with tentative TV games, I am republishing it with today’s date, February 13. The reason is to bring it up front now that the Cardinals full spring broadcast schedule has been filled in on MLB.com, confirming the rest of the television games and adding the radio ones, too.

Again, what makes this list different is it includes both Cardinals AND their opponents’ spring training radio and television plans. After all, with satellite and internet services, catching an away broadcast is far better than missing out entirely!

New radio notes: KTRS 550 radio will break from their regular Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday-Sunday schedule to also broadcast a pair of Friday games, on March 12 and April 2. The latter game will be from Minneapolis. KTRS’ first game will be on Saturday, March 6, the first of 17. Check local listings as always, but generally the 116 stations across the Cardinals radio network will broadcast Saturday and Sunday spring training contests.

New television notes: FOX Sports Midwest will be carrying five spring games, three of them in conjunction with other FOX regional sports networks. Another FSM game will also appear simultaneously on ESPN. The two KSDK 5 games have now been confirmed per MLB.com.

Though it is not new news, remember the very first Cardinals spring game on Thursday, March 4 against the Mets will be televised on SportsNet New York. It will be the first of a dozen (now 13 as of February 19) St. Louis spring games televised by some network.

Bookmark this page as it will be updated when additional information is made available. It is also always accessible from the task bar at the top of the page via “Events/Info” > “Television and Radio”.

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This is the time of the year when the well of story ideas becomes driest, just before players report to spring training and actual news on the field of play becomes available to report and discuss.

I guess I am guilty of the same, writing about such a storyline here. Yet in a way, I feel the need to defend those who do not defend themselves and those of us who happen to like the term “Cardinal Nation” in whatever derivative used.

The other day, Alvin Reid of the Globe-Democrat launched off into a long editorial, expressing his disgust with the St. Louis Cardinals organization’s promotional offering to provide perks to fans for a fee. Apparently, Reid just discovered the existence of “Cardinals Nation”, a program which has been in place for several years now and is a duplicate of ones in a number of other major league cities.

I was prepared to let it pass until I read a second reaction piece, even stronger than the first. Reid’s column spawned a profanity-laced rant from AT Hooks at insidestl.com, in which he declared “’Cardinal Nation’ is Dead”. I guess some think swearing is a necessary part of being considered edgy. Putting that aside, why Hooks feels he can make this declaration on behalf of everyone based on an ongoing and relatively minor team promotion is beyond me.

In terms of full disclosure, I once actually signed up for “Cardinals Nation” a few years back simply to get MLB Gameday Audio at a reduced rate. It gave me what I wanted from it. Others might like the special ticket offers. Whatever.

Whether or not people choose to pay their money for the program is certainly up to them, but the thought of somehow trying to tie this to one’s fandom level is a pretty ridiculous concept, even when there is apparently nothing else to write about.

Both Reid and Hooks were sloppy in their use of the terminology, confusing the variations on the words “Cardinals Nation”. Given this blog’s name and its parent are turns of the phrase (for the record, with the latter’s URL and site active long before the Cardinals introduced their offering), as a public service I thought I should clarify some of its uses.

• “Cardinals Nation”: A promotional program offered by the St. Louis Cardinals for $19.95 per season. (logo above)

• “Wings of Hope – Cardinal Nation”: A Sunday in-season television program on KSDK Channel 5. (Why Hooks chose that completely unrelated graphic for his diatribe totally escapes me.)

• “The Cardinal Nation”: The main site at Scout.com.

• “The Cardinal Nation Blog”: Right here. It’s our name and we’re sticking to it!

• “Cardinal Nation”: A generic term to characterize the team’s fan base shared by all.

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Today, I will note some newspaper-related thoughts that have been banging around inside my head, of course inspired by things I’ve read and heard recently.

New York Times reportedly going to subscription model

Last month, New York Magazine ran a very interesting article about the internal debates within the New York Times that has apparently culminated in the paper moving to some type of subscription model for their online edition in the near future.

As advertising revenues plummet, newspapers are feeling more and more pressure to identify new sources of revenue. Whether or not a subscription model is the solution remains a very open question.

Post-Dispatch parent shows profit again

That led me to recent reports regarding Lee Enterprises, parent of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and publisher of 53 daily newspapers in 23 states. Last month, Lee announced its second consecutive quarterly profit, certainly good news on the heels of some tough times for the Davenport, Iowa concern.

Still, there was a double digit revenue decline. Profit was possible due to cutting costs faster than ad revenue shrunk. Lee eliminated 1,000 jobs in its fiscal 2009 on a base of 8,200. Their ad revenue dropped 16.4 percent from the same quarter a year earlier.

After reportedly outsourcing printing and delivery operations, Lee wants to cut expenses even deeper.

“Acrimonious” negotiations for new union contract

Since at least last May, Lee has been negotiating with the St. Louis Newspaper Guild on a new three-year contract. A key tenet of Lee’s ongoing position, as reported by the Guild, is what amounts to a 23% wage cut over three years – 15% in the first year, 5% in the second year and 5% in the third.

Last week, the Guild noted the involvement of a federal mediator and reported Lee “has turned more acrimonious in its negotiations with the Guild.”

There was speculation the matter could come to a head in a matter of weeks.

Post-Dispatch Cardinals coverage defended

Next up is P-D baseball writer Derrick Goold, who appeared with Mike Claiborne on KTRS 550 Radio Hot Stove Show on Wednesday. Goold was there to promote his new book, “100 Things Cardinal Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die,” now on sale at retailers such as Amazon.com.

During their chat, Claiborne suggested that the Post-Dispatch’s investment in Cardinals coverage – “three writers and two columnists – is unusually high these days.” Goold doesn’t see it that way.

“I think it is reasonable to put those kinds of resources behind a team like the Cardinals,” Goold replied. “What the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald put into the Red Sox is very similar, or the Chicago Tribune puts into covering the Chicago Cubs…

“I think you see that in towns where they have franchises that are part of baseball royalty…”

Goold went on to note the “insatiable” demand Cardinals fans have for news about their favorite club. That opportunity inevitably leads to competition…

Newspaper wars

Though this is not baseball-related, it seemed worth noting. As the story of the sale of the Rams evolved over recent weeks, the Post-Dispatch and Globe-Democrat seemed to be taking swipes at each other over who was in the bidding and who wasn’t. It came to a head in a dispute between the two papers over who broke the story of the sale to Illinois businessman Shahid Khan and how.

Blogging for spring bucks

That leads me to my sixth and final item. Baseball writer Mark Zuckerman was among those fired when the Washington Times recently discontinued their sports section. Limited to blogging to reach his Washington Nationals-focused audience, Zuckerman recently ran a fund drive with readers that netted him $5,300 in less than two weeks to cover his trip to spring training.

In return, Zuckerman offered his sponsors special content and the opportunity to suggest questions to players and officials. He modeled his idea on a similar approach charted by a laid-off former newspaperman from Cincinnati.

In closing

My first thought was that Zuckerman lives much better in spring training than I do, but the far more important point is that his readers obviously like what he does enough to let their wallets do their talking. Impressive.

Taking this post full circle, the Zuckerman plan seems to offer readers the opportunity to pay for exactly what they want to read, rather than an entire entity like the New York Times.

One thing for sure – there will be continued evolution in how we receive our news. It should be fascinating to watch and be a part of.

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As the entire baseball universe knows, former St. Louis Cardinals home run hero-turned hitting coach Mark McGwire conducted a series of planned interviews last month to discuss his admission of past steroids use.

Following a blueprint established by the crisis management firm headed up by former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, neither McGwire’s explanations nor the process followed to grant media access met with positive reactions from many corners.

Add Blake Rhodes to the long list of the unimpressed. Before you incorrectly write him off as just another angry member of the hordes, understand that he’s been there, having worn the shoe on the other foot.

The 16-year former employee of the San Francisco Giants once served as the club’s Director of Media Relations. In that role, he guided Barry Bonds through a media maze he described as 40-50 deep every day during some very troubled times, including when the outfielder was under investigation by a grand jury. As most fans are aware, Bonds took the major league single-season home run record away from McGwire in 2001.

Rhodes sees a similar media relations storm on the horizon for the Cardinals and McGwire this spring and is not positive about what has been done to date. In a Wednesday morning radio interview on KTRS 550 Radio in St. Louis, host McGraw Milhaven asked Rhodes to grade Fleischer’s work with McGwire.

“I would give him a ‘C’ to ‘C-minus’… I don’t think that Mark was coached very well previous to doing his interviews. I don’t they put him in the best foot forward,” Rhodes said.

Rhodes is now a vice president with Xenophon Strategies, where he leverages his experience in media and public relations, strategic communications, crisis management, brand marketing and special events.

In an article posted on the company’s website entitled “Let’s Find Out if McGwire Is a Team Player – Some Strategies to Mitigate the Media Distraction”, Rhodes articulates a simple, two-part approach for how he believes the McGwire situation should be handled starting next week.

The intent is to minimize disruptions to the remainder of the Cardinals family by making McGwire available at certain pre-defined times to answer the inevitable questions. As Rhodes explained to me, the potential distractions should not be taken for granted.

“To reach the playoffs, there needs to be a focus on the task at hand on the field.  Quite frankly, with all of the media attention it will be hard to find that focus.  I know. I saw it first hand,” Rhodes said on Tuesday.

His first recommendation is for the Cardinals to “hold a media conference in Jupiter on the day the pitchers and catchers report, Feb. 17.” The next would be for the club to allocate early afternoon time for press conferences with McGwire on the Cardinals’ arrival day in each road city throughout the regular season.

For such a strategy to work, McGwire would need to put the team ahead of his own interests, Rhodes notes.

Quoted in a Tuesday article posted at USAToday.com, St. Louis general manager John Mozeliak seemed to indicate the Cardinals aren’t on the Rhodes Plan. In other words, McGwire is apparently done talking about his past.

“He’s answered more than 250 questions on this, and he reached out to multiple levels of media,” Mozeliak told Mel Antonen. “He’s not required to do any more. If (reporters) want to talk to him about players, hitting and the experience, that’s fine.”

Other past steroid users caught in recent years, including New York Yankees Alex Rodriguez and Andy Pettitte, held news conferences as spring training began to clear questions based on their off-season admissions. As a result, the press seemed to back off.

In the Wednesday radio interview, Milhaven asked Rhodes his view if the Cardinals do in fact believe they can move ahead with McGwire only talking baseball this spring while avoiding further media questions about his past.

“I think they are naïve if they think that,” Rhodes concluded.

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As most St. Louis Cardinals fans know by now, the club and second baseman Skip Schumaker came to an agreement on a two-year contract to avoid arbitration. The base amounts are $2 million in 2010 and $2.7 million next year with additional appearance-related bonuses that could take the total to $5 million.

My initial view was slightly positive as it looks to be a case where both sides gave a bit. The Cards took two years at a decent price and Skip received another year of security, something he said was important to him.

Based on the comps I posted earlier for The Cardinal Nation subscribers, I believe Skip had a decent chance of winning his arbitration case. Had he made over $2.4 million this year via arbitration, barring a collapse he would have made more next year ($3-$3.5M would not seem unreasonable). At that price, the Cards could have been tempted to non-tender Schumaker next winter.

Instead, this way Skip knows he can stay and the club will at most spend $5 million over two years to cover the position. The alternative may have been to spend as much as $6 million to keep him for the two years going year-by-year or finding a new second baseman for 2011 that would cost $3 million or less.

Another factor to consider is the lack of proven depth in the Cardinals outfield. Schumaker has demonstrated his ability to play all three positions, increasing his value to the club.

According to The Biz of Baseball, the rate of multi-year contracts for arbitration-eligible players who exchanged figures with clubs is slightly up this year. In 2009, 11 of 46 eligible players received multiple years while here in 2010, 12 of 44 have gone that route, with 12 situations still open, heading toward hearings.

As the discussion continued on The Cardinal Nation message board, another perspective was put forward. Among the legitimate questions posed:

• Is Skip is good enough to warrant the need to lock him up for an extra year?
• Is the potential of saving a million dollars worth giving up the non-tender option for the Cardinals?
• Is Skip more than a platoon second baseman who struggles in the field?
• Is Schumaker a value at this price?

I decided to take a quick and dirty look at what the second base market might be like next year, using this year as a guide. This effort is not to suggest the Cardinals should not have signed Schumaker to a 2010 contract, but more to consider what their alternatives might have looked like a year into the future.

I am assuming Skip’s immediate replacement would not have come from within. While Daniel Descalso is a fringe top ten prospect in the organization, he is not a sure thing with just one-half year of standout offensive performance in three professional seasons and a sub-.700 OPS over the remainder of his minor league career. There isn’t anyone on Descalso’s heels, either. Our annual Cardinals Top 40 Prospect List at The Cardinal Nation includes just one second baseman for the second consecutive year.

This winter, there were nine free agent second basemen on the market. Eight of them have found homes for 2010, the lone exception being former Cardinal Felipe Lopez.  Most are in their 30’s. Five of the nine could be free agents again next winter. Though he was not a free agent, I included Schumaker in the group for comparison.

I listed the 2009 contributions of each player, using OPS+ for offense and UZR at second base for defense. With those scores, I ranked each of the players from 1-to-10 in each category and added the two numbers. Like in golf, low score is better. The ten second basemen are listed in that sequence.

Further, to the right, I listed the players’ 2010 and 2011 salaries, noting any additions, such as options or incentives.

* Not a free agent

Based on these measures of offensive and defensive contribution in 2009, Lopez stood substantially taller than any of the other nine. In between big-bucks signees Marco Scutaro and Freddy Sanchez are a pair of aging reserves coming off nice years, Craig Counsell and another ex-Cardinal, Ronnie Belliard.

Amid questions about his wrist, his defense and second-half falloff, new Minnesota Twin Orlando Hudson leads off the bottom five. In a most interesting comparison, both of the second basemen paid by the Cardinals last year posted OPS+ marks of 101, Adam Kennedy with Oakland and Schumaker. The former had a less-negative UZR.

Bringing up the rear is Kelly Johnson, who had a subpar year offensively with Atlanta and looks to rebound with Arizona in 2010. A year ago, some Cardinals fans endorsed a straight up trade of Johnson for Ryan Ludwick, an indication of Johnson’s prior success.

Conclusions?

A quick spreadsheet analysis like this of a single season has its obvious limitations, but if the 2009-10 free agent market is any indication of what 2010-11 will be like, then it certainly seems like a Schumaker replacement could be out there for the taking at a comparable price next winter.

My question is whether the likes of Counsell, Belliard, Carroll, Kennedy or Johnson would really be any better than Schumaker in 2011. At least Skip has the chance of improving his defense this coming season, and in doing so, perhaps moving up in the scoring hierarchy. His offense probably is where it is going to be. Clearly the top tier of Scutaro, Sanchez and Hudson are out of Skip’s league price-wise.

Then there’s Lopez, with the best 2009 UZR at second base and tied for the top OPS+ last season. Why is he still out of work?

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It was announced in December that Chiswick, Quad Cities Director of Broadcasting and Media Relations, had left the River Bandits after five years. The radio voice of the St. Louis Cardinals Class A affiliate for 140 games each season was the club’s longest-tenured full-time employee, going back prior to the ownership change following the 2007 season. Chiswick has since taken the similar job with Midwest League competitor West Michigan Whitecaps.

The same day Chiswick’s departure was made public, his replacement was introduced, Tommy Thrall. Thrall had been the Director of Broadcasting and Communications for the Myrtle Beach Pelicans of the Carolina League.

It was not clearly stated that Thrall’s new position is simply Director of Media Relations. I have since received emails from Thrall, but did not catch the subtlety in his signature block, the missing Director of Broadcasting part.

The blank was filled in for me when I happened upon the blog of South Bend’s broadcaster Owen Serey. As he recapped the various moves among his Midwest League peers, Serey noted that Quad Cities has discontinued radio broadcasts of their games for 2010.

Finally, the light bulb came on for me; or should I say it went off? Obviously the Bandits don’t need a broadcaster if they aren’t going to be broadcasting games. Very disappointing news.

