New Pitcher coming into town???

Update: Here's the official release from the Cardinals

According to John Hadley of KTRS the Cardinals have acquired Joel Pineiro for a player to be named later. He had a few decent years with the Mariners back in '02 and '03, so as always....we'll see if Duncan can work his magic.

Trade Deadline

I love this time of year...even if the Cards stay put. The sad part though is that there isn't any HUGE name being tossed around out there. Mark Teixeira is the biggest name out there, and many people think that once he leaves hitter friendly Arlington his numbers will dip. There aren't any big name pitchers out there at all...unless you consider Jose Contreras a big name. One thing that does appear clear, is that Kenny Williams (the GM of the White Sox) appears to be taking the roll as the Scott Boras of GM's (that is if the reports about him are true). One report had him asking for Hideki Okajima (one of if not the best set up man in baseball this year) for Jermaine Dye. In 50+ innings this year Okajima has only allowed 5 ER. Meanwhile Dye has been pounding the ball to the tune of .235 and is in his walk year. Ah the greed of the human race.
On the Cardinal front there have been a few rumors out there regarding some STL players. One has the Cleveland Indians wanting Troy Percival. With how much the Brewers gave up to get Scott Linebrink, I would be more then willing to explore that if I were Walt. Another rumor had Anthony Reyes going to Philly for OF Michael Bourn. I don't know much about Bourn, but from what I've heard he's a Juan Pierre with a better arm and a better eye. He won't hit for power but has a ton of speed....and of course is young. The biggest problem with getting Bourn would be that in a few years we would have two guys in our OF that although they would be young wouldn't really be the power threat that outfielders have become these days. As far as Reyes goes, in my opinion the Cardinals either need to keep him in the rotation or trade him. His AAA numbers are great and one would like to think that if given a fair shake (the past two years TLR has come out and said that he would have to fight for a rotation spot when everybody else thought it was clear he would get one..especially heading into this year). Reyes didn't pitch BAD in his first 8 games. During those games he never allowed more then 4 ER's...but didn't get any run support (during that time the Cardinals scored a TOTAL of 8 runs!!!!) I say throw him out there and give him the confidence that he is staying up no matter what...and see what happens. Maybe he does flop and maybe he does need a change of scenery, but at least give him a chance to flop with an offense that might actually give him some support now. And if you want to send him back down...trade him!! Don't toy with the guy. Get a prospect or two out of him and let him "fail" with somebody else. All in all I think if given TLR and Duncan's full confidence, he could be a solid pitcher.
And finally, as far as Izzy goes. A week or two ago it was thought by many (including myself) that Izzy was the most likely Cardinal to be traded. However, word has it that Izzy has told Walt he wouldn't waive the no trade clause that he has earned through his 10\5 (10 years in the majors and 5 with the same team). He likes it hear and wants to retire with the Cardinals. As a baseball fan I love to see that loyalty. Kind of like Biggio and Bagwell down in Houston (although they spent their entire career with Houston...which is unheard of these days). Now that your bum hip is all better...we love you in St. Louis too Izzy. And with a reasonable $8 mil option next year, the front office wouldn't mind having you back either I'm guessing.

THE key week

This week right here could very well determine the rest of the season. This week the Cardinals face both the Cubs and Brewers. And that's important for two reasons. If they can gain ground on both those two teams this week the team will feel they still have a shot, and it could determine if they are going to be buyers or sellers or neither. Like we've said before they don't have much to sell, but if they get out of this week in a further whole then what they enter it with....we could see Izzy or Franklin being dealt. As much as I would love to see Izzy finish out his career in Cardinal red, he could fetch us some decent young talent....nothing huge, but decent. Plus, he is still somewhat of an injury risk with that bum him. He's having a GREAT year stat wise and his stuff is looking pretty stinking good too, and good relief is selling at a high premium.

Burning Holes in our Pockets

Mulder and Carpenter - let's hope they don't turn out to be our Wood and Prior. The abscence of Carp is going to leave us with a huge gap - and our inability/reluctance to move some aging money (Rolen) isn't going to help matters next year. Our farm system is descent, but it isn't very deep.


Maybe we should have tried to get the whole Duncan family! Dave Duncan's other son, Shelley, finally got called up to New York the other day. He's already hit a couple of homeruns!

