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Around the Blogs: Year End Edition

When you can't come up with something original to say, steal from those who do.  Let's see what everyone else is talking about.

This whole gimmick is inspired, in part, by the fact that Fungoes' 12 Days of Christmas is going on right now.  It's a holiday tradition that I've been reading for a couple of years and find it entertaining and informative all at the same time!  Pip does a heck of a job with these, so check it out.

The guys over at Future Redbirds are revealing their top prospect list.  Today, it's numbers four through six.  In related news, the Cardinal minor league system has moved up to number eight in the Baseball America rankings, an impressive result since they were dead last just a few years ago.  While the change in personnel and focus is the major cause of that, I think Future Redbirds should get a little credit as well.  It's helped the fan base stay informed and demanding better results, plus I wouldn't be surprised if those front office types don't check FR to confirm (or challenge) their own thinking on a prospect.

The lack of activity has riled up Bugs and Cranks, taking their ire out on the ownership group.  I think that case would be stronger if there was just this flurry of activity and the Cardinals weren't any part of it.  But before the winter meetings, the Cards were one of the more active teams.  Since then, not much has happened (save the Yankees buying all the good players, but that has nothing to do with St. Louis ownership).  It'd be nice to see some activity but I'm far from applying the "greedy" tag to them.

La Beisbolista has continued her "John Mozeliak goes shoe shopping" series.  Johnny Boy finally gets him a new pair, but not the way you expect.

The Redbird Blog tackles the ownership question as well, using a Bernie Mikalsz column as a jumping off point.  I'm in agreement that the moves made so far, coupled with the economic uncertainty, make sense from a competitive standpoint.

With the news of the improvement in the minor league strength of the Redbirds, Viva El Birdos takes a look at the top prospects of 2005, the year of the draft that signaled a change in approach.  And, as a longtime reader of Dan's last blog, it's nice to see that Chris Lambert knew where to find him.

Lots of different stories at the Cardinal section of Bleacher Report.  There's a comparison of the Astros and Cardinals, a discussion about how long Albert Pujols will be a Cardinal, and, yes, another blogger blaming ownership.

Though he's not a part of the UCB (yet), Brian Walton is taking a look at the year's top stories.  He goes beyond the Top 5 you'll see in this space tomorrow, though, as he has #11-15 up at the moment.

And, of course, you can always talk Cardinals at CardsClubhouse.

That'll do it for our trip around the blogs.  Check back tomorrow as we close down 2008 with the UCB project and get ready for 2009.

Around the Blogs: Walls Crashing Down

It's been, overall, a good season for the Cards, but the last few weeks have been on the rough side.  Touring around the blogs...........

Even CardinalNationGlobe has given up the ghost on this year.  One of the last to succumb, but as he points out, "you have win against the teams in your division come September if you want to make the playoffs and the Cards weren't able to do that."

Trey and John over at The Cardinal Virtue haven't posted since Sunday, but they were on the ledge then.  I can't imagine that they are still clinging to any postseason hopes.

Tom at CardinalsGM invokes a little Johnny Cash and takes management to task.  Obviously, I'm not excited about how September has played out, but it doesn't minimize how the rest of the season was in my book.

Without Fungoes, you may not have realized that a title besides batting average is being fought over by Albert Pujols and Chipper Jones.  Last night didn't help Pujols in that regard, either.

You'd think things on the minor league scene would be a little slower with those seasons wrapped up, but Future Redbirds has three separate posts up today.  One is about the Cardinals buying the Memphis franchise (more on that later), one indicating that Niko Vazquez isn't feeling the love from some prospect raters, and one about those prospects heading to the Hawaiian Winter League. If you want to keep with how players are doing in winter ball, FR is your place.

It's possible Mike did go play in traffic, because he's not updated Mike On The Cards in about a week.  Then again, there's not exactly been a lot of good stuff to update it with.

