One thing is for certain, when it comes to the Cardinals’ 2005 first round pick: he won’t have to do a lot to become the best “Colby” ever to play in the major leagues. When “Colby Jack” Coombs (given name: John) is taken out of the equation, the best and only Colby is former Rangers prospect Lewis, who started 26 games in 2003 and got saddled with a 7.30 ERA for his troubles. (By virtue of simply not having done that, our Rasmus might already be the best.)

But the Cardinals, obviously, have higher hopes for Rasmus, already the top non-Reyes prospect in the system for both Baseball America and John Sickels. Having eclipsed Bo Jackson’s high school home run record in his native Alabama, and possessing all five of the mythical tools, hopes were high that he would prove to be the Cardinals’ first top position player prospect since dearly-departed Daric Barton.

And through July 31, 2005, he had… not delivered much at all. Certainly, he hadn’t been made a fool of at rookie-level Johnson City; he had kept his average hovering around its current .290 all season, and his 11 doubles suggested power in the future. But he had yet to show off the home run swing that had made him the first rounder in the first place. Even more worrying, he had struck out in an astonishing 38.7% of his at-bats, a bad sign for any prospect, let alone a guy renowned for his bat. Yes, at the beginning of August–the last month in the Appy League season–his line looked like this:

 AB  R   H  2B  3B  HR  RBI  BB  K   BA  OBP  SLG
124 22  36  11   1   0    8  11 48 .290 .348 .395

Bo don’t know a .105 isolated power! The eternal slow-bat whispers reared their ugly heads; no doubt some cautious prospect mavens took a sad look at the Cardinals’ other scuffling power prospect, Mike Ferris. Things didn’t look bad per se, but let’s just say that your average #2 prospect is going to look a little more impressive than that on the lowest rung of the minor league ladder, even in a system as barren as the Cardinals’. Now, obviously, since we have the benefit of hindsight, we see his final numbers and think he did a solid number on the Appy League. But take a look at that last month–in isolation–and see why it is BA and Sickels love him:

 AB  R   H  2B  3B  HR  RBI  BB  K   BA  OBP  SLG
 92 25  28   5   4   7   19  10 25 .304 .373 .674

Rasmus not only boosted his isolated power to a startling .370, he also cut his K rate to a borderline-acceptable 27.2% and raised his walk rate–perhaps because pitchers were scared of him. Now, I’m not sure whether it’s simple luck or adjusting to wooden bats, but even his final slugging percentage–.514–left him seventh in the league. Regardless, it’s nice to have a high-ceilinged hitting prospect, isn’t it? Let’s keep this one for a while.

The Josh Hancock signing–after, you’ll remember, he was released by the Reds for showing up overweight–isn’t a big deal, but it’s always nice to see the Cardinals grab up free talent. Even if they don’t play him in the majors, there’s always a use for AAAA pitching; they did this a few years back with Luis Martinez, a former Brewers prospect released after some gun-related incident, and midway through the season they flipped him for Larry Walker. Matthew Leach has Hancock’s side of the story on what seemed to be a Message Firing™ from the Reds, who are really in no position to give up mediocre pitchers, even if they show up overweight with a gun.

Of course, it doesn’t really bode well for Hancock; on my depth chart he’s probably below Ponson/Reyes, Wainwright, and Chris Gissell (who may or may not still be a Redbird) on the emergency starter list. Not only that, but if Ponson wins the #5 spot in the rotation and Reyes is sent down to get regular starts, the Memphis rotation could get pretty crowded when Chris Narveson (the important half of the Walker trade, at the time) gets totally healthy. A lot of other teams could use a guy who’ll probably be just a little below average–the Reds, for example–but on the Cardinals he’s a ways down the list.

In other news, the visa: you’re everywhere you want to be, so long as it’s not the US incident appears to finally be over. The new right fielder was the first to show up, and Derrick Goold even has a dispatch from Juancarnacion’s slightly corny press conference. In the non-cheesy portion, he says this:

“I’d like to have been here early because it is a new team,” he said. “I like the fans there in St. Louis and hopefully they cheer me even more now that I’m there for St. Louis.”

Waiiiiiit a minute.

I don’t know about you other fans there in St. Louis, but we Moores were avid Encarnacion haters all the way back to his interleague days with the Tigers. During his half-season stint with the Reds, in particular, he always seemed to burn the Cards. Thanks to the excellent Day-by-Day Database I can check and see if we were right to hate him, and as it turns out…

We were oh so right. In his first game at Busch II, way back in 1999, he homered; all told he hit .333/.388/.487 at Busch, with 4 homers and 12 RBI. Playing for the Reds at Busch, he hit .423/.500/.769.

So we’ll cheer him now, but apparently we weren’t booing loudly enough before.

And finally, I haven’t brought this up before but Scott over at CardNilly has had the “stolen” billboard story covered about as well as possible for the past week or so. He proclaimed his hands washed of the incident, but as he opines, they just keep dragging him back in. Here’s the latest, and–for Scott’s blood pressure’s sake–we hope, the last word.

The latest son to make a splash in St. Louis is Ed Spiezio’s kid, but let us first turn our attention first to the Cardinals’ Junior Senior, 2B Ernest Lee Spivey. Response to the move has been… well, oddly indifferent. Most of it centers around his injury history; Ray Mileur of the Birdhouse compares his at-bat total to JD Drew’s, which is apparently an insult although I’d certainly take 300 at-bats of all-star caliber hitting and defense, provided the Cardinals fill the space with Hector Luna instead of, say, anybody else.

File photo: Anybody Else dodges a baserunner to turn a double play.

