Buehrle Extension or No Deal

funny thing is - i have a brother-in-law that works at the Sun Times - the ones that leaked that Buehrle may have signed a 4-year $50 mil dollar extension. now his competitor, Chicago Tribune, is saying that there isn't a deal yet!! it will be interesting to see how it plays out...i'd love for it all to be some sort of smoke screen so i can give him bro-in-law a hard time!

seriously though - 4/5o would be a smoking deal...and you know that if that sort of deal happened, then Mark B would have had to have talked a least a little with the Cardinal organization which i am assuming would have offered something similar. who knows. i don't think Buehrle will be a Cardinal anytime soon if he does this extension.

it will be interesting to see what the White Sox look like in a month - and even over the next year or so.

Some good new amongst all the injuries: Molina has been cleared to return!! and word on the street is that Scott Rolen is feeling better and will not have an MRI....yet!

Injury update

Well the Post Dispatch had an encouraging article that you can read here. They talk about the chances of Carp maybe even going on a rehab assignment this week!!! Hang in there boys!!! This team has all the tools to win the Central if healthy...and as of right now that's a big if.

Meanwhile I guess Maroth looked good last night, I myself didn't get a chance to watch it but come on....one run on two hits to that offense!!! Where was OUR offense?!?! Getting 6 hits but only one run off of our castoff Jorge Sosa. Tonight is Oliver Perez...a lefty that gave us fits in game 7 last year. This is a guy that can shut any team down when he's on....or can get lit up when he's off....there isn't much in between. Meanwhile Wellemeyer comes in tonight with a few questions regarding the health of his wrist. At least we only used three pitchers last night...well basically two since Springer only faced Green. So oiur pen could get used up tonight. We need to string together some wins here before the all-star break.

Something on Buehrle now....the chatter around the league is that the Cards have offered Anthony Reyes and John Rodriguez, plus an unnamed minor-league prospect. Not sure what that unnamed minor-leaguer is....but as long as it's not Rasmus I might say do this. J-Rod won't see any playing time up here unless someone gets injured and he's playing pretty well down in AAA. Reyes....I'm on the verge of being done with him. He's got talent but can't put this together. Imagine how different the starting rotation could look even by seasons end if this were to go through...Carp, Mulder, Buehrle, Maroth and Wainwright. Total 180 from where we started the year (especially if Mulder is healthy and on)

Another pitcher

Well we got another project for Duncan to work on. According to Ken Rosenthal the Cards have aquired Mike Maroth from the Tigers...what we gave up is not yet known. He's best known for his 21 loss season back in 2003. But since then he's been OK at best....he should be a decent #4 or #5...Actually the way this staff is shaping up he'll be our #2 or better!! Decent signing as long as we didn't give up too much. He's a lefty to boot. Go get 'em Dunc!!

Edit: According to stlcardinals.com the deal isn't done yet. They do say that it's close to being done and that he could start for us as early as tomorrow. As long as this deal goes through, you can bet that he'll be in there either Sat or Sunday to push Wells out of the rotation.

Edit part II: This is what Scout Inc. has to say about him.....sounds like Duncan could help him. Scary that his fast ball reaches 86

"Maroth does not have an overpowering arm, and his typical fastball sits at 86 MPH. What he does is throw four pitches -- two- and four-seam fastballs, a curveball and a change --each of which he commands well. His changeup and two-seamer are his best offerings. He uses his changeup as an out pitch. The key for him is getting ahead early in the count with his fastball so he can set up his change. He uses his two-seamer as a cutter to work inside against righthanded hitters. Maroth locates the ball well early in the count. He throws strikes, but does not throw the ball over the heart of the plate often. He also has an exceptional mental makeup. Losing 21 games in 2003 only made him a better pitcher, and he bounces back quickly from bad outings."

Speaking of Jocketty

Well the pot has been stirring about Walt recently and whether or not he'll still be in St. Louis after this year. A while back there were stories about there being big differences in the front office since this Jeff Luhnow guy, who was hand picked by DeWitt, and Tony and Walt. Now those stories are coming back out in the form of "Jocketty's immanent departure and what not. I won't go into it fully, but you can read for yourself over at Vivaelbirdos.com.
We as Cardinal fans will look at Jocketty and blame him for the lack of moves in the past few off-seasons. It make sense really...he's the one making the deals so he's the one to blame right??? But if you look at the numbers you will realize that Walt probably has done his best with what he's been given. In 2005 the Cardinals had the 6th highest payroll, this year they've dropped down to 11th. AFTER WINNING A WORLD SERIES!!!! I'm not one that likes to call out the owners as being cheap. But they have one of the best GM's in all of baseball but refuse to give him the resources that he needs to keep up with the times...what do they expect is going to happen?
If Walt leaves after this year, the Cardinals will be in for some long years ahead.