Back in March 2008, the River Bandits and Miller Media Group, the owner of WYEC (93.9 FM, Geneseo, Illinois), had announced a three-year agreement to air the team’s 140-game schedule on the station. Games were also streamed on the team’s website.

Ending the deal a year early seems especially counterintuitive as the Quad Cities baseball operation is definitely on the rise. Total attendance (236,401) and average attendance (3,694) last season were both the highest since 1995 and rank among the top five years the history of the franchise. Since the ownership change, attendance has grown 64 percent on a per-game basis (from 2,254 in 2007) and 59 percent on an annual view (from 148,773).

A 2009 study by Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal ranked the Quad Cities #31 of 239 minor league sports markets, best of all Cardinals minor league affiliate metro areas.

In confirming the news, Miller Media Group’s Kewanee, Illinois cluster sales manager Fletcher M. Ford was quite direct. He explained how the change was made and communicated.

“Your Easy Choice 93.9 WYEC was served notice from Kirk A. Goodman, Vice President and General Manager in late 2009 explaining the intention of the Quad City River Bandits not having a radio broadcast partner in the upcoming season for its fans,” Ford explained.

Ford wanted to make it clear that Miller Media Group was not a part of any evaluation process.

“This decision was made solely by the management of the Quad City River Bandits,” Ford said.

Goodman offered further details.

“We are indeed discontinuing our radio broadcast,” Goodman stated Monday. “We were being charged a very high rate to be on a station located 55 miles from our ballpark and in addition to that cost and the expense of paying for the salary and travel for a broadcaster did not make fiscal sense for our team.”

Apparently no alternatives that offered a match could be found.

“We made an effort to bring the broadcast to a more local station but none of the formats of the stations for the two main radio groups in our market worked with what we were willing to offer in return.

“It was strictly a financial decision…to pay what was necessary for our broadcast to be on the air was not worth the return we saw from having a broadcast,” Goodman said.

At least one lower-level Cardinals affiliate in a smaller metropolitan area continues with radio, the Batavia Muckdogs of the New York-Penn League, a short-season club.

All may not be lost for River Bandits fans with stronger radios or internet service as the team will still be heard as the opponent on some broadcasts. Other clubs in the 14-team Midwest League continuing with radio include South Bend and West Michigan (obviously) along with Fort Wayne, Burlington, Kane County and Dayton.

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Heavy debt load

There is a segment of Cardinals watchers that never seem to be satisfied with the expenditures ownership allocates to the player payroll. One area often singled out is the over $20 million annual debt service required as a result of the construction of the new Busch Stadium. That is $20 million that could be used to buy free agents, goes one line of thinking.

Generally speaking, I am pretty sure those complainers are from outside St. Louis, apparently preferring to have seen an increase in the local tax burden to build the new stadium instead. Then there are those that have no idea how to pay for anything and just irrationally complain. They are my favorites.

It could be worse, folks. You could be in Chicago.

The good news is that deep-pocketed Ricketts family of the TD Ameritrade fortune bought the Cubs in October. The bad news is that the LLC put in place for the acquisition is $900 million in the hole after the Ricketts loaned themselves $200 million for working capital and improvements to crumbling Wrigley Field.

Forbes notes that the Cubs 2009 payroll of $134 million was third-highest in MLB but “stacked with high-priced players with no-trade clauses.” Their conclusion is that the combination of “high debt and bloated payroll makes it highly unlikely they will be able to improve any time soon.”

It is also worth noting that having a wealthy name-brand family purchase your favorite team isn’t necessarily the ticket to success. Just ask Royals fans how David Glass and his Walmart money have improved the KC clan.

Update: The Cubs have announced the Executive Club, an all-inclusive area on the Suite level, where seats are $300 per game or $24,300 for the season.

2010 roster changes

As Cardinals fans know, their winter roster changes included big steps like keeping Matt Holliday and signing Brad Penny, but also involved allowing a number of lesser players to leave.

The Cubbies made one huge addition by subtraction move when troubled outfielder Milton Bradley and his bad contract were shipped off to Seattle. In return, they took on another ugly deal in pitcher Carlos Silva. At least I have never heard anything negative about Silva’s clubhouse demeanor.

To that end, I have read several reports speculating that the Cubs recent addition of first baseman Kevin Millar was more about chemistry than baseball. The 38-year-old was a part-timer last season in Toronto and over the last couple of years batted .230 with an OPS of barely .700. Yet one of the self-styled “idiots” from the 2004 Red Sox is also known as a fun-loving, free spirited guy – just the opposite of the sullen, explosive Bradley.

I wonder if Sweet Lou Piniella can deal with the other extreme?

Here is a brief summary of the Cubs comings and goings this winter, courtesy of The Sports Xchange.

ARRIVALS: RHP Carlos Silva (trade with Mariners), RHP Jeff Gray (trade with A’s), OF Marlon Byrd (free agent from Rangers), 1B/3B Chad Tracy (minor league free agent from Diamondbacks), OF/1B Xavier Nady (free agent from Yankees), 1B Kevin Millar (minor league free agent from Blue Jays).

DEPARTURES: OF Milton Bradley (traded to Mariners), RHP Rich Harden (free agent, signed with Rangers), INF/OF Jake Fox (traded to A’s), INF Aaron Miles (traded to A’s, then traded to Reds), LHP Neal Cotts (non-tendered, signed minor league deal with Pirates), RHP Aaron Heilman (traded to Diamondbacks), OF So Taguchi (released, signed with Japanese team), OF Reed Johnson (free agent, signed with Dodgers), RHP Kevin Gregg (free agent, signed with Blue Jays).

Lou on Mac and hitting

Speaking of Lou speaking, his recent comments at an awards dinner in the Big Apple were reported in The New York Times. The Cubs manager says he forgives Mark McGwire and thinks the support of Albert Pujols will go a long way for the new Cardinals hitting coach, who he thinks will “do a nice job.”

A former hitting coach himself with the Yankees, Piniella also has some suggestions. He wonders whether McGwire will need to learn how to deal with today’s ballplayers and offered this interesting advice for working with major league hitters:

“You don’t really need to change any mechanics.”

Hmmm.

The Times piece ends with a totally unrealistic view of how McGwire will be greeted at Wrigley this summer.

“I think Cub fans will treat him fine,” Piniella said. “We have a great rivalry. He’ll be accepted well. I think they feel he confessed and it’s over with.”

Yeah, right. McGwire might be wise to investigate whether any of the Wrigley hard hats pictured above are still for sale.

La Russa on Chicago

Like Tony La Russa, Piniella’s current contract ends after the 2010 season and Lou has suggested it might be his last in the Windy City. In the same interview from which I reported his White Sox-related remarks, La Russa also made it very clear he doesn’t ever see himself taking his friend Piniella’s job.

“You’ve got a double-headed whammy there. I have a lot of friends and fans that I’m close to with the White Sox. And you know White Sox and Cubs, they don’t mix. I’ve got friends and fans that I’m close to in St. Louis, and the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cubs don’t mix. So I think if there is one place that I don’t fit, just because of my past, it would be the Chicago Cubs.”

Spring training handout debated

The Cubs made a preliminary decision on their spring training future, opting to stay in Mesa, Arizona rather than move to Naples, Florida. There is just one small problem – how to pay for the replacement for Hohokam Stadium.

The idea on the table is a controversial “Cubs Tax”. Under the proposal, other Arizona spring training teams would be assessed a ticket surcharge to build up a kitty for the Cubbies’ new den. Not surprisingly, cross-town rivals the Chicago White Sox and the Arizona Diamondbacks have already come out against the half-baked idea.

It appears that the next key date is in mid-July, at which time Naples could re-enter the fray if the Arizona folks cannot come up with a more realistic plan.

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In Thursday interview with “Chicago Tribune Live” on Comcast SportsNet, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa discussed the possibility of returning to the Windy City to work again for Chicago White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf.

(In the chat, La Russa also made it clear why he would never be a good fit to manage the Cubs, noting his White Sox and Cardinals roots, and quashed the likelihood of Mark McGwire playing again, an idea he first floated before backpedaling away from.)

Here is La Russa’s quote about his former boss and close friend Reinsdorf:

“I don’t ever think that is going to be an issue, because I think he’s got his (management) team,” La Russa said. “If I ever left the field and went upstairs, which I hope to do some time maybe soon, I’d like to work for an owner that I like and that I respect as much as I do Jerry, because I want to be motivated to make him happy.”

La Russa was already manager of the White Sox when Reinsdorf and partner Eddie Einhorn purchased the American League team in 1981. He had been hired by Bill Veeck to take over the reins of the big league club during the 1979 season.

After La Russa supporter Roland Hemond was removed as Sox general manager, Ken “Hawk” Harrelson took over. He put considerable pressure on both La Russa and pitching coach Dave Duncan as the Sox got off to a losing record in early 1986. The media picked up the tension as well.

Reinsdorf, as quoted in “Tony La Russa: Man on a Mission” by Rob Rains, was aware of the internal problems but hoped they would pass.

“I just told Tony, ‘Give me to the end of the year,’ and we would work something out,” Reinsdorf recalled.

It didn’t work. Just 64 games into the 1986 season, with the approval of his bosses, Harrelson fired both La Russa and Duncan. It was a move that Reinsdorf regrets to this day.

“I was incredibly naïve,” Reinsdorf said. “Eddie [Einhorn] and I spent a lot of time with Hawk and he was diagnosing the team’s problems and he was right on. We thought he was the guy to fix the problems. He wasn’t. That was the mistake we made. We brought the wrong guy in to try to fix the problems. Hawk’s heart was in the right place.

“I never should have allowed Tony to be fired. I’ve often said that was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. I knew it was wrong. I knew it was a mistake. And I let it happen anyway,” Reinsdorf said.

Just as when La Russa was hired in St. Louis, arriving with the support of a friend and former co-worker in GM Walt Jocketty, so was his move to Oakland well-greased.

Before he allowed La Russa’s firing, Reinsdorf called then-Oakland president Roy Eisenhardt to see if there was interest.

“I told him things weren’t going well here and I asked him, ‘If we make a change and let Tony go will you hire him?’ He said, ‘In a heartbeat.’ So I knew even before we fired Tony he was going to get another job right away,” Reinsdorf said.

Fast-forwarding to today, La Russa only committed to a one-year deal to manage the Cardinals in 2010. I believe it to be his first one-year-only contract since back when he was with the White Sox 30 years ago.

Whenever La Russa leaves the dugout, will he remain in St. Louis?

His long-standing support from team chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. seems as strong as ever and his working relationship with GM John Mozeliak appears good. DeWitt’s son, Bill DeWitt III, has been installed as team president. Yet the internal political tension and intrigue in some quarters remain, especially in relation to minor league operations.

In the existing structure of the Cardinals front office, where would La Russa fit? None of the above would appear to be going anywhere any time soon. If there isn’t a job in St. Louis, La Russa could find one most anywhere, but where would he have strong past support?

What type of assignment would be appropriate for a man with La Russa’s accomplishments? I question whether in his retirement La Russa would want to take on the rigors of a general manager’s job, but if not, what about team president?

One logical thought would be in Jocketty’s new home in Cincinnati. Walt already holds both positions, President of Baseball Operations and General Manager, but perhaps would consider bringing in La Russa as his GM. That doesn’t seem right for post-managing Tony, though.

Where would be a better place to land than in Chicago? The Sox don’t have a president today. Their hierarchy consists of Chairman Reinsdorf, Vice-Chairman Einhorn, VP and GM Kenny Williams, and etc.

While La Russa was careful in his Chicago remarks not to step on toes of those in the current Sox hierarchy, he is probably quite aware of this possibility as well.

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On KTRS Radio 550’s Hot Stove show Thursday evening, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Kyle McClellan discussed his winter preparation for the 2010 season. While the right-hander is preparing for the second consecutive winter to come to camp as a starter, the difference this time is that his fate of remaining in the rotation will be in his own hands.

One year ago, McClellan was the safety net for Chris Carpenter, whose status was somewhat uncertain as the ace was coming off various ailments, most recently nerve transposition surgery in his elbow in November 2008. This time around, the 25-year-old has to be considered the front-runner for the fifth spot in the rotation, vacated by unsigned John Smoltz and another now ex-Cardinal, Todd Wellemeyer.

Though his four-pitch arsenal and two years of major league relief experience are clear assets, McClellan doesn’t yet own the job. His competitors will include veteran Rich Hill, as well as farm system prospects Jaime Garcia, P.J. Walters and perhaps Mitchell Boggs, all with a bit of MLB time themselves.

In his radio spot, McClellan mentioned he took off 15 pounds over the winter and focused on increasing his lower body strength. He is among the first wave of arrivals in Cardinals camp in Jupiter, Florida, almost two weeks ahead of the mandatory reporting date, reports Joe Strauss in a Post-Dispatch blog entry.

While trained in the minor leagues as a starter, McClellan’s elbow problems in 2005 and 2006 drove him into a relief role with Palm Beach then Springfield upon his return in 2007. He began with Tommy John elbow ligament replacement surgery followed by nerve transposition surgery the following season (a procedure done two years later on both Carpenter and Albert Pujols).

Despite never having appeared above Double-A, a strong and surprising performance in 2008 spring training camp (1.38 ERA in 13 innings) opened the way for McClellan to make the major league squad. He never returned to the minor leagues.

Perhaps it was the uncertainty of his role a year ago, but his spring 2009 performance was quite the opposite. In fact, I seriously wondered at the time if McClellan would have made the Cardinals opening day roster had he not sufficiently proven himself in his rookie season of 2008.

Last spring, he had just one start and made eight other Florida appearances in relief. McClellan was hit hard and often for 17 earned runs on 23 hits and eight walks in 17 innings. The math worked out to a tidy, though unsightly 9.00 ERA. In his defense, McClellan’s March troubles did not follow him north for the regular season as he slipped back into his familiar relief role.

We will see between now and the start of April if McClellan is able to follow the clear path in front of him and solidify that fifth spot in the Cardinals rotation. While we don’t yet know for sure what his personal Plan “B” will be, if McClellan doesn’t make the rotation, I suspect he will be returned to his regular set up assignment rather than remain a starter down in Triple-A Memphis.

A year ago, I backed the idea of the Cardinals making the full commitment to McClellan starting. Assuming the major league pen is strong this spring, I would still be in favor of continuing to let him start. Since the Cardinals believe McClellan has starter’s stuff, then why wouldn’t the best long-term approach for everyone involved be to allow him more than a month of spring training to either prove or disprove it once and for all?

If one of the top five in the Cardinals rotation go down during the first half, an experienced major leaguer could be ready to be promoted and step in. Worst case, even if the experiment is still not working after a dozen or so Triple-A starts, McClellan could always be returned to the major league pen, serving as a nice, low-cost boost for the stretch run.

Yet I don’t think they would consider having him intern as a starter in the minors this year any more than they did last. Even if he is not an immediate success starting, based on past work, McClellan will most likely remain one of the best seven relievers in the eyes of Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan. As such, his spot on the major league roster seems written in ink, even as his 2010 role remains open.

In other words, while McClellan prefers to start, he may only have a month of play to prove he is up to the task.

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In an interview that is unusual in its length, 21 minutes, St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols sat down with Katie Felts from KSDK NewsChannel 5 the other day and covered a wide variety of topics.

As this did not receive nearly as much coverage as some of the reports it intended to address, I am including the video here, as well as a brief summary.

Set at his workout facility, Pujols begins with a review of his off-season training schedule and his winter routine. The discussion moves to the Cardinals prospects for 2010, his view of Mark McGwire’s return and some of his great teammates in the past.

In an interesting reply, Albert avoided accepting the idea that the addition of Matt Holliday helped him personally, but did acknowledge the outfielder helped the team. Pujols relates how he told Jim Edmonds that the latter’s decision not to play last season was “a mistake” and offers a scouting report after having worked out with the new Brewers outfielder for two weeks.

Pujols then joked about his retirement day in 10-15 years. At that point, about 17 minutes in, he reiterated his desire to retire as a Cardinal. He mentioned several times this is a business.

Rather than risk misrepresenting Pujols, what follows are his direct comments concerning his future intentions and how the subject is being covered by the media.

“…The fans have embraced me. Playing in front of the best fans in baseball, I don’t think I can play anyplace else.

