Late Night Musings (C70 At The Bat)

Late Night Musings

Posted on January 15, 2011 at 10:07 PM
Filed Under: St. Louis Cardinals

It's Saturday night after a long day and I'm yawning my head off. Which means it's a perfect time for a blog post!

With the Winter Warmup kicking off today, there were numerous tidbits coming out of St. Louis. Probably the biggest in terms of play was the fact that negotiations with Albert Pujols and his agent must be completed before spring training begins. That was pretty much understood, though I think some of us may have thought there was some leeway until Opening Day.

So this means the clock is ticking, and very, very loudly. There are right at 30 days until pitchers and catchers report, so there is not much time to get an agreement done. It does appear that my thought that they'd get it done and announce it at or before the warmup was completely erroneous. The closer that that deadline comes, the more nervous I get. I've never really entertained the notion that Pujols would reach free agency. Today, that sliver of doubt hit my mind.

Hopefully the negotiations are close and they just aren't telling us. Who knows if there's been an offer made and if it was in the ballpark. I think it's good that they are keeping it in house, but it does make for a lot of frustrated guessing on the part of the fanbase. As for the discussions, well, I have to reuse my line from this week's UCB Radio Hour chat room: Oquendo put up the stop sign at six years, but Pujols ran right through it.

The Cardinals also attempted to address their depth in the last couple of days, signing pitchers Ian Snell and Miguel Batista as well as shortstop Ramon Vazquez. Whether this really will help out their depth still remains to be seen. I held out a little hope that Snell and/or Bautista would be a serviceable sixth starter until reading the analysis over at Viva El Birdos. Couple that with the fact that both of them can opt out of their deals if they aren't on the big league roster at the end of camp (which odds are they won't be) and it may be a short time in Cardinal red for both of those guys. Maybe Pujols can get into an early rhythm by beating on one of his favorite targets in Snell during camp.

Fox Sports Midwest is running a vote right now to see which of a slate of 2010 games you'd most like to see again, edited and put into a nice 30-minute package. The vote is being held here, so head over and make your selections. If anything but The Brawl comes in first, I'd be shocked.

Hope you are having a good weekend and I'll see what I can do about getting more than one post up next week!

Goats

Matt Holliday (4)

Carlos Beltran (3)

David Freese (3)

Jaime Garcia (3)

Jason Motte (3)

Marc Rzepczynski (3)

Adam Wainwright (3)

Rafael Furcal (2)

Tyler Greene (2)

J.C. Romero (2)

Fernando Salas (2)

Mitchell Boggs (1)

Matt Carpenter (1)

Tony Cruz (1)

Daniel Descalso (1)

Jon Jay (1)

Erik Komatsu (1)

Kyle Lohse (1)

Victor Marte (1)

Eduardo Sanchez (1)

Jake Westbrook (1)

2011 Top Goat: Ryan Theriot (12)

2010 Top Goat: Brendan Ryan (14)

2009 Top Goats: Rick Ankiel and Todd Wellemeyer (13)
2008 Top Goat: Troy Glaus (13)

2012 Happy Flights

Happy Flights: 7
Happy Flight Opportunities: 12

Happy Flight %: 58%

Through 5/20

Cardinal Nation Approval Ratings (March 2012)

Adam Wainwright 91.9% (down 2.8%)
Chris Carpenter 90.1% (up 3.2%)
Lance Berkman 88.6%

Tony La Russa 88.2% (up 17.4%)

Yadier Molina 87.4% (up 3.7%)
Matt Holliday 87.3% (down 3.8%)
David Freese 85.5%

John Mozeliak 85.4% (up 13.3%)

Mike Shannon 85.3% (up 0.4%)

Jose Oquendo 84.7%

Derrick Goold 82.8% (down 5.0%)

Mark McGwire 82.6% (up 20.1%)

John Rooney 81.5% (down 2.8%)

Mike Matheny 81.1%

Bill DeWitt 79.8% (up 8.8%)

United Cardinal Bloggers 78.9%

Skip Schumaker 73.3% (up 9.2%)

Jim Hayes 71.9% (down 4.2%)
Jon Jay 71.1%

B.J. Rains 69.5% (down 0.9%)

Kyle Lohse 68.9% (up 13.8%)
Dan McLaughlin 68.0%

Joe Strauss 67.7% (up 10.2%)

Ricky Horton 67.5% (down 1.6%)
Al Hrabosky 66.4% (up 3.2%)

Albert Pujols 54.9% (down 45.5%)

Colby Rasmus 46.5% (down 35.3%)

2011

Dave Duncan 87.9% (up 0.9%)

Matthew Leach 85.5%

Pop Warner 76.7%

Ryan Franklin 72.8% (up 3.1%)

John Vuch 68.9%

Jeff Luhnow 66.4%

Dan Lozano 58.7%

2009

Rick Ankiel 83.9%
Chris Duncan 69.1%

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