Rumor Mill

i love it when trade talks start flying. Burhle to Cards. Zambrano to Cards. Milton Bradley to Cards. Griffey to Cubs. Helton to Yankees. Angels getting in on the a Teixeira bidding war.

it's what makes baseball that much more exciting. so few ever happen, but fans have so much to hope for...even if their team likes the farm to trade or the money to offer.

The Cards won't do anything major - they never do. We have too much coming up for us on the upside with Mulder and Carpenter rehabbing. Rolen will stay put and Jockety will play it conservative...playing the field Izzy-style: load the bases and make things exciting, and then shut things down before any action starts.

Another interesting signing

Well I was wondering if the Cards would jump on the Ohka bandwagon.....and they have. According to Ken Rosenthal, the Cardinals have signed the Veteran Tomo Ohka to a minor league contract. That Memphis team is getting quite a few Vets coming into town. In no way am I jumping for joy with this signing...but I can't see how it would hurt us. He makes two starts down in AAA, if they like him they bring him up if not he has the choice to pursue other options or stay with the Cards. The way our rotation is looking right now he was pitching about as "well" as our other starters. This is how desperate we are:(

What an odd week!!

So who would have thought that we would have lost two out of three to the Royals. Followed by a real drubbing to the A's. Followed by two wins in a row at the hands of the A's, actually outscoring them in the series 28-26!!! We've said it before but the offense has really turned it on in the past month or so. IF ONLY we could get a few quality starts here and there to help out the bullpen!!! As bad as things have seemed lately, this season is by no means lost. The Brewers have finally come down to earth with both their pitching and hitting (although it will be interesting to see this Gallardo pitch tonight, if anybody is going or is able to watch it on TV let us know what you think of him). I'm getting tired of hearing myself say it, but if we're within reach of the Central lead when Carp comes back, we could have a shot at making the playoffs.
I guess Buster Olney was on the radio today talking Buerhle to the Cards again. I would love to see it, just not sure if we have enough to get him in a trade nor do I think we'll be able to afford him in the off-season. It's been wide spread that he may be willing to accept LESS to come here. But will the front office shoot him an offer a lot lower then what he is even expecting (i.e. Suppan). Or..will they make a run at the big fish this year...Carlos Zambrano. Word last week was that he was joking with reports about a gift he received from Yadi saying "It's a gift from my future catcher." Personally this is a guy I hate as a Cub but would love as a Cardinal. It would be very interesting to see if Duncan could work with his attitude or not. Either way...he'll be asking way to much for our liking and Walt has made it known that he won't pay somebody more then Carp.
Anywho, the Royals are back in town and I would hope we would be able to take at least two of three from them. Come on boy's!!!!

Embarrassing

That's the best way to describe that last series. You have to give the Royals credit....they did just come off of beating the Phillies two out of three. But as a fellow Cards fan just said "With how terrible our pitching is, it's amazing that we're as close as we are."
Last nights game exploited, more then any other game this year, how terrible our starting pitching is. We have four guys that should be in the bullpen (I'm including Wells in there) leaving only one guy in our starting five that should be there and right now he's only a #3 or #4 starter at best. And the fact that our starters can't make it past the 5th inning is KILLING our bullpen. We USED to have one of the better pens in the NL. But as last night showed, those arms are tired. Walt and Co. know this too....so what to they do, go and sign Percival instead of finding another SP (to my knowledge Ohka is still out there....he's GOTTA be better then what we have right now).
Last night was horrible in so many ways. You can't walk 7 batters, allow 6 of them to score, and expect to win. It's just not going to happen. One of my biggest fears about games like last night. Is that it's already taken it's toll on the pen. But if the offense continues to do well, yet has nothing to show for it, the same things could easily happen to the bats. Any other night, if you tell me that the Cardinals scored 8 runs on 11 hits, I'm going to say that they won or at least it was a close game. But 17-8?!?!?! To one of the worst teams in baseball.
The sad part about all this though....I don't see much changing. At least not until Carp gets back. Wells probably needs to be moved to the pen and Jimenez needs to be sent back down and bring Reyes back who has pitched pretty well down in AAA, but I'm not sure how soon that's going to happen. As viva el birdos points out, Wells was Tony and Duncan's choice. Not Walt's or the front office, their hand picked choice to be their #2 guy.
Anywho, next up is some guy that we traded away a few years back. Man wouldn't he look good sporting those birds on the bat right now!!!!