“Somebody wrote something a couple of weeks ago in an article about me that I don’t mind playing somewhere else. That is not what I said. What I said is that if I become a free agent, I am not going to sit down in my house. I love this game. I need to play somewhere. If the Cardinals don’t give me the opportunity to keep playing, it will have to be somewhere else to play.

“The headline was ‘Albert Pujols doesn’t mind playing somewhere else,’ like that I want to leave. C’mon guys. That is getting old. I hope you can play this piece tonight. It is getting old about my contract because it is not about me. I still got a couple of years left here. Do I want to be here? Yes. I want to be here forever. I want to finish my career here… Why would I want to go somewhere else?

“I think the fans need to understand that and sometimes don’t read too much what the papers say, you know, because they just want to create headlines to try to sell papers, you know. I feel sad that sometimes the fans get caught up into all of that…”

Pujols reiterated what he said his agent had made clear earlier – that Holliday’s decision was not a part of his own decision. This was in the context of whether he played a personal role in Holliday’s signing, a suggestion he waved off. Pujols closed the contract discussion with this remark.

“…Why keep talking about something that isn’t going to happen for two years? I mean maybe talking for about the last year and a half. Another headline about ‘Albert Pujols Leaving St. Louis’. I ain’t going nowhere for two years, and hopefully, I ain’t going nowhere for the rest of my career.”

I could not find a headline similar to what Pujols quoted, but here is the link to the article to which I suspect he was referring. It was from the Post-Dispatch, dated January 18 and entitled “El Hombre in No Rush for Extension”. As a point of comparison, another very different account of Pujols’ remarks was posted the same day at the Globe-Democrat.

The story continues as Joe Strauss noted in his weekly chat Wednesday that the Cardinals have “engaged Pujols and his agent, Dan Lozano, in contract talks.” As one would expect, neither side immediately commented.

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Though the St. Louis Cardinals official spring training and regular season broadcast schedule may be a week or more away from announcement, we are starting to get a partial view, led by eight confirmed games on the FOX Network.

In addition, in 2010, FOX Sports’ 15th straight season as the national broadcast home of MLB, the network will cover the All-Star Game from Anaheim, California, the National League Championship Series and the World Series.

2010 MLB on FOX REGULAR SEASON BROADCAST SCHEDULE (Cardinals subset)

(Note: Schedule Subject to Change; All Times 4:00 PM Eastern Unless Noted)

Saturday, April 10, 2010 (*3:00 PM ET)
St. Louis Cardinals at Milwaukee Brewers

Saturday, April 17, 2009
New York Mets at St. Louis Cardinals

Saturday, May 29, 2010
St. Louis Cardinals at Chicago Cubs

Saturday, June 5, 2010
Milwaukee Brewers at St. Louis Cardinals

Saturday, July 3, 2010
Milwaukee Brewers at St. Louis Cardinals

Saturday, July 17, 2010
Los Angeles Dodgers at St. Louis Cardinals

Saturday, August 14, 2010
Chicago Cubs at St. Louis Cardinals

Saturday, September 11, 2010
St. Louis Cardinals at Atlanta Braves

Click here to see the entire 2010 FOX Network MLB schedule.

Previously disclosed: In addition to opening day at Cincinnati on Monday, April 5, ESPN will carry these early-season Cardinals Sunday night games: April 11 at Milwaukee and April 18 vs. the New York Mets.

For a preliminary view of Cardinals spring training broadcasts, click here.

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Nothing particularly profound coming in this post. I was just thinking about the recent departure of the longest-tenured St. Louis Cardinals player, Rick Ankiel. He just missed having been a three-decade Cardinal, and was the last link to the 1990’s as an active player. The newest member of the Kansas City Royals made his major league debut with St. Louis in 1999.

As one player from the 1990’s departed, another returned as a coach as Mark McGwire restored his tie to a pair of earlier decades of Cardinals history. To that end, I jotted down a list of people with and around the organization as part of their job today, in and out of uniform, and their first decade of major league Cardinals service.

Albert Pujols, who joined the team on opening day 2001, has become the dean of the current players in terms of service with St. Louis, but of course Red Schoendienst has been around the longest. Red, a special assistant to the general manager, made his St. Louis debut in 1945. As such, he has now been with the organization at the major league level in parts of eight different decades.

The first decade of appearance in the Cardinals major league uniform is noted below. There has been at least one arrival during each ten-year period since the 1940’s.

1940’s: Red Schoendienst

1950’s: Bob Gibson

1960’s: Mike Shannon, Lou Brock

1970’s: Al Hrabosky

1980’s: Jose Oquendo, Rick Horton, Mike Jorgensen, Jack Clark

1990’s: Andy Benes, Alan Benes, Mark McGwire, Tony La Russa, Dave McKay, Dave Duncan

2000’s: Too many to count

Did I miss anyone who once wore the major league uniform and is employed in some capacity around the team today? Sound off below.

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First, we looked at the top 20 stories affecting the St. Louis Cardinals this past year. Now it is time to predict the top story lines for 2010 as well.

Right up front, I will set aside the easiest and most logical entry – the results of the 2010 team on the field. The nature of that story has yet to be determined, shaped by the items discussed here and many more plotlines not yet developed.

Another top story I will not be including is the signing of Matt Holliday. It occurred on January 5, so technically would qualify as a 2010 story, but the reality is that the excitement was quickly over in this calendar year. Now, Mr. Holliday simply needs to produce – for the next seven or eight years.

As I developed my list and their ranking, I considered the staying power of the story, how long it might remain in the headlines, as well as its potential impact on the 2010 Cardinals and the organization’s future.

Without further ado, here are my projected top five St. Louis Cardinals stories of 2010. As always, your comments are welcome below.

5. Continued closer concern?

Ryan Franklin did a fine job closing games for the St. Louis Cardinals in 2009, far better than his career norms would suggest. He was an All-Star for the first time, was the August Delivery Man of the Month for MLB and came in second for the NL Rolaids Relief Man of the Year.

Yet Franklin faltered down the stretch and through the far-too-brief post-season. Possible reasons offered up revolved around fatigue and overwork rather than a new contract. Yet to date, the team has not added any external proven relief help for 2010 and is making rumblings they may not. If a Plan “B” is needed for the ninth inning, its details remain cloudy.

Perhaps Franklin will surprise as he did in 2009, providing stability to a questionable situation coming into the season. Or perhaps the law of averages will catch up with the veteran right-hander, who turns 37 years of age during the first week of March.

4. Will Freese ice down third base?

When compiling the Cardinals top prospect list at the main The Cardinal Nation site as I do each winter, it struck me that our rankings named five different individuals as the organization’s top third base prospect over the last five years.

In the past, when Scott Rolen anchored the position in the majors every year, it didn’t matter, but times have changed. With now-departed Troy Glaus missing most of 2009, third base became the weakest link on the entire team offensively. It also had the most uncertainty, with seven different players receiving regular-season starts at the position – and that didn’t include Joe Mather, once the leader during spring training.

David Freese heads into camp for the second consecutive spring as the favorite to take the job, but is hardly a lock. Many observers, myself included, believe the team needs to add a veteran as insurance in case Freese has a meltdown either on the field or off.

While there are plenty of options around, including Allen Craig, Julio Lugo, Ruben Gotay, Tyler Greene and Mather, none are likely considered starting material at third base. Further, there is no obvious help at the position in the upper levels of the minor league system.

On the other hand, if Freese demonstrates he can handle the job, the Cardinals could have as much as five more years of cost-controlled stability at an important position that was a major problem for them in 2009.

3. La Russa’s future plans

Now 65 year-old, previously-ageless Tony La Russa has begun to publicly admit the inevitable – that he will not manage forever. In taking several weeks to decide whether or not to return in 2010 and then accepting only a one-year contract, La Russa made that clear.

Bringing Mark McGwire back into baseball provided a new vehicle for the fiery La Russa to keep his us-against-the-world competitive juices flowing. His ongoing, unwavering and at times, irrational support of his former slugger and new hitting coach is keeping him on the hot seat.

By ownership shelling out the money to re-sign Matt Holliday and add Brad Penny, La Russa has been presented with a club that comes into the season with high expectations. If the team does well and presents La Russa with his third World Series championship, the temptation to ride out on top may be too tempting to pass up.

Yet if the backfire from the McGwire move continues and/or his loaded 2010 team struggles, might La Russa decide to call it quits?

The manager comes into the season 211 wins short of John McGraw for second on MLB’s all-time list. I tend to side with those who think La Russa will remain in the dugout at least long enough to achieve 212 victories.

Another way to look at it is that Albert Pujols will presumably stay in St. Louis at least two more years. It is hard to come up with a strong case that La Russa would yet walk away from a player who one day may become the greatest in the history of the franchise and one of the best ever to play the game.

2. The McGwire reaction

The return of McGwire from self-imposed isolation was a risky move from the start. La Russa wanted it and ownership agreed. Despite high-profile external crisis-management assistance, the rollout of McGwire’s apology for steroid use did not go well. His credibility remains in question in many corners and as such, he remains a divisive figure both within the Cardinal Nation and across baseball as a whole.

If the 2010 Cardinals get off to a fast start with their bats, the pressure may diminish a bit and if the hitters are viewed to be successful all season long, McGwire will be singled out for a considerable helping of praise. On the other hand, if the offense falters early, the entire season could tip over what on the surface was the simple hire of a hitting coach.

If the going remains tough, could any of the principals involved, La Russa, Bill DeWitt/John Mozeliak or McGwire himself, decide to pull the plug? If La Russa decides to retire from managing after the season, what will McGwire do? Finally, as 2010 nears its close, national writers will again be faced with the question of whether or not to vote for McGwire for the Hall of Fame, rekindling heat on this story.

1. Pujols’ pending payday

With ownership’s commitment to spend at least $120 million additional on Holliday, Pujols’ previously-expressed concern over whether there will continue to be a competitive team around him in the future should have been answered. Granted, the first baseman has two more years on his current contract, but his post-Holliday signing comments were both encouraging (wants to remain a Cardinal, will consider a discount) and concerning (no issue with testing the free agent market if necessary) at the same time.

Pujols said he is willing to entertain contract talks until the season begins but not during. As such, if a deal is not done soon, the buzz will quiet until October. By that time, as a player with ten years in the majors, five with the same team, Pujols could not be traded without his consent, an unlikely occurrence anyway.

With the Cardinals already set to remain pretty much intact for 2011, the noise over Pujols’ future plans could reach a deafening level come fall. Unresolved, his contract status could become the biggest story of all for the 2010 Cardinals and has the potential to remain there for the next year, too.

Link to The Cardinal Nation Blog’s top 20 stories of the year countdown

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Batavia residents might have breathed a sigh of relief last week when the impending move of a New York-Penn League team to Norwalk, Connecticut for the 2010 season was finally announced and it wasn’t their Muckdogs packing their bags. Instead, the citizens of Oneonta, New York lost their minor league treasure, as the Tigers will be on the move.

Any euphoria in the upstate New York burg may have been extremely short-lived, however. On Saturday, at least one uneasy shareholder at the annual meeting of the Muckdogs’ funding source, Rochester Community Baseball (RCB), was asking tough questions about Batavia’s professional baseball future.

In their two years of operating the St. Louis Cardinals affiliate in Batavia, RCB has lost just under $400,000 in the venture, roughly $250,000 the first season and $150,000 in 2009. This has pulled the larger entity, which operates the Rochester Red Wings of the International League, into the red for the first time since 1997. While RCB leaders assure constituents the Triple-A franchise remains their priority, continued losses for both clubs will only increase the level of protest.

In a very interesting disclosure, RCB president Gary Larder explained that the Muckdogs’ owner, Genesee County Baseball Club, is ceding RCB five percent equity in the team for every season RCB operates it – if the team is sold. With a commitment already in place to operate the Muckdogs in 2010, the Rochester share of ownership will grow to 15 percent this year.

If one assumes the franchise is worth $4 million to $5 million, RCB could net $600,000 to $750,000 from a sale of the Muckdogs next winter. That would be enough to cover a potential third year of continued losses in 2010 and perhaps even allow for a small profit if the flow of red ink can be stemmed this season.

As reported by the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Larder said the following. “We really don’t know what’s going to happen with Batavia.”

Apparently nobody does. There is no indication the Batavians want to sell their team anytime soon and unlock RCB’s slowly-growing share. At this rate, they will still own the majority of the team for six more years.

It is unclear what RCB gets if they decide to walk away before then. Are they essentially stuck in an arrangement that forces them to operate the team until they gain over 50 percent ownership before they could collect their ownership stake and get out? Would they and their shareholders be willing to endure potentially ten years of losses?

Apparently none of the shareholders posed these questions on Saturday.

Perhaps Genesee County Baseball Club remains satisfied to watch their share erode at the rate of five percent per year. Maybe the local community will get sufficiently behind the team that it finally makes money for RCB, alleviating some of their shareholder pressure.

Even if so, this arrangement seems only to be buying Batavia ownership time until the day finally comes when they can no longer live off their equity.

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A little over a year ago, last January 3, I published my predictions of what I thought would evolve into the top five stories across the Cardinal Nation in 2009. With the benefit of full hindsight, including the top 20 stories of 2009 countdown finally in the books, this is a look back at my initial forecast.

The original top five projections follow, along with where the stories actually ended up, including links to the before and after articles. I won’t be repeating my 2009 summaries here, so click on the links if you’d like to read the detailed stories.

Generally speaking, none of the five stories I thought would grab the headlines in 2009 turned out to be as big as expected. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Let’s review each as several stories morphed into others.

1. Lame duck La Russa

Oddly enough, unlike in 2007, when Tony La Russa’s expiring contract seemed to hold an unusually-strong level of interest with the local scribes all summer long, it was not nearly as big of an issue in 2009. This was the case despite the fact his contract was again up following the season.

The relative calm may have been due to a combination of several factors, including the fast start of the 2009 team, which went 16-7 in April, as well as a divestiture of several veteran players over the last two years who clashed with the longtime skipper.

Certainly, the saga of the family Duncan (2009 story #12) added to the La Russa uncertainty but also in a way diverted attention from La Russa personally. When push came to shove, Tony took his first-ever one-year contract to return for 2010.

With the controversy over the return of Mark McGwire added to the mix, La Russa’s future should again remain a curiosity during the 2010 season and into the fall.

2. Chris Carpenter’s health

While this was a non-story, a good thing, the fact is that Carpenter’s health was a major factor in 2009. Because the ace missed about five weeks due to an oblique strained in his second start of the season, he ended up making just 28 starts, compared to 32 to 34 for his Cy Young Award competitors.

Those voters who left Carpenter off their ballots entirely cited this as a reason for doing so and this most certainly affected other voters’ placement of Carpenter second or third instead of first or second.

As such, given Carp finished just seven points short of winning his second Cy Young, it is not a stretch at all to say his health cost him the award.

Of course, in the bigger picture, the injury was relatively insignificant. It was early in the season, during a time when the team was consistently winning and most importantly, neither lingered nor was connected to his past shoulder, elbow and nerve ailments. He still won 17 games, second-most in the NL behind teammate Adam Wainwright, and captured the league ERA title.

In his age 35 season, Carpenter’s continued well-being will remain a critical success factor for the 2010 Cardinals.

3.  Calm or chaos at the closer’s position?

Not only was the identity of the 2009 closer unknown last January, it still was unresolved as the season began. The main question was “Which of the young contenders would take the job, Jason Motte or Chris Perez?”

As we quickly learned, the answer was “neither”.

Motte owned the job for one game, a blown save on opening day. Perez was given his chances, but his inconsistency soon put him back in Memphis before being traded away. 36-year-old Ryan Franklin, the last man standing, took over and put together a fantastic season.

Yet a contract extension followed by a final-month failure which continued in the National League Division Series re-opened questions about the stability of the position in 2010. The Cardinals have reportedly assured Franklin that the job is his, but have also expressed concern over his supposed late-season fatigue and have at least thought about other options.

This story may be back in 2010.

4. The future of Rick Ankiel
5. When will Colby Rasmus arrive and who will play centerfield?

These two stories became intertwined. Yet even together, they placed just 16^th in my final countdown.

