Show-Me Kings

This seems timely given recent rumors and rumblings of trouble in the Cardinals front office. If Walt Jocketty does depart, what about this guy — Paul DePodesta? (more)

The Mets broadcast filled the rain delay between New York and St. Louis tonight with a ‘Mets classic’ - the first game back at Shea Stadium after the attack on the Twin Towers.You forget the raw emotion of those days immediately following 9/11. Flags are everywhere in the stands, the fans chanting ‘U-S-A! U-S-A!’, and tears streaming down the faces of more than a few people. (more)

In his column today, Bryan Burwell says the “chatter around the league” is that the Cardinals have offered Anthony Reyes, John Rodriguez and a minor league prospect to the White Sox for pitcher Mark Buehrle. Burwell throws out the name of Double-A catcher Bryan Anderson and says if that’s indeed the trio, the deal is worth it. Assuming the White Sox would do that deal, does it make sense for the Cardinals? Long term, I’m not so sure. (more)

Until July 5th of 2006, Terry Evans was a farmhand in the St. Louis Cardinals system. On that day, the team that drafted him dealt to the Angels for pitcher Jeff Weaver. The Cardinals went on to win a World Series with Weaver pitching the clinching game. Evans was just another minor league outfielder with a dream of getting to the big leagues.

That dream turned into reality this week when outfielder Garrett Anderson hit the disabled list and Evans got the call. (more)

xactly four weeks ago tonight, I watched from a Busch Stadium seat pitcher Kip Wells get 50% of his 2007 win total. In picking up victory number two, Wells went seven innings and allowed only five hits. As poorly as things have gone for Kip since that night — only a Braden Looper injury may have spared his banishment to the bullpen — the Cardinals have lost zero ground to the Milwaukee Brewers over that time.

After Wells’ victory, the Cardinals were six games back on the loss side to the Milwaukee Brewers. St. Louis enters tonight’s rubber game against Kansas City an identical six back in the loss column to the front-running Milwaukee squad.

So if nothing’s changed, why does it feel so different? (more)

It’s draft day for Major League Baseball teams. Head over to the Baseball Analysts where they’ll be live blogging all day long. Something they point out in this post I didn’t realize is that the rules have changed for signing picks. No more waiting until just days before the next year’s draft to put pen to paper (e.g. Max Scherzer). Instead, players and teams have only until August 15th to work out a contract. If no deal is struck by then, players return to the draft pool. (more)

Sports Illustrated writer Jon Heyman recently ripped St. Louis Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt, Jr. No surprise there. The formula is pretty straightforward. Team performs poorly. Columnist rips owner. But this has tale has another twist. The owner fired back. DeWitt called Heyman after the May 10th article in which the SI writer pointed fingers at the owner for the team’s poor start.

As you might imagine, DeWitt and Heyman don’t exactly see eye-to-eye.

There’s a good reason for that. (more)

Here’s a sobering statistic. ESPN’s Jayson Stark asks if the Cardinals are done. “Of the 96 playoff teams in the wild-card era, only one — the 2005 Astros (19-32) — headed into June as many games under .500 as the Cardinals are now.”

Let’s compare. Those 2005 Astros had Clemens, Pettite, and Oswalt. The 2007 Cardinals have Looper, Thompson, and Wellemeyer. Like their chances? (more)