well it turns out the cubs called up So taguchi, so we may see him in cubbie blue sometime over teh weekend series.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/cardinals/story/7764B6D5CBCDC41786257634005AAFEF?OpenDocument

i feel bad for so, granted he's a 5th OF at best and with september call ups he's more like a 6th since he's past 40.  But he had a great few years here as a 4th/5th OF with enough fans liking him to get a cards shirt with his name and number on 'em (i don't really recall any other 4th OF on any team that has a t-shirt jersey of the player you could buy at stores)

Love him or hate him, he was a great part of the '06 run, especially the NLCS.  (i still think yadi should of got series mvp over suppan but oh well)

you gotta love his quotes too "I don't have any friends in Chicago, so I thought it was a wrong number."  He's a true cardinals player.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/sep/10/redbirds-win-game-1-pcl-playoffs/

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/sep/11/redbirds-rally-take-2-0-lead/

Jaime Garcia started game 1, did well only allowing 1 unearned run on 1 hit, (I can't believe there was a 2 1/2 hour rain delay in NEW MEXICO!) very pleased to see he's pitching well, i hope he'll come to spring training strong and make a case for the #5 starter, we need a decent lefty starter, haven't had one of those since......Mulder, year 1.

Game 3 is in Memphis today (friday) here's hoping the redbirds get the sweep so we can start calling up guys (or do they still have to play the AAA national championship against the IL winners?)

Never Forget.

Liked reading this post in the Nats' news section at mlb.com

here's the link

he says TLR turned his career around, all with just playing 2 months for the guy, nice piece that shows that TLR can turn players around, and as we all know, Dave Duncan can turn pitchers around as well.  Even though lopez isn't the best fielder, he did provide a great bat for us down the stretch and even though skip is suberb as he can be at 2nd, when the offseason came around i was hoping to get lopez back for a year.

Did anyone check out the Top Pick 2009 videos on mlb.com

the "race" is between pujols and hanley ramirez for the top pick, and you can vote on the site too, i think pujols has a pretty good lead over ramirez (go vote)

But did you see the videos they made for the top picks?  They seem like crappy political commercials you see on tv during campaign time, really stupid too.

I especially think hanley's ad is pathetic, it says to not be fooled by Pujols' OBP of .462 last year because his "off-base percentage" was .538 so why would you vote for someone who's off base 54% of the time

And i'm like, "wait a minute, Ramirez had worse OBP than pujols had last year, what the heck is this "ad" saying?"

It just seems really stupid and even though it's just a vote, it's a really dumb idea to have campaign ads that are completely pointless.

I gotta say, i miss Julian Tavarez playing for the Cards.  Even though we never used him as a starter i still liked him in the pen. his year in 2004 was great (proving that dave duncan's skills with pitchers just somehow brings the best out of most of the pitchers he meets.....most)

I personally think julian is one of the most off the wall players in the game today when he's not pitching, and even though i hated it when he went to boston, i'm of course glad he signed with the nats, even though i'm not too happy with the way he went about it.  600 pound J-Lo ha!

There is this video i watched on youtube with papelbon trying to speak spanish with julian helping him off camera back in 08.  Julian's comments are hilarious to listen to in the background, and papelbon's thick louisiana accent trying to speak spanish is great.

This is just a shout out to any baseball fans around here (wonder how many are on this site) that the St. Louis National Adult Baseball Association is having their All-star game at GCS Ballpark in Sauget, IL (home of the grizzlies) on Sunday the 20th starting at 6:00 (it's after the cards afternoon game so you're not missing the game)

This is a charity event for the St. Louis Childrens hospital, with donations of any amount going to a good cause.

my buddy azruavatar posted about this last week (thanks T.M.) and I'm just trying to get the word out to anyone that wants to have fun at the ballpark with friends and family.

We're going to have several prizes, including gift cards to various restaurants, golf courses and other places around the st louis area (just check out the sponsors) and we're going to have a silent auction for various items.

~B.P.
Big River Blues Manager

I've always looked around baseball news to see if teams designate a player for assignment, and see if they have anything to offer (or if they were designated for a bad outing that can happen to rookies/the team traded for a new player and needed to make room) especially pitchers because, in all honesty, you can never have too many pitchers for your minor league teams.

There are a few names that caught my eye this week.

Fernando Hernandez (stats) from the A's
Bryan Corey (stats) From the Red Sox
Calvin Medlock (stats) From the Rays

I like Medlock's and Hernandez' stats and that they're both young minor leaguers.  The bad thing about hernandez is he was a rule-5 draft from the white sox, so he has to stay on a major league roster, and i believe the best rule-5 draft kind of players are ones used as backup catchers or 5th outfielders (like Barton) that aren't needed on a consistent basis like relievers are.

Medlock looks like a good middle relief kind of pitcher will a good fastball, curve combo.

Corey is older but the only one of the three with major league experience but has done well up in the bigs, not a large sample size though.

I'd prefer one of these guys over some of the old pitchers in memphis, like wasdin and politte, need to keep the youth movement going.

What do you guys think? (or have anyone else the club should look into for minor leaguers)

how do you guys feel about the cardinals' spring training and how they'll start the 08 season?

I'm normally overly optimistic, believing that pujols will hit at least 8 homers in april, ankiel and molina having decent OBPs of .330 and .340, kennedy coming back to his 05/06 numbers and a .350 OBP with Glaus and Duncan having about 5 homers each and OBPs around .355.  Izturis being horrible and hopefully replaced by ryan or miles (can't believe miles is better than someone) by the end of the month.  And a RF triangle between schumaker, barton and Ludwick depending on if we face a lefty starter/who becomes a good leadoff hitter.

Pitching-wise, Wainwright being an ace with an era around/less than 3 with Looper, Loshe and Reyes doing decently in the 2-3-4 spots (maybe not looper) with the 5th spot being bounced around between either welly or thompson before clement/piniero show up healthy.  And the bullpen is the bullpen, izzy will do fine along with the regulars; springer, franklin, flores, villone, with the remaining slots going to younger guys, especially either jimenez or perez.

I am not very pleased with whoever is writing the rotoworld "news" that pops up on the side bar.  If whoever writes the news belittles other teams as well I guess there's nothing to do about it.  I set up a poll to see if any other users would like to get rid of it or to get something else besides what we got. I know some people have commented about it so I decided to make an entry where everyone can discuss it.