Compared to the acrimonious end to 2008 spring training for Colby Rasmus, followed by an ineffective and injury-plagued season with Memphis, 2009 seemed calmer for the 22-year-old. His making the big league roster did not seem to be in jeopardy this past spring, but the concern was replaced by an uneasy competition with Rick Ankiel, a stated favorite of his manager and beloved by the fan base for his revival from numerous past setbacks.

As the season went on, illness and fatigue affected Rasmus as injury hampered Ankiel, yet their trajectory was very different. The latter continued in a downward spiral that ended in him leaving via free agency with no real attempt made to keep him after 13 years in the organization.

The former doubled Ankiel’s starts in centerfield, 104 to 52, and was one of the team’s post-season standouts. Rasmus is clearly the present and future, while Ankiel will forever hold memories of the past as well as the wonderment of what might have been.

Next up: In the final article of this series, I will outline my predictions for the top five Cardinals stories of 2010.

Link to The Cardinal Nation Blog’s top 20 stories of the year countdown

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Seeing a very legitimate chance of going deep into the playoffs and perhaps taking their second World Series in four years, the St. Louis Cardinals took a major risk on July 24 by trading for outfielder Matt Holliday. One month earlier, the club had added Mark DeRosa, who offered the promise of stability at third base and some immediate long ball pop.

In acquiring the two veterans, both impending free agents, the organization paid a high price, giving up in return five players taken in the first two rounds of the 2006 through 2008 drafts. All were considered top organizational prospects, with three having made their MLB debuts, one in Triple-A and the other in Double-A at the time.

They included relievers Chris Perez and Jess Todd, sent to Cleveland for DeRosa plus starting pitcher Clayton Mortensen, outfielder Shane Peterson and the Cardinals’ first-round pick in 2008, third baseman Brett Wallace, who went to Oakland in return for Holliday.

The return was immediate and noticeable.

When the former Cubs fan favorite DeRosa was added on June 27, the Cardinals had lost their first place status and were trending south. Though the third baseman contributed, he hit the disabled list by July 1 due to a wrist injury that required post-season surgery. Despite slamming eight home runs in his first 22 games with the club, DeRosa skidded to a .228 average by season’s end.

By the time the Holliday deal was announced on July 24, the team had a precarious lead of just 1 ½ games. The Cards would go on to win 39 and lose 25 over the remainder of the regular season for a post-Holliday winning percentage of .609. They were the first to clinch and their final divisional cushion was a comfortable 7 ½ games after having reached a high-water mark of 11 1/2 games out front in early September.

Holliday offered what the Cardinals had been lacking and what caused manager Tony La Russa to campaign for his addition for several years, a legitimate clean-up hitter behind Albert Pujols.

Pujols’ rate of intentional walks had been an increasing problem as more and more National League managers decided to avoid giving Pujols a chance to beat them. That changed once Holliday arrived. The rate of Pujols’ intentional walks was more than cut in half once Holliday was batting behind him.

Pujols could not be pitched around as Holliday was on fire, batting .357 with 13 home runs and 57 RBI in just 63 games with St. Louis. Holliday’s total of 12 game-winning RBI was second-highest on the team. Pujols had 19, but it took him all season to accumulate them. At his new home, Busch Stadium, Holliday was even better, batting .385 (50-for-130) with nine home runs and 35 RBI in 34 games.

The success did not continue in the post-season, however. With Los Angeles manager Joe Torre avoiding Pujols, Holliday didn’t make the Dodgers pay. He batted just 2-for-12 (.167) in the three NLDS defeats, and did not immediately atone for his game 2 fielding error that turned a sure win into a loss. In the season-ending game 3 at home, Holliday went 0-for-4 with three left on base.

On the other hand, DeRosa, still dealing with the wrist problem, went 5-for-13 (.385) against the Dodgers, second to Colby Rasmus among the Cardinals starters.

Following the season, St. Louis offered both free agents arbitration, but they declined as expected. The Cardinals never seemed serious about re-signing DeRosa, instead likely using him as part of a fallback plan had they been unable to lure Holliday back.

Perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, DeRosa signed a two-year contract with San Francisco prior to Holliday’s decision to remain a Cardinal for the next seven or eight years.

The Cardinals receive a compensatory pick in the 2010 draft for DeRosa’s departure, softening a bit of the blow of having yielded Perez and Todd. Yet the aggregate impact of the trades clearly weakened the Cardinals farm system with several years likely required to reload.

The acts of the trades as well as the subsequent financial commitment made to Holliday should have settled the lingering questions of some over Cardinals ownership’s commitment to win.

All in all, in my view, these bold trades and their subplots became the top story across the Cardinal Nation in 2009.

Next up: A look back at how my prediction from 12 months ago of the top five Cardinals stories of 2009 came to pass, followed by my look ahead to the top five Cardinals stories of 2010.

Link to The Cardinal Nation Blog’s top 20 stories of the year countdown

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I will then wrap up the series with another repeat feature, my prediction for the top five Cardinals stories of 2010.

This placeholder post will carry the links to all 20 stories as well as last year’s articles.

The Cardinal Nation Blog’s top 20 stories of 2009

20. Wagner Mateo
19. Minors coaching turnover
18. Shelby Miller
17. John Smoltz
16. Change in centerfield
15. Shortstop shuffle
14. Whitey to the Hall
13. Memphis and Springfield success
12. Duncan’s disc, discord and departure
11. Third base turmoil
10. Kennedy’s final season Skip-ped
9. The return of Big Mac
8. Franklin the finisher
7. Penny for Pineiro
6. The successful odd couple – Mo and TLR
5. The failed finish
4. Holliday’s free agent romp
3. Cy close and closer
2. The repeat MVP
1. The big trades

Reviewing the predictions: TCN Blog’s top five Cardinals stories of 2009
Projected top five St. Louis Cardinals stories of 2010

From January 2009

Top 20 Cardinals Stories of 2008: #16-20
Top 20 Cardinals Stories of 2008: #11-15
Top 20 Cardinals Stories of 2008: #6-10
Top 20 Cardinals Stories of 2008: #1-5
Projected top five St. Louis Cardinals stories of 2009

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I have received several queries regarding a comment from the most recent installment of his always-informative Wednesday weekly chats in which Post-Dispatch writer Joe Strauss made this statement:

“Descalso and David Freese are the only LISTED third baseman so far due in camp.” (caps are Strauss’ emphasis)

If true, this position change would be new and significant news, as several minor league-knowledgeable readers noted.

Spring training rosters released this week by the Cardinals only group Daniel Descalso with the infielders, without specifying position. The 23-year-old will be attending his first major league spring training camp after having been added to the 40-man roster in November.

Our 10^th-ranked Cardinals prospect at TheCardinalNation.com/Scout.com does have some experience at the position defensively, but it was three years ago. In his 2007 professional debut, Descalso spent about 2/3 of his time at third base (47 games) with the rest (23 games) at second between Batavia and Quad Cities. That is the last time he had meaningful time at the hot corner.

The next season, he was almost exclusively a second baseman between Palm Beach and Springfield (110 games), with a bit of time at short (a dozen contests) and a pair of token appearances at third. In 2009, he was exclusively a second baseman with the exception of 21 at-bats taken while a fill-in at first base. Descalso also played second base with Team USA and in the Arizona Fall League after leaving the Memphis club.

Offensively, Descalso would seem to be lacking in what is traditionally expected from a third baseman. Short of his very hot first half in 2009 with Springfield, he has not stood out with the bat. His career minor league OPS is .746 and he has just 18 home runs in 1277 plate appearances as a professional.

In a Thursday off-line exchange, Strauss referenced an item at the ESPN site labeling Descalso at third base. I was unable to find that in a brief search, and in ESPN’s Keith Law’s top ten Cardinals rankings coincidentally released Thursday (ESPN Insider content), Descalso is listed at his normal second base position. It may not matter as Strauss acknowledges whatever he read may simply be someone’s projection.

Actually, as Strauss pointed out, Descalso not being at third would only strengthen his central point. Other than Freese, there is not another player on the major-league roster or invitee list with third base as his primary position. Of course, there is still time to address it, though I doubt it will be with Descalso, who is realistically a year away. At this point, he is the longest of long shots to make the 2010 Cardinals out of spring training at any position. Just to make sure though, I have a query in to the Cardinals. If I receive an unexpected positive response, I will ensure I share it here.

In-house reserve options in big league camp may include Joe Mather, Allen Craig, Ruben Gotay, Julio Lugo and Tyler Greene. Starting third baseman Brendan Ryan also has played some third base in the majors. None are likely considered third base starting material if Freese fails or is injured.

Some combination of the above along with recently-signed minor league journeyman infielder Kevin Howard will likely man third base in Memphis in 2010. Howard did not score a big league camp invitation.

Free agents still on the market capable of playing third each have questions. They include Joe Crede (health), Felipe Lopez (money) and Melvin Mora (age and money). Others without jobs for 2010 now listed as first basemen who played third in their younger, healthier days include Russell Branyan, Hank Blalock, Nomar Garciaparra and Greg Norton. Hardly an inspiring lot.

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One year ago, Albert Pujols’ status for 2009 was under question. He had undergone nerve transposition surgery in his right, throwing elbow before officially collecting the 2008 National League Most Valuable Player Award, his second. By January, pain in the same elbow due to bone spurs led him to require a cortisone injection.

Just as always since Pujols’ 2001 arrival, the 2009 St. Louis Cardinals needed their first baseman to have a competitive club. He did not disappoint, getting out of the gate quickly, winning the April NL Player of the Month honors while leading the Cards to a 16-7 start.

Pujols added one more chapter to his growing legend by breaking the letter “I” in the Big Mac Land sign in left field with a May 21 home run. He put together a record-breaking first half that culminated in him being voted to start in the All-Star Game at Busch Stadium.

Pujols led the Cardinals offense as he has done for nine seasons. In 2009, he was first in the major leagues in runs (124), on-base percentage (.443) and slugging (.658).

Though he endured a career-long home run drought that began on September 9, Pujols still hit a career-high 47 home runs, becoming just the second Cardinal (Mark McGwire, 1998-99) since 1940 (Johnny Mize) to lead Major League Baseball. His .327 average paced the Cardinals for a ninth consecutive season, something no other player has ever done.

Perhaps most impressive was Pujols’ 2009 production with the bases loaded. He batted 10-for-17 (.588) in that situation, setting team single-season (five) and career (11) records for grand slams.

Especially prior to the arrival of Matt Holliday, Pujols was pitched around often. Albert collected a team single-season record (44) intentional walks, surpassing his record 34 from the 2008 season. This also set the MLB record for right-handed hitters.

Defensively, Pujols continued to stand out, breaking the MLB record with 185 assists as a first baseman, despite continued elbow soreness due to bone spurs that required post-season surgery. He secured the record on the final day of the season, surpassing Boston’s Bill Buckner (184 in 1985).

On the bases, Pujols led the Cardinals club and all MLB first basemen with 16 stolen bases. He became just the second player in MLB history to have 100 RBI in each of first nine seasons, joining Hall of Famer Al Simmons (11).

In fact, Pujols is the National League’s Triple Crown winner for the decade, leading in batting average (.334), home runs (366) and RBI (1,112) despite playing in just the final nine seasons.

Concerns over Pujols’ elbow resurfaced on October 21, as he made the decision to undergo surgery to have the bone spurs removed from his right elbow. It was feared by some that Pujols might require immediate Tommy John elbow ligament replacement surgery, which would have knocked him out of action for at least the first half of the 2010 season.

Instead, famed surgeon Dr. James Andrews of Birmingham, Alabama said Pujols’ ligament was in good enough shape that he would not need replacement surgery. This was great news, and contrary to previous belief that it would be required at some point to address the problem that first surfaced in 2003.

His post-season awards were numerous, including Player of the Year Awards from Sporting News and Players Choice, The Hank Aaron Award, another Silver Slugger Award and of course, his second consecutive National League Most Valuable Player Award. All 32 voters placed Pujols first on their ballot. In the process, Pujols tied the great Stan Musial with his third MVP Award, most ever by a Cardinal.

For a look at Pujols’ 2009 compared to the rest of his stellar career, check out my October article at The Cardinal Nation entitled, “Scout.com Cardinals 2009 Player of the Year”.

Link to The Cardinal Nation Blog’s top 20 stories of the year countdown

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On Tuesday, the St. Louis Cardinals announced that 17 non-roster invitees (NRIs) will be attending spring training camp along with the 38 players already on the 40-man roster. As always, there are two places to get the ongoing scoop on which players are where.

The roster pages at The Cardinal Nation/Scout.com have a wealth of free information. For example, here is the St. Louis 2010 page. Generally, the players there are the ones that are either on major league deals or ended the 2009 season in the majors. The other spring invitees are sprinkled throughout the Memphis and Springfield roster pages.

Be aware that Scout has not flipped the default view of rosters over to 2010, so you will have to use the dropdown box to get the current year. I have freshened the free player pages for 2010 for all 300 Cardinals players under contract. You’ll see all articles related to the players, links to stat sites, scouting video for many players, current bios and multiple years of season highlights and many photos. I continue to believe this is an underutilized resource as there is nowhere on the web where this much information about a player can be found in one place.

The other ongoing source is the roster matrix, still maintained right here. At this point of the year, I am not worried terribly about minor league levels. I am more focused on keeping every name current. All of the 38 players on the 40-man roster are in bold and the 17 NRIs are in italics. The matrix will come in even handier once the season begins when you want to see the entire system in one place.

For those interested, here are some spring training uniform numbers of interest for those attending the MLB camp. By default, many of them, especially the NRIs, will be on the move soon, so most of their player pages have not been changed to reflect these transient numbers:

40-man roster (where there are high numbers and/or changes)

54 Jaime Garcia
65 Ben Jukich
71 Tyler Norrick
75 Adam Ottavino
33 Brad Penny
73 Francisco Samuel
62 P.J. Walters
67 Bryan Anderson
83 Mark Hamilton
66 Allen Craig
7 Matt Holliday
68 Jon Jay
84 Daryl Jones
22 Joe Mather
64 Shane Robinson
34 Nick Stavinoha

NRIs

48 Rich Hill
70 Lance Lynn
76 Evan MacLane
77 Pete Parise
78 Oneli Perez
72 Fernando Salas
79 Eduardo Sanchez
99 Charlie Zink
80 Tony Cruz
81 Charles Cutler
82 Steven Hill
86 Robert Stock
87 Daniel Descalso
3 Ruben Gotay
88 Pete Kozma
89 Donovan Solano
74 Tyler Henley

For those subscribers interested in the minor leagues, I have posted the minors spring training schedules and notification of four new signees on the main The Cardinal Nation home page. Next up for The Cardinal Nation subscribers will be the minor league spring camp invitees.

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What if the greatest St. Louis Cardinals player ever, Stan Musial, didn’t always wear number 6 as has been reported for the last 70 years? It would be akin to catching Albert Pujols sporting something other than 5, a number that seems destined one day to be retired alongside Musial’s 6.

Actually, the latter did occur. It was during in spring training 2001 when the then-relatively unknown Pujols was assigned number 68. The attached photo offers proof. Of course, that didn’t last long as Albert soon stormed onto the major league scene, assigned his familiar number 5 forever more.

My Monday and Tuesday was turned upside down upon receiving a note Mike Oasheim sent to SABR member Mark Stang. Oasheim enclosed a photo from The Baseball Magazine supplement of young Musial. It was taken by well-known photographer William C. Greene of The New York World-Telegram and copyrighted in 1942.

Stan is not wearing number 6.

Greene is very familiar to Stang, the latter being the author of numerous books, including a Cardinals photo history entitled “Cardinals Collection, 100 Years of St. Louis Cardinals Photos”. Based on having viewed hundreds of the Greene’s photos, Stang observes that the photographer did all of his work in New York at either the Polo Grounds or Yankee Stadium.

Number 18 or 19

This sent an army of SABR members and researchers scurrying off to access Cardinals schedules, scorecards, box scores and rosters to try to determine when Stan would have been photographed in New York’s Polo Grounds against the Giants in late 1941 or during 1942 and when he might have worn number 18 or 19.