Percival

Here's a good article about the Percival signing. Turns out that the Cardinals were the first team to see him pitch due to Percival's relationship with Adam Kennedy. The article mentions that he was offered several guaranteed MAJOR league contracts but decided to go with the Cardinals in large part because of the friends he has on this team (Kennedy, Spiezio, Eckstein and Edmonds). Nobody knows what we got with this signing, but it's encouraging to know that he's isn't in a hurry to get back in the majors, just to get on the mound in a game and work his way back up.

Weekend

Well that actually wasn't TOO bad of a weekend, even though the Cards lost 2 out of 3. The worst part of it was them losing a 4-0 lead in the first game. But at least they won a game against the hottest team in baseball.
Next up is the Royals. Not sure what to expect from this series. The Royals have played decent ball lately and clobbered the Phillies yesterday. But with 6 out of the next 9 games against the Royals, it would be nice to see the Cards win at least 4 out of those 6...if not more.
I've said it before but it's really nice to see the bats have come alive. Come Wed it will be a month since the Cardinals were last shut out and only twice during that same span have they been held to only one run. Eckstein is above .300 which is crazy to me. I know he's been doing pretty well lately but had no idea it was that hot. But really he had one bad month (April). May he hit .338 and .419 in July. Keep it up lil' buddy.

Cards add some relief

The Cardinals signed Troy Percival to a minor league contract.

He joins ex-Angel teammates, Eckstein, Kennedy, and Spezio as members of the formal 2002 World Champs to come to St. Louis. He's a 37-year old closer that hasn't pitched since 2005 - he tried to pitch last year but couldn't get over some forearm issues.

He's most recent served as a pitching coach for the Angels, but decided he felt good enough to give the majors a shot. I hope La Russa doesn't bring him up and slide Franklin into the rotation. Ryan's been pitching well for us and I hope they don't mess with that.

I won't go as far as saying this is a waste of money (who knows - maybe he'll get in shape and we can trade him off or sign him for cheap for next year), but it just feels like Jockety is scraping anything he can muster from garage sales. You can buy all the brick brack you want for $0.25, but when you get home - what do you do with all the junk?

Draft and more

Well the easy schedule takes a break this weekend. The Cards went 10-6 during that easy stretch. We at least finished about .500 but losing that Washington series stung a little. We're also welcoming into town one of the hottest teams in baseball this weekend in the Angels. I will say that I am a National League guy through and through. But the AL the three teams that I like following more then pretty much anybody else in the NL (Twins, Angels and Indians) I can't really explain the Angels. The Indians I've always enjoyed for some reason. And the I've always liked the Twins since my grandparents own a cabin up in MN that my family went to for every summer vacation. So for me this series is one of the more exciting series' for me this year.

Now onto the draft. I really don't know what to think of this. Our #1 pick was used on an "average" player. No spectacular tools with this guy.....he's a hard working player. He fits the mold for St. Louis...but still there were better players available from what I hear. And just reading up on some of the other picks....it's no wonder why Tony and Walt aren't too fond of this Luhnow guy...since he's the one doing most of the picks i believe.

Anywho...one website that I LOVE these days is http://futureredbirds.com/. Right now there is a list of some of the guys we've drafted and some reports on them. Most days though it updates you on how our minor league teams do each day. It also gives the good bad and ugly of the players on those teams. Check it out.

Draft Day

Cameron and i were able to catch bits and pieces of the draft today. Matt Wieters ended up going at number 5 to the Orioles and it seemed certain that we would get yet another pitcher. However, Walt went and grabbed a shortstop: Peter Kozma - a high schooler out of Owasso, Oklahoma. EPSN compared him to a very young Michael Young, but many have said he plays to be just an average player. He had a decent Senior year and is said to have above average speed.