Pack it in

Watching the Cards losing to ATL already 5-0 and heard the news we were dreading.....Carps done for the year and probably a good chunk of next year too. Time of death......7:46 ET July 19th.

Rusty Rolen

Scott Rolen left the team in Florida to have his shoulder checked out. Brendan Ryan is said to be our guy tonight facing Dontrelle Willis. He's heading out with some issues in his left shoulder. At least this time he is speaking up when he's hurt rather than keep things under wraps from Tony.

Ol' Doc Paletta is earning his check this year! Seems like the only reliable player whose body isn't falling apart is Albert Pujols. The upside is that if we can keep things close enough with sending out a minor league team everynight, maybe next year we can have another serious run at the October Classic.

No news

Well...still no news about Carpenter. One would like to think that the ol' "no news is good news" saying would be true in this situation, but I don't think that is the case. I haven't heard anything at all as to if the swelling is gone, last I had heard it had at least gone down. What scares me the most is that Paletta was wanting to talk to other docs before diagnosing.
My question is, is that if it's arthritis and nothing else....is there really anything that can be done except take anti-inflammatory meds? Can surgery fix it and if so what kind of recovery time are we looking at here??? Stay tuned for more information.
As far as the rest of the team goes, it sounds like Jimmy ballgame might be coming back as soon as Wednesday. He sprinted around the bases the other night and seemed fine. At this point he just has to pass a conditioning test before being activated.
If you're wondering if the Cardinals will be able to pick up a starter before the trade deadline...at this point I don't see any impact pitcher being added. Even though the starting rotation is obviously the weakest link on the team (tell me again why Thompson got yanked from the rotation???). With Javier Vazquez may be the best SP on the market, and if that's the case Kenny Williams is going to try to squeeze as much as he can out of the team that wants him. And with the farm system finally starting to make some noise, now doesn't seem like the time to deplete it again. I'm thinking there won't be many (if any) additions until MAYBE the off-season.
It also doesn't appear that the Cardinals will be sellers at this point. They only have a few players that seem to be a logical choice to move (Izzy probably the best trading chip they've got and they have an $8 mil option for next year on him). Plus, as weak as the Central is, no matter how bad the Cardinals seem now, the team believes they are not out of it. Especially with the Brewers losing Sheets for at least 15 days (although I'm not sure how much they're actually losing by bringing Gallardo into the rotation), and the Cubs being....well the Cubs.
And the beat goes on......

Carpenter

Gulp....bad news coming out of Florida. At least for right now Carpenter's rehab has hit a snag as he woke up the day after his last start with some swelling in his elbow. If this is anything serious, this could very well be the end of the Cardinals season. All year the sentiment has been that if the Cards were close by the time Carp got back, they would have at least a shot at winning the central. If this is a season ending problem with Carp it will more then likely be season ending for the Cardinals. Stay tuned for further news.

The Swing

Well, last night I had a chance to go watch the Cardinals Single A club, the Swing of the Quad Cities. For the first time I kept a scorecard. I highly recommend doing so at least once, it helps you focus on the game quite a bit. Although I kinda felt bad for my brother Jordan who went with me, I wasn't one for conversation during the game :). It was actually a pretty good game...for single A. Tyler Herron (1st round pick in 2005, 46th overall) took the mound for the Swing. The first inning started off great. He struck out the first two batters followed by a harmless ground ball to third. For the first 5 innings he allowed 5 hits and 2 ER with no walks. Then the 6th hit. In the 6th alone he allowed 4 hits and 3 ER. He had three 1-2-3 innings and didn't walk anybody over 5 2\3 innings. The bullpen did a tremendous job though. Overall they pitched 3 1\2 innings and throwing up zero's. No hits, walks or runs..but also no strike outs.
Offensively the boys did pretty good. Everybody got a hit and all but two worked walks (they received 9 walks altogether). Catcher Steven Hill went 2-4 with a double and 2 runs scored and 2B Jared Sweitzer went 4-4 (all singles) with a run scored. Sweitzer also made some pretty good plays at second, including a diving play up the middle to start the 7th. Christian Lopez also made a diving play at short in the bottom of the 9th. The one negative thing I saw as far as offense goes, was Tim Dorn looking ridiculous in his two strikeouts, both times on some kind of off speed pitch.
But it was a good 8-5 win for the Swing. If it wasn't for that terrible 6th inning by Herron, it would have been a very good overall win.