This seems an impossible task. That is about the time I joined the search.

When Musial came up to the Cardinals late in 1941, he was immediately assigned number 6, never to wear another jersey. I have seen this written about in many places, including at least three books. I re-confirmed with Cardinals Museum curator Paula Homan Tuesday morning that Stan always wore number 6 with St. Louis.

To date, all information unearthed by SABR members affirm Musial’s use of number 6 when playing in New York. Further, 1942 scorecards identify Cardinals Lon Warneke and Harry Gumbert as having worn the numbers in question in the games in question, Stang notes.

The Rochester theory

Musial’s uniform looks like the standard issue Cardinals wools from that timeframe, but the front is obscured by his swing. Something else looked odd to me. As I zoomed in on the cap logo, it was clear that it is not the standard “StL”. It is a bird.

I immediately wondered it might be a Rochester Red Wings cap. Just prior to joining the Cardinals late in the 1941 season, Stan played for the International League Red Wings, then St. Louis’ top minor league affiliate.

After Musial joined the Wings, I found a reference to him playing in Jersey City in front of GM Branch Rickey. In addition, Stang noted the Wings faced Newark in the 1941 IL post-season. Photographer Greene might easily have been dispatched from nearby New York, especially to cover the playoffs. The Newark Bears were the top Yankees’ farm club and had a most-impressive 100-54 record heading into the post-season.

The Red Wings are still in business today and though they are no longer associated with the Cardinals, they are a member of the family in a way. Rochester Community Baseball, the parent of the Wings, the Twins Triple-A affiliate, operates the Cardinals New York-Penn League affiliate, the Batavia Muckdogs.

Chuck Hinkel, the very helpful Wings PR director, has no record of what number Stan wore in 1941, but after reviewing the cap and jersey, he verified they do not match Rochester garb of the era. Hinkel also contacted the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown for assistance, but they have no photos of Musial as a Red Wing that indicate his uniform number.

The spring training theory

After I unearthed several other photos of Musial wearing a similar bird-logoed cap in spring training 1942 and Stang checked other archives, he gravitated to thinking that was the date of the photo. Stang cited the wooden supports of the grandstand roof in the background suggesting a minor league setting rather than a major league park.

Certainly trying to identify the background would help, but lacking specifics, we don’t know if the minor league park was in Florida rather than New Jersey. If the former, then we would also need to solve the mystery of why the New York photographer would have been in Florida when there is apparently no other record of him having shot photos there.

Then, of course, there is the question of why Musial would be wearing a number other than 6 in 1942 spring training after he had already played the final weeks of the 1941 major league season with 6 on his back.

Yet the idea of Stan wearing a higher number in spring training is hardly out of the question. What if it wasn’t in 1942 when he was already a major leaguer, but was earlier?

The Man’s man

I contacted Dick Zitzmann, Musial’s personal representative. He asserts the major league team wore the bird-logoed caps in that era and believes the photo is from spring training 1941.

Like the rest of this hunt, I am not so sure.

It seems less likely to me that Musial would justify an individual photo shoot in spring 1941, as he was considered a struggling low-level minor league player at the time. Musial, who was in the very early stages of trying to handle a conversion from pitching to the outfield after injuring his arm the previous summer, was reportedly worried he might be released. Biographies note that he was unwanted by the Cardinals’ A and B level clubs coming out of spring training 1941.

At best, Musial seemed destined to return to Class D for a fourth season after having pitched there the previous three seasons until Springfield’s Ollie Vanek agreed to take Stan for his Class C club in 1941. Vanek helped teach Stan how to play the outfield. Musial would excel most of the summer there (MO) before being promoted to Rochester, then ultimately St. Louis before the 1941 season ended.

I am hoping we can get Musial’s own view, but I don’t yet know about that.

More to come….

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As St. Louis Cardinals fans know too well, their co-aces, Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright, finished second and third in the 2009 National League Cy Young Award voting, collecting 94 and 90 points respectively. In one of the closest three-way races ever, San Francisco’s Tim Lincecum won with 100 points in the Baseball Writers Association of America balloting.

The Cardinals two were absolutely crucial in the 91-win season posted by their over-achieving 2009 club. The two are at opposite ends of the career spectrum. Carpenter is 34, having become a professional back in 1994 while the 28-year-old Wainwright just completed his third season as a major league starter.

With just one more win, Wainwright would have reached the magic 20-win plateau that could have iced his Cy Young. He came very close. In fact, had Wainwright not been let down by his teammates in his final start, he would have been just the ninth major league pitcher this decade to win at least 20 games, fan 200 or more and post an ERA of 3.00 or less. He achieved two of three, but finished with 19 wins.

Those 19 victories were tops in the league as were his 233 innings pitched. It was the first time in a quarter century that a Cardinal led the NL in innings (Joaquin Andujar in 1984). Wainwright’s 34 starts were a career high.

Wainwright’s 2.63 ERA was fourth-lowest in the league and his home ERA of 2.05 also ranked fourth. He had an impressive 26-game run of working at least six innings and a 13-game quality start streak.

As the season lengthened, Wainwright only got stronger. In his 18 starts from July 1, he went 11-3 with a 1.90 ERA. Over his last 22 starts, the team won 16 times and lost just six.

With his 2.24 ERA, Carpenter was the first Cardinals pitcher to take the NL ERA title since Joe Magrane in 1988. He allowed just seven home runs all season long, the lowest ratio per nine innings in the majors (0.33). His 1.78 walks per nine innings was the third-stingiest rate in the NL.

In arguably the most important contests, in the NL Central Division, Carp was a perfect 11-0. In those tilts, his ERA was 1.58 and he held opposing hitters to a collective .205 batting average.

Carp was also most effective during the heat of summer, ripping off an 11-game winning streak from July 5 through September 7. Overall, the Cardinals starter finished second in the NL in wins with 17.

Carpenter’s spectacular season was diminished in the eyes of voters because of an early-season oblique injury. He sat out exactly 30 contests after pitching in game nine of the Cardinals’ season and returning to the mound in game 40. As a result, he made just 28 starts compared to Wainwright’s 34.

Best of all, the two are under team control for at least the next three seasons, ensuring they will have the opportunity to continue to excel together.

Link to The Cardinal Nation Blog’s top 20 stories of the year countdown

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As the divisive battles rage on over the status of former home run king-turned St. Louis Cardinals hitting coach Mark McGwire, there is one perspective that I do not think is being fully understood.

I see two main issues here that are tangled together. One is the acceptance of McGwire as the Cardinals new hitting coach. The other is his legacy in the game and his standing for Baseball’s Hall of Fame.

Personally, I think he has done enough to satisfy the former and I sense many agree. I think many in the national media are hung up on the latter because though that prism, McGwire did not do enough in their eyes to clear his name – not as a hitting coach, but as a former home run hero.

To date, Mac has been coy about the Hall of Fame, saying he is leaving it to the voters to decide. The writers then understandably want to know more about what he used, when he used it, etc. to try to determine how to assess his results.  They are clearly unconvinced by McGwire’s assertion that steroids did nothing to help his numbers. That is understandable.

Unless/until he can separate the two, the job and the Hall, I believe the controversy will continue.

Of course, that is easier said than done. McGwire has already made his statements and clarifications. He should have said that he has no way of knowing how steroids affected his results. That would have been believable, but it would have put his numbers into question (as if they weren’t already). There does not seem an easy way to backtrack. At this point, perhaps there is nothing McGwire can say to help his cause, especially if the past details he is avoiding are too damning.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a way out.

Assuming McGwire does not want to provide specifics at the level the national press demands, one way to try to cut the ties would be to say, “I will not talk further about my past steroid use just to try to improve my Hall of Fame chances. I believe I have said enough to be allowed to become the Cardinals hitting coach. That is all I want.”

That would most likely cement his low vote totals into the future, but would return him to the more familiar world where “I am not here to talk about the past.” This would offer a safer port for Big Mac in the storm and perhaps allow him to carry out his new hitting coach assignment in some semblance of peace.

Having suggested that, we have no idea if McGwire is willing to chance giving up what remains of his legacy for this job. Yet the entire Cardinals community in its broadest sense (including ex-players, fans, etc.) has both dealt out and taken a lot of heat on his behalf with no end in sight. It may be time for McGwire himself to do something more to turn down some of that heat.

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Making a quick playoff exit was not what the St. Louis Cardinals had in mind when giving up three top prospects for the final two and a half months of Matt Holliday’s expiring contract. Making matters even worse was the reality that the outfielder’s agent, Scott Boras, was plotting the course, a man with a well-deserved reputation for finding top dollar for his clients via free agency.

The situation would remain front and center on the minds of the Cardinal Nation from July through the end of 2009. In fact, it remained topical right up until January 5, when Holliday came to terms on a new, seven-year, $120 million deal with an eighth-year option to remain with St. Louis.

It was a long and painful journey to get there.

From his very first meeting with the press as a Cardinal, a session I attended on July 24, Holliday was asked, then later asked and re-asked about his future plans. The now-30-year-old made it clear from the start that he was in no hurry to discuss a long-term contract.

As the Cardinals season moved toward its close, it was unclear whether or not Boras and the club had yet spoken regarding the matter. On September 24, Boras laid down the law by telling the media he was looking for a Mark Teixeira-like, eight-year, $180 million deal for the man he labeled a “blue-collar superstar”.

Holliday Cardinals futures took a severe beating in fan markets as a result. Into the off-season, Boras hoped to interest the deepest-pocketed teams in New York, Boston and Los Angeles in the bidding.

By early November, when Holliday officially filed for free agency, the Cardinals had seemingly lost whatever small advantage they previously may have enjoyed. Holliday was rumored to have said he would not be giving the club preferential treatment. Chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. acknowledged his Cardinals would not be the high bidder even as the Angels, Giants and Braves stated they were not interested.

The Cardinals offered Holliday arbitration at the start of December, which was rejected as expected. Boras toughened his stance, pulling the St. Louis future of Albert Pujols into the fray. By mid-month, the Cards made their first reported formal offer, rumored to be five years at about $16 million per year, but apparently received no reply.

As the Jason Bay talks with the Red Sox stumbled, that club expressed interest in Holliday. In fact, it later came out that Boston made him a five-year, $82.5 million offer before giving the same deal to pitcher John Lackey, who accepted. Their AL East competitors from New York never got into the mix, though the Mets at least tried to leverage Holliday in their own Bay negotiations before finally landing their initial target.

As December came to a close, a rumor surfaced that Baltimore offered Holliday eight-years, $130 million guaranteed. A number of other sources, including the Orioles team president, shot down the report. In hindsight, a number of industry-watchers felt the Cardinals gave the outfielder too many years, therefore spending too much in total. Perhaps the Baltimore rumor hastened that.

After a meeting between Cardinals executives and Boras in Austin, Texas the first weekend of January, it took only a few more days to lock down the deal, thus ending one of the most up-and-down free agent sagas the Cardinal Nation has ever had to endure – until Pujols nears free agency, that is…

Link to The Cardinal Nation Blog’s top 20 stories of the year countdown

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Following the bold acquisition of outfielder Matt Holliday on July 24, the St. Louis Cardinals seemed virtually unstoppable. For the remainder of the regular season, the Cards would win 39 and lose 25 for a winning percentage of .609. They were the first to clinch and their final divisional cushion was a comfortable 7 ½ games. All seemed well.

Yet in reality, there were two very different periods within that timeframe. From Holliday’s signing through a July in which only one opponent had a winning record at the time, the Cardinals would reach their high-water mark of the season on September 9. At that point, the club was 84-57, 27 games over .500 and 11 ½ games ahead in the division, both season-bests. The Holliday-led Cardinals were 32-11 (.744).

From there through the end of the regular season, the Cardinals limped home with a 7-14 (.333) mark. The stretch included stinging losses such as the bullpen failure that cost Adam Wainwright his 20^th win and likely the National League Cy Young Award. Closer Ryan Franklin, coming off being named the top NL reliever for August and celebrating the signing of a new contract, fell apart, picking up three blown saves and two losses during September.

As a team, the Cardinals continued a disturbing pattern in 2009, still having not posted a winning September/October finish to the regular season since 2004. In taking the 2006 World Series, they were able to overturn their 12-16 final month as injured players came back online.

The 2009 club had no such boost entering the National League Division Series against the 95-win Los Angeles Dodgers. Just a few more September victories would have enabled the 91-71 Cardinals to hold home-field advantage instead of the Dodgers.

Manager Tony La Russa and pitching coach Dave Duncan had re-worked their rotation such that their co-aces, Chris Carpenter and Wainwright, would work games 1 and 2 in Los Angeles with 15-game winner Joel Pineiro ready to start game 3 at home.

Dodgers manager Joe Torre neutralized the Cardinals offense by having his pitchers avoid confronting NL Most Valuable Player Albert Pujols. No one seemed able to pick up the slack. Matt Kemp’s two-run first-inning home run off Carpenter put the Cardinals in a game 1 hole from which they could never crawl out.

In game 2, a tremendous start by Wainwright and the lead were wiped out by Holliday’s crucial error with two outs in the ninth inning when he dropped a ball lost in the Dodger Stadium lights. A Franklin lapse that followed seemed to finish off the Cardinals’ LDS chances.

The offense continued its listless ways in game 3 at home against Vicente Padilla, a pitcher dumped by the Texas Rangers in August. The Cardinals tallied just one run in the final game of the Dodgers sweep, plating just six in total over the three losses.

Since the Cardinals clinched the NL Central, they went a total of 1-9, including the post-season. They were swept for the first time ever in NLDS or NLCS play and for only the third time overall in the postseason. The 2009 Cardinals joined the 1928 club that was swept by the Yankees in the World Series as the only teams in franchise history to fail to win a playoff game.

It was an extremely disappointing finish to what had appeared to be a most promising season.

Link to The Cardinal Nation Blog’s top 20 stories of the year countdown

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The two men with the highest-profile jobs running the St. Louis Cardinals on the field and off come from very different backgrounds.

One is a 65-year-old who has worn the uniform of a major league manager for over 30 years and is a future Hall of Famer. He has a pair of World Championships and over 2,500 career wins in the dugout, approaching half with St. Louis.

The other is a quarter century younger, a man who worked his way up through the system to become the general manager of one of the most storied franchises in the history of Major League Baseball.

It now seems longer ago than just two years when the former boss of both Tony La Russa and John Mozeliak was summarily fired. Then-general manager Walt Jocketty was responsible for bringing both men to St. Louis. La Russa arrived as field manager prior to the 1996 season, having worked with Jocketty in Oakland. Mozeliak served under Jocketty in Colorado and traveled with him when he joined the Cardinals the year prior to La Russa’s arrival.

After internal political pressure over investment and protection of the player development pipeline hastened Jocketty’s departure following the 2007 season, an external GM search was fruitless. In-house candidate Mozeliak was charged with bringing all parties together while keeping the organization moving forward.

Though the club missed the playoffs for a second consecutive season in 2008, Mozeliak made great headway in laying the groundwork for the future. He signed co-ace Adam Wainwright and catcher Yadier Molina to smart long-term contracts and resolved a very challenging situation with Scott Rolen by swapping him to Toronto for Troy Glaus.

No one can make perfect moves every time as Mozeliak gambled and lost on troubled shortstop Khalil Greene and seems to have overpaid for Kyle Lohse. Yet he also diffused two other potential clubhouse situations by moving Adam Kennedy and Chris Duncan.

In 2009, Mozeliak’s in-season adjustments helped the Cardinals take their first division crown since 2006. He acquired Matt Holliday, Mark DeRosa and Julio Lugo via trade, added John Smoltz and signed relievers Ryan Franklin and Trever Miller to contract extensions.

While the organizational tension could have crushed their relationship, instead Mozeliak offers a calming influence behind the fiery La Russa. Sometimes it requires tact to diffuse La Russa dreams like signing Barry Bonds or having 46-year-old Mark McGwire appear as a pinch-hitter, yet Mo seems up for the job.

Because La Russa has the decorated career and works for a perennial contender, it is more difficult for him to contend for game-wide recognition. Yet he was close to receiving the Manager of the Year Award in a sixth career season in 2009.