Remember I said that we'd revisit the Memphis topic?  (If not, wake up!  It's only been a couple of paragraphs!)  Pitchers Hit Eighth has done a great job looking at this issue.  It does look like the only holdup is that Memphis is a non-profit organization, but I bet they'll figure all that out before next season gets underway.

More after the jump..............

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Around the Blogs: Cracks Are Showing

The Cards are in a slump at the moment, having lost six of seven.  That has affected the tone in some quarters of the blogosphere (Mike on the Cards says they're in a funk and Redbird Ramblings would prefer not to discuss it), but that's not what everyone's talking about.

A point of discussion about last night's game is the usage of Ron Villone.  Stan Musial's Stance really can't figure out why he was out there instead of McClellan.  I'm not sure what LaRussa's thought process was, but it's better than the silly idea that he hates rookies, a meme I'm quite tired of.

The Red Baron, in his weekly Wednesday fill-in for lboros at VEB, hands out some first quarter grades.  There's not much to disagree with here.  I might bump the starting pitching down to a B and the relief corp up to a C-, but that's a judgment call.  Suffice it to say, though, that the bullpen has been the disappointment of the first portion of the season.  I know he grades down the middle infield, but really, we are getting what we expected out of these guys and maybe a little more.

Speaking of, the back of the Cardinal bullpen has been under scrutiny recently.  Fungoes shows that Jason Isringhausen really hasn't been quite as bad as we thought, just unlucky.  It'll be interesting to see if Izzy gets back into the closer role and if that luck will start to even out.

The Cardinal Virtue has his take on the rumored Jim Edmonds to the Cubs bit.  I wrote about that in today's main post and I agree with what John says here for the most part.  I'd like to think Edmonds would have enough of the love for the 'Lou to turn down a Chicago invite, but if that's the only place that's offering and you still want to play, it's hard to fault the guy.  Get Up, Baby! has the reaction many Cardinal and Cub fans are having over the news.

CardinalsGM ponders trading Chris Duncan.  I've honestly got no problem with trading him off, even though I think he gets a little more of the blame than he should at times.  That last name can be a double edged sword.  But if someone would give us good value for a Duncan/Reyes package, I'd do it.

As always, when you want to know something about the Cardinal minor league system, you head to Future Redbirds.  It was the first place I went this morning when I read that Stuart Pomeranz had been released, though Eric hasn't touched much on that.  (Redbirds Fun does have part of the article over there, though.) But the three up/three down feature is back and you always need to read the Daily Farm Report.

Don at The Redbird Blog goes the miscellaneous route as well, pointing out some stories you might not have seen other places.

A couple of good posts over at Rockin' the Red.  First off, some ideas for shaking up the lineup, as well as what some trade targets are doing.  Kujo would like to see Chris Perez and Joe Mather come north and help out the big squad, especially if that meant Duncan was moved.  However, in Mozeliak's chat today at the PD, he indicated that no moves with Duncan are planned at this time.  Not that he'd say if there were, but it comes across as not something they want to do.

Also, Kujo looks at the cost/benefit of signing Rasmus long-term.  With the price of young talent the way it is, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to do a deal similar to what Tampa Bay did with Longoria, but I'm still of the camp that he should play at least a year before you start thinking about long-term extensions.

The professionals are weighing in as well.  Derrick Goold looks at some of the advanced metrics in relation to Pujols's baserunning (something that had been discussed anecdotally at CCH) while Matthew Leach tossed out some tidbits yesterday, including the information about Mark Mulder's last workout.

To pull it back full circle, check out THEblindhomer Sees for his Pittsburgh preview/recap.

If I didn't get your blog in here, I'm sorry.  If I don't have your link, add it to the comments (and add mine to your rolls!)  I've been tinkering with the blog links recently.  If you scroll all the way down, I've even added some non-baseball links.  If there's something I'm missing, let me know!

Around the Blogs: A Blazing Start

I may try to make this a semi-regular activity, linking up what the other quality blogs in Cardinal Nation and elsewhere.  There's a lot of good stuff out there.  You probably have seen some of it, but in case you are missing out, let me point out a few things I found interesting.