Why

That's my question. You have one of the best hitters in the game on your bench. You're down by one run with two on. You've got guys that can be moved around if you do actually go into extra innings. Why not put Pujols in??? There has been several times in the past few years that Cardinal fans have questioned Tony...but now all N.L. fans will be doing that...especially the team that ends up in the world series. The was was right there waiting to be won. I can understand why he wouldn't pinch hit for Hudson...they more then likely would have walked Pujols. But why not with Rowand coming up???? Instead he the only player left on the bench at the end of the game was his own player.

Pujols the Homerun King

i'm glad to see Pujols jump in the festivities and joing the HR Derby. Two concerns: he hits terribly in that park!!! AND - i hope he doesn't hurt himself like ol' Edmonds did the last time he was in the contest. Al hasn't knocked one out of the park since mid-June. maybe this will get him going!!

All-Star break

Well all things considered 40-45 isn't THAT bad...especially in the NL Central. The Brew Crew had a rough week leading up to the break....losing both series to the upstart Pirates and the Nationals. With Carp coming back 7.5 back isn't all that bad at all...the Cardinals proved last year that a 7 game lead can be lost in the blink of an eye.
Speaking of Carp, I'm sure most of you have heard that he pitched 3 scoreless innings the other day. Not very many pitches were thrown meaning he's probably got a few more starts down in the minors before he'll be brought back. But OH what a day that will be!!!
And finally...the Buehrle saga is OVER. And Mark finally gave in on his demands for a full no trade clause. The Sox will have a window in 2009 I believe it is, that they will be able to deal him, but if they do his salary will go up and I believe his option will be picked up automatically. Buehrle sold himself short in the end. 4 years $56 mil isn't shabby, but he could have gotten 5\$72 mil in the open market, didn't get his no trade clause and is signed with a team that is falling pretty fast. But one has to tip his at to him. With all those negatives he still signed the contract because it kept him in the place that he wanted to be. Chicago is where he "grew up" baseball wise. He's comfortable there and he's still pretty close to his home town of St. Louis. White Sox fans should be thanking him every start the rest of the year....that truly is a home town discount.

Odds and ends

Well the Cards are a sweep away from finishing the first half of the season just a game under .500. I know...sounds crazy but it's true. Now they have a pretty large task ahead of them to do that (they face two lefties, Lowry and Zito, and young gun Tim Lincecum), but it's fun to think about isn't it. A big thanks to the Pirates, who took 3 of 4 from the Brewers.
The Cardinals also signed Ryan Franklin to a two year extension with an option for 2010. He has done great for us this year being that 8th inning guy. But one has to wonder if he can keep it up. He's not striking out a ton of guys, and he's 34. But with the way that closers and setup guys are selling pretty high on the market this could be a good signing. There has been some small talk about the possibility of him taking over the closers roll if something happens to Izzy (i.e. trade or option not being picked up).
And finally, the Buehrle saga continues. Word has it that he was seen putting stuff into a box. Now he kinda said that it wasn't BECAUSE he was being traded...but did mention that it was to make things easier IF he gets traded. It'll be nice when this is all over. Either trade the guy or give him what he wants. Kenny Williams wants to have his cake an eat it too. The guy is willing to give you a huge home town discount, the least you could do is give him a full no trade clause. Stay tuned...hopefully there will be an end to this after that AS Break.

Carpenter

Don't look now, but the return of Carpenter is creeping up on us. Carp is set to take the mound during a competitive game for the first time since opening night. He gave the team a slight scare after he had some "slight discomfort" in his elbow on Friday, but ended up throwing some on Saturday and still has the green light to pitch tonight. Still no word on when he'll actually return...but I'm guessing shortly after the All-Star break.
Looper comes back tonight...we'll see how that goes. Basically he's already pitched the amount of innings he usually does. I know Duncan had him training to be a starter during the off-season. But still.....I guess we'll see.
Eckstein is set to come off the DL tonight too. It'll be nice to have most of the starting lineup back on the field. Now we just need to get Jimmy back out there.

Red Jockety

there was a rumor floating around today that Walt could be discussing a position for himself in the Cincinnati Reds' organization. folks have been saying that he has talked to the Reds' executive office, Bob Castellini.

however, Walt has firmly denied any discussions and is focusing his time on making some moves. after picking up Maroth and Percival, the Cardinals are evidently still on the hunt to make some moves. i think we're all but out of the running this year for Buerhle.