Though Colorado’s Jim Tracy received the 2009 NL nod, La Russa came in second. He took a club that most experts placed second or third in its division prior to the season and brought it in with 91 wins and a 7-1/2 game cushion in the NL Central. In the process, he coaxed career years from stars as well as the unlikely before falling uncharacteristically early in the post-season.

Starting his 32^nd season in a job that many can’t hold for more than a couple means La Russa is a true survivor. As with anyone in such a public role for so long, the manager has his detractors. Yet his players are the first to defend him as always having their backs.

While La Russa remains one of the premier managers in the game, he is hinting his time in the role is nearing its end. He took several weeks following the conclusion of the 2009 season deciding whether or not to return for 2010 and when he did, it was only via a one-year contract, his first since joining the Cardinals.

Perhaps La Russa has even a little more fire in his belly to try to bring the 11^th World Championship to St. Louis in 2010. It would be his third crown as an MLB manager and Mozeliak’s first in the head role.

Link to The Cardinal Nation Blog’s top 20 stories of the year countdown

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St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright must have remembered what his manager Tony La Russa tweeted back on November 25 about the 2009 National League Cy Young Award voting process.

“Respect Tim, but Adam & Chris earned CY. Computer data best when aid to personal observation & analysis.”

In a Monday radio interview on 101 ESPN in St. Louis, Wainwright teed off on several voters’ thought processes for the Award. The 28-year-old finished third behind San Francisco’s Tim Lincecum and his Cardinals teammate Chris Carpenter.

“I was bothered that two guys didn’t vote for Chris Carpenter. I think that is absurd. Of course, they are entitled to their own opinion, but there is no possible way that you can look at numbers and see that he wasn’t one of the top three pitchers. I think there were three deserving candidates and I don’t think you could go wrong with any of them,” Wainwright said.

After remarking that wins apparently no longer matter to voters, a category in which he led the NL in 2009 and Carpenter finished second, Wainwright was asked if he thinks sabermetrics is overrated in the voting process.

“I think it is overrated because it doesn’t matter how many people you get on base or whatever, if you don’t give up runs… If I walk one more guy an inning than Tim Lincecum or Javier Vazquez, it shouldn’t matter if they don’t score.

“They can take all that sabermetric stuff and stick it where the sun don’t shine, as long as you don’t have people that score. The name of the game is going as long as you can, keeping your team in the game, winning ball games and not letting people score. And if you are not letting people score, then you are doing your job.

“I don’t care if you walk the bases loaded every inning and strike the side out, or get out of it every time without any runs scoring, you are doing your job – as long as you are going deep (into games).

“So if you are going out there and throwing a ton of innings, which Tim did anyways, if you are going out there and keeping your team in the games, which Tim did, he is a deserving candidate.

“But the sabermetrics argument is just a bunch of hogwash to me,” Wainwright concluded.

Link to audio

Looking back to November, ESPN’s Keith Law had left Carpenter off his ballot, placing Vazquez second. His logic was partially based on Carp having thrown fewer innings and Atlanta’s Vazquez pitching in what he feels is a more difficult division, the NL East.

Stats he used to justify his rankings included FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching), VORP and WAR. In FIP specifically, Vazquez ranked second in the NL, just ahead of Carpenter. Carp was second in VORP, with Vazquez seventh. In WAR, Carpenter was sixth among NL pitchers, with Vazquez second.

Law specifically noted he does not consider wins. Link to explanation (ESPN Insider article)

Injury expert Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus was the other voter who did not include Carpenter in his top three. He placed Wainwright and Lincecum ahead of Dan Haren. Carroll also considered Jair Jurrjens.

Like Law, Carroll cited Carpenter’s fewer innings pitched as a factor. Though Carroll’s article included a table with stats categories including WARP3, SNLVAR and SNWP, he did not specifically mention their role in his thought process.  Link to explanation

Carpenter led the NL in the most traditional measure of run scoring, ERA, but like wins, it was not cited as a factor by these two voters. In re-reading their articles, I did not sense the high level of focus on baserunners over runs scored that Wainwright emphasized, however.

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Jim Edmonds’ ambush of Tony La Russa’s ARF “Stars to the Rescue” benefit on Sunday night to announce his desire to come back after a year out of the game and challenging La Russa to hire him was one of Monday’s biggest stories across The Cardinal Nation.

Unlike La Russa’s recent dream of sending new hitting coach Mark McGwire up to the plate as a late-season pinch-hitter, this proposal was neither of his making nor immediately completely shot down by general manager John Mozeliak. That didn’t mean that both the manager and the GM weren’t surprised.

The only commitment given the 39-year-old was that the idea would get a fair hearing in organizational meetings scheduled this week in St. Louis. While the club needs a reserve centerfielder, Edmonds hits left-handed like starter Colby Rasmus, so isn’t a perfect fit.

Edmonds did all he could to eliminate objections, though. He first volunteered to play for free, but then modified his stance. Edmonds still said he is willing to play for the major league minimum salary.

Edmonds’ move reminded me of a similar situation six years earlier when former Cardinals centerfielder Ray Lankford returned to the club after having been out of the game for a year.

Another similarity is that both players left St. Louis via trades to San Diego. After a season and a half with the Padres, Lankford did not play in 2003. As 2004 spring training camp was about to open, the Cardinals announced the signing of the then-36-year-old Lankford to a make-good deal. He earned a spot on the club as a non-roster invitee.

During that 2004 season, Lankford ended up leading the club in starts in left field with 43, but his involvement declined as the season went on. He suffered a wrist injury in late July that just preceded the arrival of Larry Walker from Colorado. Lankford returned when rosters expanded at the start of September but was not named to the post-season roster. He then became a free agent but retired for good.

Lankford first qualified for the Hall of Fame balloting this year, but failed to receive a vote and will be removed from future ballots. Whether it is in four years or perhaps six, Edmonds is assured of collecting more support in his first year of eligibility.

Lankford’s final season didn’t add much to his long and distinguished Cardinals ledger, but at least he ended his career wearing the Birds on the Bat. If for no other reason other than to do the same, I would be in favor of bringing Edmonds to spring training and if he could actually contribute to the 2010 Cardinals team, all the better.

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Here in mid-January, the St. Louis Cardinals payroll management strategy for 2010 still remains under question.

One milestone occurred in early December when during a presentation at Webster University, team president Bill DeWitt III hinted his club might not spend up to their total player budget, expected to be around $100 million.

“Clubs have a tendency — and we’ve been guilty in the past — of putting every resource into the team in the offseason. That just doesn’t leave you any flexibility,” DeWitt III said.

Showing restraint would be a repeat of an approach that was widely ridiculed during the previous winter. The term “keeping powder dry” in reference to holding back money was first coined by his father, team chairman Bill DeWitt Jr.

As we saw in 2009, if game attendance exceeds the Cardinals planning numbers, they could also choose to apply additional financial resources to players. Some combination of “dry powder” plus new expense money opened the door to trade for and take on the salaries of Mark DeRosa and Matt Holliday in June and July, respectively.

About ten days ago, back on January 7, as the club digested the Holliday re-signing, general manager John Mozeliak was quoted as saying the following:

“[Assistant GM John] Abbamondi, myself, Jeff [Luhnow, scouting director and farm director] and the group will sit down tomorrow. I’ll then also get with Tony [La Russa, manager] over the weekend and we’ll kind of prioritize what we think, if we had a bullet to use, what would we use it on. Once we get to that point, then we’ll look at what’s out there and how to use that resource if it’s there. We may stand pat. But we’ll see.”

In the process, Mozeliak outlined the two primary outcomes for some or all of the remaining budget – either acquire one additional significant player using their so-called “bullet”, keep dry powder or perhaps a combination of the two.

How much money are we talking about?

The Post-Dispatch offered a graphical summary following Holliday’s re-signing. In it, they suggest the Cardinals will have $7.4 million remaining to spend. One of the few assumptions required was an estimation of the 2010 salaries of arbitration-eligible players Skip Schumaker and Ryan Ludwick.

Though Schumaker is hinting he is close to coming to terms, completely resolving both players’ 2010 salaries may not be happening soon. At Winter Warm-Up, Mozeliak said the Cardinals would like the contracts of both Schumaker and Ludwick completed before his club dips back into the free-agent pool.

This sequencing doesn’t completely hold together to me.

In his first season of arbitration eligibility, Schumaker should be the easier of the two to sign. The real question is how big of a raise Ludwick is looking for coming off a season in which he made $3.7 million, but delivered declining results compared to 2008.

(For my detailed views of how comparable players’ salaries might be applied, The Cardinal Nation subscribers can read my January 7 article, “How Much Will Schumaker and Ludwick Make?”. At the low end, I have the two coming in at $6.9 million combined, while the P-D estimates they will make $8.5 million in total when all is said and done.)

Here’s my concern. The Cardinals surely have a planning bandwidth for the two arbitration cases and would seem to be position to have at least $6 million remaining once the two arbitration deals are done. (This assumes the Post-Dispatch estimates for the two will turn out to be $1.4 million too low, which I strongly doubt is the case.)

Both sides will formally know how far they are apart on Tuesday, when club and player arbitration amounts must be filed. Though the parties could come to terms at any time, if disagreement remains, the conclusion could drag on until a hearing scheduled as late as the third week in February – the time pitchers and catchers are due to report for spring training.

Again, either way, with conservatively $6 million or more in their chest, why would they be waiting, unless they are planning to save dry powder?

The P-D reports the Cardinals have been in contact with pitcher John Smoltz’ agent but they would like the veteran to wait for a potential offer until they have a better feel for their payroll. The paper has been in contact with the future Hall-of-Famer, who says he has heard nothing substantive from the Cardinals. Smoltz went on to say that while he would like to return to St. Louis, he is preparing to move on.

At 43 years old next season, Smoltz offers at least as an intriguing relief alternative as he would be a fifth starter. His likely contract would include a base deal of several million dollars with incentives for several more, seemingly within the amount of money the Cardinals have remaining.

High on the list of other possible options could include a right-handed hitting outfield reserve who could spell Colby Rasmus in centerfield and veteran depth at third base behind untested starter David Freese.

There is one other possibility for waiting – the knowledge that as spring training nears, prices for the remaining unsigned free agents will go down. Though Mozeliak isn’t saying it, using some of that dry powder over the next six weeks wouldn’t necessarily keep them from gaining and deploying more later.

Even if the Cardinals decide not to make another significant signing this winter, they have already done enough to position themselves as National League Central Division favorites for 2010. Without immediate additional spending, not everyone will be content, however. The annual resurrection of the “DeWallet” loonies, armchair critics of ownership’s player payrolls, is quite possible if the Cardinals head into the season with a mid-$90 million payroll. Instead of applauding player development and efficient spending, the simplistic minds of the habitual complainers can only compare annual bottom lines.

After last year, I have become a believer that if the Cardinals need help during the season and they play well enough to deserve it, ownership will come through. In the meantime, the primary pressure should be on the players and coaches to win.

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As I do each spring, I will maintain a post with the most complete and current plans for St. Louis Cardinals radio and television coverage. This list varies from the official site in that it covers all known sources, including away team television coverage as well as satellite radio.

Keep checking this page as I will update it as more information is known. It is also always accessible from the task bar at the top of the page via “Events/Info” > “Television and radio”.

First confirmation of two televised 2010 spring games

The ESPN schedule for MLB spring games include two Cardinals Florida contests on March 25 and 29. Opponents are the New York Mets and Minnesota Twins, respectively.

Spring schedule reminders

For those with satellite radio and television, I will also be watching the Cardinals’ spring opponents’ plans as they announce which games they plan to cover. In addition to the two from ESPN, I have very preliminary, unconfirmed word that five spring contests may reach the television airwaves this spring. One overlaps with the 3/25 ESPN game. They are penciled in below.

Spring radio plans not announced

On the radio side, in past years the Cardinals have originated broadcasts for Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday games. Though there has been no announcement yet, I expect the pattern to continue.

WWU coverage on FS Midwest

Fox Sports Midwest is planning two post-Winter Warm-Up shows starting Monday, January 18. For those who can’t attend the real thing, this will be the next best alternative. Dates and times here.

The regular schedule

In case you don’t have your 2010 Cardinals one-page printable schedule for the regular season, you can download a copy here. While game times are known, some of the weekend contests are subject to the whims of the television networks.

Regular season TV schedule not yet available

None of the regular season televised games are listed yet. We may still be several weeks away from confirmed schedules. As soon as they are released, I will get them posted.

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Ever winter, it seems the same thing happens. The Cardinal Nation works itself into a frenzy speculating over moves rumored, only to have the club do something completely unexpected.

So it was on December 7 when at Baseball’s Winter Meetings, St. Louis announced that free agent right-handed pitcher Brad Penny agreed to terms on a one-year contract with a $7.5 million base plus $1.5 million in incentives. The right-hander, most recently of the San Francisco Giants, was not even rumored to be a target of the Cardinals.

Once again, the Cardinals moved quickly and quietly to secure a free agent, this time a fourth veteran for their rotation, with the 31-year-old Penny effectively replacing free agent Joel Pineiro and joining Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright and Kyle Lohse.

According to the terms of the contract, Penny will receive the full $9 million if he reaches 204 innings. In addition, in an accommodation to ease his potential re-entry into the market following the 2010 season, the Cardinals agreed not to offer Penny arbitration if he performs well enough to become a Type A free agent. It seems a stretch given that two years of stats are used and he was not even a Type B this year.

Still, the upper 90’s-thrower and two-time National League All-Star offers intriguing potential for the 2010 Cardinals rotation. Like 2009 late-season addition John Smoltz, Penny had been released by the deep-pocked Red Sox during the season. After being dropped by Boston on August 27, Penny drew interest from a number of clubs including Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, the White Sox and the Yankees.

Ultimately, Penny cast his lot with the Giants for the major league minimum and pitched so well during the final month, he likely priced himself out of San Francisco’s plans for 2010.

On the downside, Penny hasn’t thrown a complete game in three years. Two of his former managers in Los Angeles, Joe Torre and Jim Tracy, now with Colorado, were rumored to be against having Penny on their respective clubs. Yet the Cardinals have had success with others who had arrived in town with “me first” reputations and there is no reason to believe Penny can’t follow.

Penny broke the pattern of recent Cardinals rotation additions in that he had resurrected his value elsewhere and signed with the Cardinals for more than he had been paid the previous season.

His predecessor Pineiro had also flamed out with the Red Sox. The Cardinals added him at the 2007 deadline in return for a minor leaguer. Pineiro pitched so well that by October, he earned a two-year contract to remain that was surprising to many, both because of the money ($13 million) and duration.

Despite making 25 starts around a pair of stints on the disabled list in 2008, Pineiro managed just seven wins and posted an ERA over five. It seemed his $7.5 million salary for 2009 would never be earned. Yet, Pineiro did that and more.

The 2009 Cardinals featured both unexpected team success and a commensurate number of individual standouts. A club picked by most to be a second- or third-place finisher instead won 91 games while dominating the National League Central before a quick post-season exit.

NL Most Valuable Player Albert Pujols and mid-season acquisition Matt Holliday offered star power on the offense while Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright each just fell short of the Cy Young Award. First-time closer Ryan Franklin finished second in the NL Rolaids Relief Man Award tally.

Yet the Cardinals player who may have overachieved most, and in doing so provided the greatest boost to the club’s cause, was a well-traveled veteran that some fans wanted to see disposed of prior to the season – Pineiro.

Much was made in spring training about Cardinals third base coach and Team Puerto Rico manager Jose Oquendo leaving the 31-year-old out of his World Baseball Classic rotation. Some believe the perceived snub motivated Pineiro, while others look to his new found sinker, a pitch he calls a one-seam fastball, for his 2009 success.

The right-hander was consistent and efficient all season long, picking up 15 wins, one off his career best, while tossing a personal-high 214 innings. Pineiro spun three two-hitters.

His control was impeccable. Pineiro ranked first in the major leagues with his 1.14 walks per nine innings. He had 13 outings in which he walked no one and pitched three nine-inning complete games, facing fewer than 30 batters in each – quite a contract to Penny’s inability to finish his starts.