Not surprisingly, the tone in the Cardinal blogosphere is, for the most part, pretty upbeat after a 5-1 homestand to begin the year.  Witness Stan Musial's Stance, for example.  It's a good wrapup of all that went right for the Cardinals in their first week of 2008.

The Redbird Blog did a little schedule analysis and figured an 18-11 record at the end of April would be pretty reasonable, with 20-9 not out of the question.  Imagine that kind of April, with the team then fortified with Joel Pineiro and Mark Mulder coming back.  If they show they can have success and Mozeliak is then able to trade off some pitching for some offense, people might have to take the Cardinals a little more seriously.

Rockin' the Red, sporting a bit of a new look, has a good look at the patience Cardinal hitters are showing so far this year. Having batters on base when the thumpers get to the plate can only bode well for the Cardinal offense this season.  There's a long way to go and we can't be sure that this is a continuing trend, but it definitely looks like a positive development.

Mike on the Cards has a look at last night's game, plus the anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition.  Not being a drinker myself, that doesn't make much impact on me save the fact that beer money has fueled the Cardinals throughout my entire life.  So a toast to that!

CardinalNationGlobe points out how much he enjoys watching Brian Barton play.  Told you he'd become a fan favorite!

Not everything is great in the Nation following the hot start.  Some raised expectations have created some ugly scenes when things go south.

You want good sabermetric discussion of the Cardinals, eventually everyone goes to Fungoes.  Pip takes a statistical look at the Cardinals' starting rotation and whether it has been as good as we think.

A new look for the premier Cardinal minor league blog on the web, but the same great content at Future Redbirds.  Check it out daily for the Daily Farm Report.  In today's, you'll find that the Cardinals are moving around Pete Kozma (for reasons not quite understood) and that Memphis had their hitting shoes on last night.

Matthew Leach doesn't have his tidbits up for today yet, but keep checking his blog for them.  Being the beat writer for the Cardinals for MLB.com, he usually has info before almost anyone else.  Same goes for Derrick Goold and Bird Land, who did a nice live blog from last night's game.

View From the Cheap Seats takes a whack at the Dave Duncan/Kevin Slaten controversy.  Not being a St. Louisian, I don't hear Slaten, but what I hear from word of mouth isn't good.  From looking over the transcript of the call, it definitely appears like an ambush and that's not good radio, in my opinion.

Check out the Team Audit from Baseball Prospectus.  All you need to know about the Cards in one handy-dandy stop.  Very rare to see a hitter besides Pujols at the top of the VORP standings.

Reading Joe Posnanski is a treat, no matter what topic (well, topics) he's writing on.  Today's entry references the new book he's writing about the Big Red Machine, last night's basketball game, and Joe Morgan.  (Love that the entry title is a takeoff of one of my favorite sites.)  Along the same vein (and what is it about the Royals having great writers with unpronounceable last names as fans?), check out Rany Jazayerli and his thoughts about the Royals.  Yeah, those above .500 Royals.  They're going to surprise some people.

You want awards?  The Hardball Times has them.  Maybe they aren't the mainstream ones, but who could turn down "The Harmon Killebrew Batting Average Is For Wussies Award"?

That should give you plenty to examine.  If you've got any other links, put them in the comments.  I'm always interested in finding new blogs!

Also on the Network: √ Things to Read: 3/10 [Tremendous Upside Potential] √ Dubs Has Moved On: Introducing 'Stumbling Through' [Tremendous Upside Potential] √ Playing Pepper 2010: New York Mets [C70 At The Bat] √ Whatever, Deron Williams Is Still Fat [Tremendous Upside Potential] √ Julius Peppers Might Take Some Plays Off, But So Would You [Tremendous Upside Potential] √ Things to Read: 3/9 [Tremendous Upside Potential] √ Back Against It [C70 At The Bat] √ Julius Peppers Gets His Nickname [Tremendous Upside Potential]