2nd round: David Kopp RHP from Clemson
Jess Todd RHP from Arkansas

3rd round: Daniel Descaso 3B UC Davis (i think they were making a run to the CWS)

4th round: Kyle Russell OF from Texas

Wilson will have surgery

Preston Wilson will have surgery on his knee - he's been benched since the first week in May. Evidently, he tweaked it in Spring Training but said he played through it because he didn't think he would make the team had he not been on the field.

Not much of a loss here - I've never been a big fan of Wilson.

In other news, Chris Carpenter threw the ball today in his first step to come back from surgery. Mark Mulder also took the mound at Busch stadium today and is making some progress.

The Cards are playing well enough to stay in second place in a very weak, soap opera-ish division (yes, we're laughing at you Lou and Zambrano). It's not out of the question for us to pull this thing off - especially if we can hold on close to the Brew Crew and then get Mulder/Carp back.

Possible Transactions

So will Izzy go to the Cubs (there's been some talking going on at MLBTradeRumors) - his value may be getting as high as it will be before he starts to slip again.

What about Jermaine Dye going to the Yankees for Bobby Abreu...or the Yanks backing out of their deal with Clemens?

I still think the Cubs will unload Zambrano - i don't see them signing him, and they may as well unload him while they can. they have some promise in their younger pitchers and i've heard they'd like to add another big bat and they can do that by unloading Big Z's paycheck. what if they grabbed A-Rod and dropped him in at Shortstop?! that would make for a huge batting order, but a hodge podge of personalities.

and i've yet to hear any serious ramblings on the Card's unloading Scott Rolen. i like the guy - but i'd be interested to see what we might get if we shopped him.

as usual, there are big names being thrown around all over the web - we'll see if anyone actually makes a move.

Injury update

Well a glimmer of good news today. Mulder will hopefully start throwing off a mound this week. However, there's still no time table for a return. More then likely it won't be until August. With that said, if the Cards are able to hang in there in the TERRIBLE NL Central, we could get a HUGE boost come August with Mulder and Carp set to come back. Carp shouldn't have that hard of a time coming back since it wasn't a huge surgery. Mulder, however, is a crap shoot. Those two months he would be back could be nothing short of bullpen duty since he's coming back from shoulder surgery.
Also, Preston Wilson is all but set to have knee surgery. As far as I'm concerned it's not a big deal at all. We have guys on our roster right now that are doing just what PW would be doing and J-Rod is having himself a good ol' time down in AAA, hitting 4 HR's in his last 3 games.
Duncan COULD be coming back as soon as Tuesday after suffering a staff infection. I'm not to hopeful for that...I'm think it will be more towards the end of the week. But at least as of right now it doesn't appear he'll have to hit the DL.
Rolen also could end up back in the lineup as soon as Tuesday. It might also be more likely that he'll come back later on. The team isn't going to push him back into the lineup.
Not any real news in regards to Carpenter. At this point I'm hoping that no news is good news.

In other news keep your eyes on the first year draft that's this Thursday. Not sure what to expect here. Keith Law from ESPN supposedly has a mock draft up that has the Cardinals getting Matt Wieters. Wouldn't mind this at all since Wieters is a possible top 5 pick. So why would he drop to the Cardinals at 18??? Two words...Scott Boras. The team hasn't been afraid to draft Boras clients in the past. However it's yet to be seen how damaged the Cardinal\Boras relationship is after the whole Weaver fiasco. I don't know nearly as much about the college\high school prospects as I wish I did so I won't even try to speculate as far as the draft goes. But it's good to see the MLB draft getting more publicity.

Welcome back Jimmy and Scott

Well that thin air up there in Colorado sure did Jimmy and Scotty well!!! Jimmy has raised his average .020 points and hit 4 of his 5 hr's this year, and maybe even better news is that he's pulling the ball a lot more.
Rolen on the other hand has raised his average .050 points and is currently riding a seven game hitting streak. Not much as far as hr power yet...but those three doubles in the last two games sure helped his team out!!
Pujols has also has also brought his average up to where he's flirting with .300 FINALLY!!!
If those three guys can stay consistant, the Cardinals may still have a DECENT shot at winning the Central. Babyface Thompson has been a pleasant surprise but will he cool down like Looper has??? And how much can the pitching staff REALLY rely on Wellemeyer??? A lot of questions yet to be answered. But at least the boys are scoring runs!!

In other news, the Missouri Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control has said that Mike Shannon's Steaks and Seafood restaurant was not at fault for Hancock's death. Not sure if this means his family will remove the restaurant from the lawsuit or not but it can't help their cause at all.