Pineiro helped himself by keeping the ball down. He led the majors with his 2.73-to-1 ground ball-to-fly ball ratio and placed among the top five MLB pitchers in inducing ground ball double plays with 1.22 per nine innings.

The Puerto Rican native finished the regular season 15-12 with a 3.53 ERA, his most wins since 2003 and lowest ERA since 2002, both achieved when he was with Seattle. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, Pineiro pitched so well that he priced himself out of the team’s future plans, not unlike Penny and the Giants. But Pineiro’s future sights were set higher.

Despite being branded by some a product of Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan’s tutelage, Pineiro set out to find at least a three-year contract in the $10 million dollar per year range. Due to market realities, he may have to settle for a two-year deal for half the amount or less, $15 million. In other words, it may be about the same annual value as Penny’s 2010 base. The Mets and Dodgers are rumored to be most interested in Pineiro’s services.

No matter how you slice it, the 2010 Cardinals would have to be delighted if they could achieve a comparable return from Penny as they received from Pineiro in 2009.

Link to The Cardinal Nation Blog’s top 20 stories of the year countdown

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Wednesday, day three of the Mark McGwire re-entry program as architected by the crisis-management firm of former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, apparently called for a shift in focus to the all-new Big Mac. The Cardinals hitting coach is shown swinging the bat and happily teaching his hitting students in California, relieved by his confession and ready to move forward.

It was inevitable that change would not go completely smoothly. Jose Canseco, self-proclaimed whistle-blower of the steroid era, did his best to ensure that, trying to keep the focus on the past, instead of the future.

While the primary subject of Canseco’s claims, widespread use of illegal drugs in baseball, was again reinforced, McGwire’s former Bash Brother teammate still has a long history of contradicting himself, embellishing details and later wishing he had handled himself differently.

With that backdrop, the “he-said, she-said” debate over whether or not Canseco injected McGwire, where, when and how often is most incredulous. What we have here is a dispute between two admitted long-time drug users, both of whom have been proven to foster a long-term habit of avoiding or at least severely bending the truth.

The phrase, “the first liar doesn’t stand a chance” was coined for situations precisely as this. If you hooked these two up to a polygraph, as Canseco has challenged, there would probably be an explosion the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Godzilla and Ghidorah destroyed Tokyo.

Canseco’s counterattacks included a blast fired at his former manager and the current skipper of the St. Louis Cardinals, Tony La Russa. In an ESPN Radio appearance, Canseco vehemently disputed La Russa’s claim that the manager was unaware of McGwire’s use of steroids until this Monday.

Said Canseco: “That’s a blatant lie. There are some things here that are so ridiculous, and so disrespectful for the public and the media to believe.”

It is a sad state of affairs indeed when Canseco is left to define what is ridiculous and disrespectful.

Putting the foolishness aside, I have been among the many troubled by the apparent rigidity of the manager’s remarks. Just as in McGwire’s damning unwillingness to acknowledge the performance-enhancing nature of performance-enhancing drugs, La Russa’s insistence that he was unaware of McGwire’s use all these years is a credibility-crusher.

As the result of his remarks, La Russa has been hammered in many corners of the press, almost as much as McGwire himself, it seems.

La Russa’s assertion that he did not know of McGwire’s past use may have been akin to Bill Clinton swearing he didn’t inhale. A member of the legal profession like the former President, La Russa never said he did not have past suspicions. He only said he did not KNOW until Monday.

Of course, he didn’t know. Without positive drug tests, no one knew for absolute certain until McGwire himself said so. Yet, La Russa left himself wide open by avoiding the obvious.

It is not as if La Russa didn’t have past suspicions about steroids use on his own team, as did current Cardinals first base coach and former A’s strength and conditioning coach Dave McKay. At the time, during the original “don’t ask, don’t tell” era, there were no processes to deal with the issue, so everyone apparently just kept quiet.

Directly from the Mitchell Report:

“…La Russa and McKay acknowledged that they had suspected Canseco of using steroids when he was playing with Oakland. McKay said: ‘It just got to the point where you knew he [used them].’ Neither La Russa nor McKay shared their concerns with the Oakland front office, however. According to La Russa, ‘I thought, what’s the use? So I didn’t say anything.’”

In a Wednesday St. Louis Post-Dispatch article, Joe Strauss recounted the following discussion with La Russa this week:

“La Russa referred to McGwire’s initial experimentation with steroids in 1989-90 as ‘a little flavor here and there. That is not right, either. But he was not a big abuser at that point,’ La Russa said.”

If the manager didn’t know about McGwire’s use back then, during the final years of when Canseco and Big Mac were Oakland teammates, the only logical assumption one can make is that his hitting coach must have shared those details of his steroid use for the first time when he spoke with La Russa on Monday.

As one might expect, the manager is defending his new hitting coach to the nth degree, including McGwire’s controversial, logic-defying stance that his long-term steroid use was solely for health reasons.

”He admitted his performance was enhanced when he took steroids because it kept him healthy,” La Russa said Tuesday. ”But he also worked on his stroke, put better spin on the ball, learned the game between pitcher and hitter and became more dangerous as a result. With that stroke, good things happened.”

As MLB executives, Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. and general manager John Mozeliak together worked the details of McGwire’s re-entry plan with Fleischer and company leading up to Monday’s blitz, La Russa was kept on the outside.

On one hand, I understand that, as the job of any team’s field manager is in the dugout, not in helping to define a very ticklish public relations rollout. On the other, this isn’t any manager, nor is La Russa detached from the story personally. There seemed both benefit and risk avoidance reasons for including La Russa in the process.

La Russa had spent the last five years on a seemingly ever-shrinking island, angrily defending McGwire against any and all attackers while the former player himself remained far underground. A major pillar of that defense was La Russa believing McGwire when the slugger assured his manager he did not use steroids.

In a January 18, 2009 New York Times interview that did not receive enough attention at the time, La Russa said the very thing he needed to this week, but did not.

La Russa acknowledged that Canseco (and therefore by implication, his teammates, as well) may have been using drugs behind his back and those of his staff. La Russa remained firm that McKay ran a “100 percent straight” program in Oakland, but the manager explained that he and his coaches couldn’t be everywhere.

“Now, as José (Canseco) said, when you go to the toilet or you leave the ballpark, Dave didn’t control that,” La Russa told the Times.

In his defense of McKay, La Russa only reinforced the obvious – coaches can’t be with their players all the time. As such, especially when there was no drug testing, they could not be sure what the players were taking or not taking. Yet for reasons only he knows, La Russa did not say that again this week in McGwire’s context when he easily could and should have.

One might wonder if in his staunch desire to defend his own, La Russa purposely drew more than his share of the heat in an attempt to take some focus away from McGwire. If so, the maneuver seemed instead to fan the flames that lap at both of them.

Just as if McGwire had simply said something realistic like, “I have no way of ever knowing how the drugs I took affected my performance and results.”, had La Russa repeated his earlier comments, as common-sense as they seem, a lot less dirt would have been thrown around this week.

Instead, the trenches around that lonely island are seemingly being dug even deeper – when they didn’t necessarily have to be.

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The 2008 St. Louis Cardinals missed the post-season for the second consecutive year, something that hadn’t occurred since 1999. A major reason why was a bullpen that could not find a reliable ninth-inning man and amassed an amazing total of 31 blown saves, 12 games lost in extra innings and 13 walk-off losses, all MLB-worsts.

What a difference a year makes. The 2009 relief corps represented one of the strengths of the team, albeit often overlooked in the shadows of National League Most Valuable Player Albert Pujols and Cy Young Award contenders Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright.

It didn’t begin well.

Coming into 2009 spring training, manager Tony La Russa declined to name a closer and training camp competition did not clarify the situation. Jason Motte was given the first opportunity and blew the opening day save. Since-traded Chris Perez didn’t step up, so Franklin just quietly took the reins and strengthened his hold every time out. The situation was finally so obvious that before too long into the season, even the cautious La Russa had to admit that Franklin had indeed become his closer.

Before long, Franklin was most appropriately named to the National League All-Star Team, his first such recognition at the ripe old baseball age of 36. At that point, he was 21 for 22 in save opportunities and had an ERA of 0.79.

Franklin was named the MLB Delivery Man of the Month in August after converting 11 of 12 chances while not allowing an earned run. On September 1, the Cardinals announced Franklin signed a contract extension for $6.5 million plus incentives covering 2010 and 2011. Feast quickly turned to famine, however. In his ten outings after September 1, Franklin walked ten, yielded 15 hits and allowed seven runs for a 6.75 ERA. He went 2-2 and was just 3-for-6 in save opportunities.

Despite that month-long late season slump, Franklin and his billy goats gruff facial hair finished with 38 saves, third-best in the league and the best by a Cardinal since 2005. His conversion rate was fifth-best in team history for a closer with 30 or more saves. Franklin placed second in the NL Rolaids Relief Man of the Year competition in his first full season as a closer and second among NL closers with his 1.92 ERA.

Here are some of Franklin’s impressive results in tabular form, with his 2008 numbers offered in contrast. Note how Franklin improved in every category possible in the year-to-year comparisons.

Even with a much younger supporting cast in 2009, the stability of the closer undoubtedly solidified the entire pen. Comparing this group to last season’s again demonstrates a marked improvement in every measure.

While that is not all due to Franklin, as the leader of the pen, he deserves considerable credit for the solid 2009 contribution of the Cardinals relief corps.

La Russa and pitching coach Dave Duncan attributed Franklin’s late season woes to fatigue from pitching too frequently. They are interested in acquiring another bullpen veteran who could step in and close during those days when Franklin would be unavailable in 2010.

Link to The Cardinal Nation Blog’s top 20 stories of the year countdown

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Currently tied for eighth on Major League Baseball’s career home run list with 583 and the former single-season leader with 70 in 1998, Mark McGwire has spent much of the past decade in seclusion.

That changed in a most surprising manner when on October 26, 2009, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa announced the reclusive McGwire was returning to baseball as the club’s full-time hitting coach for 2010.

This move would only help the 2010 Cardinals, La Russa explained. McGwire had worked in an informal hitting coach capacity in past winters near his California home. Among his students were current Cardinals Matt Holliday and Skip Schumaker and ex-Card Chris Duncan.

There was just one problem – the 800-pound gorilla in the room – McGwire’s past.

The 1998 discovery that McGwire was using a then-legal supplement banned in other sports began a marked change to the feel-good story of the former slugger, whose exciting home run chase with Sammy Sosa helped re-energize the game following strikes that had turned countless fans away.

McGwire’s problems picked up momentum as allegations of more serious steroid use were raised by his former teammate Jose Canseco and others, affirmed much later by Big Mac’s own brother Jay.

La Russa remained Big Mac’s staunchest defender following McGwire’s 2001 retirement and especially after his fateful 2005 Congressional testimony. Joining a number of then-current players subpoenaed, McGwire’s infamous refusal to discuss his past made him an unwitting symbol of baseball’s steroid era.

Having become eligible for Hall of Fame consideration four years ago, McGwire has yet to receive more than 25 percent approval in the annual vote where 75 percent is the minimum. Voters often cite the unanswered questions about Big Mac’s alleged steroid use as the reason for withholding their support.

The day McGwire’s hiring was announced, general manager John Mozeliak emphasized the new coach would meet with the press “sooner, rather than later”. Over two months later, there was still no sign of McGwire.

That is how this story should end, since the focus of this series is last year. Had I been ranking the top 20 stories of 2009 plus the first two weeks of 2010, this would have been much higher than number nine.

Because this story is so hot, I will bring it the rest of the way home – briefly, I promise, to those as weary of McGwire commentary as I.

On January 7, a new wrinkle was introduced when La Russa said that he had discussed only part jokingly with McGwire on multiple occasions about the idea that the now-46-year-old might be activated as a late-season pinch-hitter for the 2010 club. Mozeliak moved quickly to write it off as a joke.

Just four days later, a multi-step rollout plan for McGwire’s re-entry was carefully executed, reportedly under the guidance of the crisis-management firm led by former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer.

The blitz began with a press release from the player, followed by shorter written responses from club officials and the commissioner. Next were one-on-one interviews with local media and the big show – an hour-long live interview expertly handled by MLB Network’s Bob Costas.

The eyes of baseball were upon Big Mac as he tearfully told his story – at least the parts he chose to tell. He made solid points in most every aspect, from outlining key events to showing contrition, but those gains were overshadowed by an odd refusal to acknowledge that steroids could have impacted his strength and his results on the field.

Still, if McGwire’s true intent was as he said, to relieve his guilt and open the way to becoming the Cardinals hitting coach, he met those objectives. Let others decide if he or any player from the steroid era should grace the Hall of Fame. McGwire said this wasn’t about that.

Even without McGwire’s press blitzkrieg, concluding its second day as I post this, the sheer magnitude of importance of the return of one of team’s most popular players of all time cements this story’s placement in the 2009 top 10.

Link to The Cardinal Nation Blog’s top 20 stories of the year countdown

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The primary concern many media members seem to have with the Mark McGwire interview with Bob Costas live on MLB Network Monday night is that McGwire would not acknowledge using steroids to enhance his home run power. He stated his only reason for using over a multi-year period was for health purposes, to help recover from injury. Further, McGwire would not accept that steroid use positively affected his strength and his numbers.

Many seem to think McGwire overall did well by coming out. Yet, some are stuck on the point regarding what the slugger believes about the supposed non-impact on his results.

Let me offer another perspective. Why does it matter what McGwire believes? Does it matter if he is ill-informed or naïve or in denial or just plain wrong?

People wanted his admission. They wanted his apology. They surely got even more than they expected. After listening to an entire hour spent on the hot seat, McGwire not dodging any tough questions, does anyone question his sincerity?

“It’s the stupidest thing I ever did. It’s an illusion,” McGwire said regarding steroid use.

McGwire talked frankly about what he used and when, about his congressional testimony and that fear of prosecution was why it happened the way it did. He outlined the personal anguish. McGwire tearfully apologized and asked for a second chance.

Let the Hall of Fame voters decide for themselves whether to diminish McGwire’s accomplishments or any other baseball player from his era, as difficult as that task may be. They now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that McGwire used steroids.

If writers want to put into question the authenticity of his records, so be it. But that should be driven by a review of the numbers, not by what McGwire personally believes about the impact of steroids. I don’t see the relevancy.

McGwire’s stated reasons for coming forward are for himself and because of his employment as the Cardinals hitting coach. He specifically said it was not about the Hall of Fame. So, why didn’t he say enough on Monday to be allowed to assume his new job in peace?

A final thought. If McGwire firmly believes that steroids won’t help, is that a bad message to send to youth?

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As every year at this time, I received my package with the autograph details for the St. Louis Cardinals Winter Warm-Up to be held next weekend. That provides me the opportunity to look at those rising and falling in the eyes of whoever in the Cardinals hierarchy sets what they believe to be the market prices for autographs.

While the prices demanded for signatures of course do not reflect true player value, they do indicate fan value in a way. Of course, all proceeds go to charity, Cardinals Care, so the needy are the true winners.

What is different this year is that there are fewer individuals signing for a donation and lower prices for the ones that are signing. In addition, more free autographs will be provided than before. This is a wise move by the Cardinals, better reflecting the current economic environment.

Autograph tickets are on sale online from January 9 through January 13, with any remaining tickets available at the event. Albert Pujols, the highest-priced autograph at $175, was handled via a special lottery.

The pre-imposed limit of autograph tickets per player per person is three, same as in the past except that for a few players, the previous limit was two. Last year, they were Rick Ankiel, Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright. That restriction went away this year, as did Ankiel.

Joining Pujols at the top of the pecking order is newly-signed Matt Holliday at $100. In a sign of the economy, there is only one price increase from last year and it is understandable, new Hall of Famer Whitey Herzog.

Autograph prices are lower this year than last for 11 current players and two ex-Cardinals. In addition, the number of current and former players signing for free has been expanded from 47 to 54, while the total number of fee signers is down from 34 in 2009 to 24 this year.

There are several notable Cardinals missing from the WWU autograph rolls, all for unknown reasons except one, the hitting coach.

The ranks of the Hall of Famers signing have dropped noticeably with regulars Bob Gibson and Lou Brock being the most obvious absences.

Among the past Cardinals heroes signing for a small fee include fan favorite Mike Matheny. John Tudor dropped off the list.

The article would not be complete without noting these ten former Cardinals who signed in past years. Best of luck, guys.

Not to be forgotten are a major batch of current and former Cardinals who will be signing for free. There are some nice names in here, so don’t think you have to drop big money to snare good autographs. For example, Jaime Garcia won’t be free next year, I bet.

The 14th Annual Winter Warm-Up, a three-day event, will take place on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. weekend; Saturday, Sunday and Monday, January 16-18, 2010.

For full WWU information, including signing schedules and ticket prices, follow this link.

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This story has its origins way back in 1997. That June, the St. Louis Cardinals drafted a pair of players who would be in and out of their picture for the next 13 years. Prior to the selection of left-handed pitcher Rick Ankiel in the second round, the Cardinals made second baseman Adam Kennedy their first pick, 20^th overall.

The system’s 1999 Minor League Player of the Year made his major league debut that August. He didn’t remain long however, as he was shipped off to the Anaheim Angels along with Kent Bottenfield for Jim Edmonds during the next spring training.

Six years later, Kennedy came home, signing a three-year contract with the Cardinals worth $10 million. It didn’t work out well for either party.

He batted .219 his first season back, which prematurely ended with knee surgery. Kennedy’s 2008 included a request to be traded over concern that he lacked a defined role on the team. He saw time at first base and made his career debut in right field in addition to second base.

Despite the problems, it seemed that Kennedy would remain wearing Cardinals number seven for the final season of his contract in 2009. Then, on February 9, just days before spring training, St. Louis surprisingly gave Kennedy his release. The club remained on the hook for the $4 million due the second baseman for the season.

A seemingly-crazy idea that manager Tony La Russa hatched and general manager John Mozeliak first floated in the press in late January suddenly became the Cardinals’ “Plan A” for the second base position in 2009.

Outfielder Skip Schumaker would move to second base despite having only a bit of college experience at shortstop almost a decade earlier. It was a Cardinals year-to-year move last successfully pulled off by Red Schoendienst over 60 years prior, in 1945-46. Even experienced Cardinals infield coaches had questions over the likelihood of the experiment’s success.

To his immense benefit, once he got past the surprise, Schumaker totally immersed himself in learning his new position on the fly. I remember a particularly difficult spring training contest when he could have packed it in after a couple of tough errors. Instead, Skip persevered, taking extra fielding practice every day led by devoted coaches Jose Oquendo and Joe Pettini. Skip held the job to start the season and never looked back, seemingly improving his defense all season long.

Almost as impressively, Schumaker maintained his level of offensive performance through it all, batting .300 for the third consecutive season. In fact, his .306 average was seventh among National League leadoff hitters. In an example of how Skip gets the most out of his abilities, he led the entire NL in groundball-to-flyball ratio for the second straight year at 4.01-to-1. Schumaker, a student of former Cardinals slugger and new hitting coach Mark McGwire, is again working out with McGwire this winter in California, joined by keystone partner Brendan Ryan.

Though he made the opening day roster in four consecutive springs starting in 2006, 2008 was Schumaker’s first full season as a major leaguer. As such, he just became arbitration-eligible for the first time. Skip could remain under club control for three more seasons before being eligible for free agency. Kennedy, a free agent, is on his way to his third organization since leaving St. Louis less than a year ago.

No matter what the future holds, Schumaker’s amazing, defying-the-odds transformation deserves to be one of the Cardinals top 10 stories of 2009.

Link to The Cardinal Nation Blog’s top 20 stories of the year countdown

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In my earlier post, “Time to act on the Holliday-Pujols contract FUD”, I concluded with a case why I think the timing is right for the St. Louis Cardinals to push to secure a contract extension for Albert Pujols on the heels of Matt Hollliday’s seven-year, $120 million deal. I said this despite the fact that Pujols is still two seasons away from free agency, an indication that perhaps there should be no urgency.

I also raised the possibility, albeit remote, of trading Pujols at this July’s deadline if it could be determined he would be unsignable. It would be a year and a half prior to his reaching free agency, but the last time the Cardinals could deal their franchise player without his consent. This has significant bargaining value for the organization if needed.

Many disagree with this entire line of thinking for different reasons.

• Some would not consider the notion of voluntarily parting ways with a franchise icon under any circumstances. I can understand that, though I think it is bad business not to thoroughly evaluate every avenue.
• Others feel that since both sides appear to be amenable to a deal, the boat should not be rocked. I can see that point of view, too, but waiting may become increasingly distracting to all involved due to external pressures. Good intentions alone do not always lead to the desired result.
• Yet others suggest Pujols’ re-signing price could actually decline over the next two years due to market, performance or injury factors. This is a real possibility, though one I think is less likely than the alternative. I am also concerned that the closer it gets to Pujols reaching free agency, the chance he ends up testing it may increase.

A first baseman with recent circumstances most similar to Pujols may be the New York Yankees’ Mark Teixeira. Last winter, agent Scott Boras extracted a mammoth commitment for $180 million over eight years for Tex, then a free agent. His $22.5 million annual salary is second only to teammate Alex Rodriguez in all of Major League Baseball.

What makes Teixeira’s story even more fascinating is his trade history. It is unusual for a player of his caliber to be dealt once, let alone twice, yet that is precisely what occurred. Better yet, the trades were one-and-half and a half-year respectively prior to his free agency.

As such, this offers an extraordinary view into the declining trade value of a top talent as free agency neared.

In July 2007, the Texas Rangers, Teixeira’s home since he was taken in the first round of the 2001 draft, dealt him to the Atlanta Braves. Their justification was the feeling they could not afford to keep their first baseman when he would achieve free agency following the 2008 season.

The Rangers’ take was immense – five of Atlanta’s top 20 prospects at the time, including their top three. (An aged journeyman lefty reliever, Ron Mahay, also joined Teixeira in Atlanta.) Three of the five prospects the Rangers received are now established major leaguers, exciting shortstop Elvis Andrus, hard-throwing pitcher Neftali Feliz and catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia. It is certainly not entirely due to this trade, but it is still worth noting that the Rangers have improved in each of the two seasons since trading Teixeira away.

One year later, the Braves found themselves in a similar situation, unable to keep Teixeira. With the first baseman closing in on free agency, their take from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim was much less. For Teixeira, they received just two players – former top prospect and major leaguer Casey Kotchman plus the Angels’ then-sixth-ranked prospect.

With a year-and-a-half of hindsight, this second trade looks even worse than it did at the time. Kotchman has since been flipped twice, to Boston then Seattle, first for a partial season of Adam LaRoche, then for a major league reserve, Bill Hall, and a player to be named later. Kotchman is still struggling to establish himself as a front-line first base starter.

Once the 2008 season ended, Teixeira spurned the Angels for the Yankees and their hefty contract. Los Angeles received two draft picks in compensation. They became the 25th and 40th selections in the 2009 draft.

In summary, Teixeira’s market value dropped from five top prospects at 1.5 years out to one major leaguer and a top prospect at .5 years prior to free agency to finally a pair of future draft picks at signing, two players far from being able to contribute at the major league level.

While this may not have a direct relationship to Pujols’ situation with the Cardinals, it does illustrate that in the unlikely situation it is determined that he needs to be dealt, sooner is better than later, lest his trade value take a similar negative trajectory as Teixeira.

I want to reiterate that I am not advocating a trade, but I do believe the Cardinals need to push the Pujols camp into providing them a clear signal as to his signability within whatever long-term financial planning guidelines club officials have established. The Holliday trade opens the door to do this if it hasn’t already been done.

We as the public will likely not be informed of any discussions between the two sides, as it should be. The other edge of that sword is that no news will not be perceived by many as good news as the pages of the calendar slowly flip toward Pujols’ free agency.

If not now, at some point over the next two years, the external noise over Pujols’ future will become so deafening and the repetitive questions will become so distracting that perhaps both sides will just sit down and get the deal done.

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I am pleased to announce that The Cardinal Nation Blog is FOXSports.com’s Blog of the Day, achieved through this site’s association with Yardbarker. What caught their attention was my unique spin on the Mark McGwire pinch-hitting story, “La Russa dreams of activating McGwire (honest)”.

If you’re one of the many first-time visitors here and consider yourself a St. Louis Cardinals fan, please check this site out, register and join the discussion. I think you will enjoy the articles and commentary, with new, thought-provoking content posted 365 days a year.

The link to my McGwire article is featured on FOXSports.com’s main MLB page just under Ken Rosenthal at the lower left under the heading “Blog of the Day”.

Regulars on this site may have noticed recent evidence of my decision to join the Yardbarker network. This broader exposure is a prime reason why. Thanks to all for reading!

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“If we’re in contention, we’ll put him on the roster Aug. 31. It’s a nice little dream,” said La Russa. “Is it likely? Probably not. I don’t think it’s a zero possibility. The point is, you’ll see him in spring training. He won’t be leaning on the batting cage chatting it up. He’ll work his (butt) off, and hitters will be thrilled he’s there helping them.”

Seems to me the manager should be fantasizing about how to get McGwire in front of cameras and microphones first. Since the October 26 announcement of McGwire’s hiring, his coming out party has been “imminent” ever since.

The delay, now approaching three months, has led to Cardinals beat writers hinting of problems in “coaching” the coach and suggesting that McGwire may be reconsidering the whole idea.

The reluctant McGwire has been pushed by La Russa to return to the game for years. The reasons could be just to gain his teaching knowledge or to help restore some luster to the slugger’s tarnished image or a combination. La Russa admits his over-30 year managerial career is nearing its end and may be trying to settle his accounts first.

When I read about the pinch-hitting idea, all I could think of was La Russa trying to make amends for sending light-hitting Kerry Robinson to the plate for McGwire in a sacrifice situation in the top of the ninth inning of the final game of the 2001 NLDS. The Game 5 loss ended the Cardinals season and would be McGwire’s final career appearance as an active player. A month later, Big Mac faxed notice of his retirement to ESPN.

La Russa was conflicted over the move from the moment he made it.

“One of my lowest moments as a manager was pinch-hitting for Mark. But you’ve got to try to win the game. Pinch-hitting for Mark is not something I am going to remember fondly,” La Russa said at the time.

Could this recent dream be another attempt to right a past wrong?

Update: In a Thursday morning radio appearance with Charlie Brennan on KMOX 1120, La Russa said McGwire and his family are likely to be in St. Louis next weekend for the Winter Warm-Up fan event and the new coach is expected to have cage time with some of his hitters also in town for WWU. The manager said that McGwire is not going to be a “celebrity coach”.

It was not asked whether McGwire’s long-anticipated meeting with the media to answer questions about his past would also occur during Winter Warm-Up weekend, scheduled from January 16-18.

Quizzed about the California pinch-hitting story, La Russa reaffirmed it and provided additional detail. He characterized it as a running “half-joking, half-serious” discussion between the two. La Russa said he saw McGwire at a recent hitting session in California and Big Mac was “really whistling the ball.” The manager attributed McGwire’s 2001 retirement to a “barking” back, apparently now healed.

Update #2: In addition to down-playing La Russa’s dream, in a head-scratching moment, Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak spoke to MLB.com on Thursday about the McGwire event. The GM had stressed way back on October 26 that it would be held “sooner, rather than later.” It is not known if Mo was cracking a smile on Thursday while asserting the following about McGwire’s coming out:

“Right now we’re on track. In terms of when we roll it out, I don’t know.”

That pretty much sums up the entire McGwire situation.

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FUD.

Ever hear the term? Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt.

St. Louis Cardinals fans have lived under a haze of FUD almost from the moment general manager John Mozeliak announced the acquisition of outfielder Matt Holliday on July 24 without having agreement on a contract extension for the then-free agent to be. It required almost six long months to get a deal done, which was finally announced on Tuesday.

Instead of celebrating the huge signing, one which makes the Cardinals the clear National League Central Division frontrunner and top challenger to the League Champion Phillies, many in the mainstream media couldn’t wait even 24 hours to start shoveling more FUD.

Though far from alone, one example is Yahoo’s Jeff Passan, who kicked off our unwanted sentence of another seven years of terrible Holliday-Holiday puns with his article entitled, “Cardinals’ short-lived Holliday celebration”. The side dish is a table with the pun-ishing heading “Card sharks”.

I can summarize the entire article and the reactions of many others with this single-sentence excerpt:

“If Matt Holliday costs $120 million, what on earth does that make Albert Pujols worth?”

Here’s the deal.

Even if Holliday had never been born on January 15, 1980, one day before Pujols, Albert would still be recognized as the best player in the game today. Holliday’s contract did nothing, zero, nada, zilch to increase Pujols’ value. It was already far more than either $120 million or $17 million annually.

FUD alert!

While Holliday scored a nice contract, do you have any idea how many other Major League Players currently make more than his $17 million per year? How many others have a deal greater than $120 million in total?

Give up? The answer is 14 and 11, respectively.

Might some of their deals be a better gauge of the top end of baseball’s pay scale than Holliday’s?

I know. That would blow the whole theme of part two of the FUD story – where the poor bumbling Cardinals awaken one day from their deep slumber only to see “Pujols standing next to Hal Steinbrenner or John Henry or Arte Moreno, flashing his teeth and holding up a new jersey,” as Passan suggests.

The author may be a former understudy of a player agent, as he spins a yarn suggesting Pujols’ new salary might somehow be tied to the on-paper increase of the value of his franchise or club revenue growth.

Let’s get real. The Cardinals wouldn’t have anted up for Holliday if they didn’t believe they could sign Pujols. The former is a very good player, but the latter is the face of the franchise. This ownership group knows what they are doing.

So, what might it take?

Realistically, putting aside Alex Rodriguez’ re-negotiation of his Texas Rangers contract which pays him $27.5 million per year, his Yankees teammate Mark Teixeira and Dodger Manny Ramirez are the highest-paid position players in terms of annual salary at $22.5 million each.

Given the downturn in the economy, should it take more than $25-$28 million per? That would be between $8 and $11 million per year more than Holliday. If Pujols wants seven or eight years like Holliday, give it to him. $175-$224 million is a wide enough bandwidth to work within. Even at $175M, only A-Rod ($275M), Derek Jeter ($189M) and Teixeira ($180M) have bigger deals.

In my opinion, the time for the Cardinals to push ahead with a substantive offer to Pujols is now. In the Thursday Post-Dispatch, Mozeliak was asked about this, but offered a reply that was far too passive for my tastes.

“If he (Pujols) and his representatives want to engage, we’re ready,” Mozeliak said.

Some are concerned with the idea that Pujols might feel disrespected by Holliday making more than him over the next two seasons, the remaining term on his current seven-year, $100 million contract. A way to quickly address that potential concern is to approach Pujols now about re-negotiating the next two years as part of his extension. Even if he turns the initiative down, he knows the team put forth the effort.

With the signing of Holliday, the Cardinals have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt their commitment to spend. Being as sensitive as he is, Pujols would not want to be painted as the bad guy by turning away a mega-deal from the club, especially after having made such a point in the past about wanting to see ownership commit to fielding a competitive team around him.

Ownership has done their part. Now it is Pujols’ turn.

Yet, forcing Pujols’ next step is not without risk. If he makes it clear that he wants a record-breaking, unprecedented, beat-A-Rod contract, his greed would be exposed. It might also punch his ticket out of town, an unthinkable idea to many.

While I don’t expect this to happen, if for some reason the Cardinals receive signals that crush their optimism over keeping Pujols, by acting now, they would still have time to consider how best to deal him. Waiting means the potential of receiving only a measly pair of future draft picks in return for the game’s best player if he reaches free agency.

At the end of the 2010 season, Pujols will receive full no-trade protection as he completes his tenth year as a major leaguer, the last five years with the same team. Realistically, that leaves the 2010 trade deadline as the best trade-no-trade target decision date.

By getting the ball rolling now, the Cardinals will put the pressure on Pujols to declare his hand. Even if Pujols really isn’t ready, both sides will have a much better idea where they stand.

Could they wait? Of course, they could. Pujols still has two years remaining on his current contract. Yet given Albert’s consistent success, how would his asking price go down in the future?

(I will pick up the remainder of the story here in an upcoming post.)

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