But let’s keep in mind who the Cardinals have used to fill this space for the last three years. Coming into 2005, the Cardinals picked up Mark Grudzielanek; in hindsight, I panned the deal unfairly, because I was basing his defensive reputation on his spotty work at shortstop and I think subconsciously expressing my fear of spelling his name every day for a full season. In 2004, the odds-on favorite going in was Marlon Anderson until TONY WOMACK swooped in. And in 2003, the Cardinals trotted out incumbent Fernando Viña (recently sighted by U.S.S. Mariner) for one last campaign. Let’s see how Spivey compares to the other… workmanlike players brought in by management in the past. Starting with our good friend, Fernando.

It’s funny to think about, now, but because of the big part he played in the Cardinals turn-of-the-century post-McGwire resurgence, Viña was often thought of as part of the team “nucleus”, right up there with that Pujols kid and Jim Edmonds. (Although, even then, those brave pioneer Cardsbloggers were not pleased. Mike of The Daily Redbird(!) opined, coming up on three years ago, that he was no longer suited for the leadoff spot.) In any case, coming up on 2003 he had no reason at all to worry about job security; he was pretty well entrenched, and he even had sweet, sweet free agency on the horizon. His last three years had seen the second baseman, going on 34, in a marked decline that accelerated in 2002 (games and BA/OBP/SLG):

123 .300  .380  .398
154 .303  .357  .418
150 .270  .333  .338

By 2002, his once-sterling OBP had become league average, and his total lack of power suddenly became noticeable. Nevertheless, he had played 304 games over the two seasons leading up to ‘03, and there was no reason, save a Tatis-forged pessimism, to assume that he was going to do what he did: get hurt, suck it up over 61 games and get Wally Pipp’d by a career minor leaguer with cool hair. Depending on how legit his defense was, his decline and age concerns are offset by his perceived durability, and he’s pretty much as safe a bet as Spivey ‘06.

So, fast forward through 2003: Nando takes a ridiculous contract from Detroit, Miggy Cairo leaves out the back way, and the devil finds a loophole in Bo Hart’s contract. Walt Jocketty deals with it by first signing Marlon Anderson, a decent hitter with defensive issues. Deciding that wasn’t enough, he and La Russa get hopped up on life and hard liquor and, amidst a hard-fought game of Triple Play 97, perhaps, decide that the thing that ill-fated 2003 club was lacking, the one missing piece–was Tony Womack. (This led to quite possibly my favorite Cardsblog moment ever, in which Josh, now of the Birdwatch, guessed at their conversation:)

Jocketty is quoted as saying they’ve been talking about Womack all summer, and when I read that I imagined Tony and Walt in a room with a giant hookah blazed out of their skulls:

Tony: Wouldn’t it be cool to watch him run around? He’s so fast? Zip Zip Zip!
Walt: Like a water bug.
Tony: Waterbugs are cool, you know what would be cool? Fill the stadium with water get water bugs to play all your positions. The other team would have to swim, we’d win all 162 games.
Walt: Yeah, we should totally sign him.
Tony: Is there a rule against filling your stadium with water?
Walt: We’ll be invincible. Is Aquaman a free agent?

So we can thank Womack for that, and for his eventual inexplicable career year, but going into Spring Training this is what the Cardinals brought around to challenge Bo Hart:

147 .293  .337  .421  |  125 .266  .307  .345
145 .258  .315  .380  |  153 .271  .325  .353
145 .270  .328  .376  |  103 .226  .251  .307

… wow. Keep in mind, also, that both players dealt with defense on a strictly hypothetical basis, and it’s pretty obvious that the Cardinals have dealt with the keystone much better than they did in 2004. Even if Spivey misses most of the year, Hector Luna is almost certain to outplay both of these guys. Combined.

Ah, but 2005–here’s the rub. Grudzielanek, the name to end all names. He struggled mightily when with Los Angeles in 2001 and 2002, but his stint with the Cubs was solid and he, surprisingly enough, lived up to those numbers. So we have this:

150 .271  .301  .364
121 .314  .366  .416
 81 .307  .347  .432

Solid play, solid defense. Except… he was a 34-year-old second baseman who had missed two months of the last season with leg problems, not generally a good sign for middle infielders. But, if I remember, the cries of fragility or ineptitude weren’t nearly as shrill as they are for Spivey. And part of it’s justified; the guy’s played 120 games total over the last two years. But keep in mind that his major injury last year was both flukish and unlikely to linger, and as far as middle infielders go he’s a spring chicken by comparison.

The point of all this? Well, first off–what the heck were they thinking in 2004? My goodness. But, more importantly, the Cardinals haven’t had a non-question-mark at second base since the end of 2001… and even then the second sacker in question regressed significantly the next year. As far as gambles go, Spivey may be slightly more risky than Grudzielanek was, but the stakes aren’t as raised as people think.

Congrats to Ryan_vb on the Diaspora’s new digs. That, friends, is what it looks like when somebody actually spends time on their site’s design. So head on over with some housewarming gifts, but let it be known that I’ve cornered the market on Jell-O molds.

So, uh, about that extension.

Maybe some other time, right?

Lots of good stuff coming out of Spring Training from the Pro Mouthpieces. Derrick Goold has this quote from Scott Rolen:

“There are some things to work on just to get a feel back,” he said. “I haven’t played baseball for awhile. I need to get some timing, get some feel back. This is a big test for me. I made contact – I mean a lot of good things happened today. … It was good to get out there and sweat like a –”

He paused.

“I was going to say ‘pig’ but pigs don’t sweat, which is why they wallow in the mud.”

I don’t know why, but I love that.

Also on the table is Matthew Leach’s latest look at Jim Edmonds. Basically, Jed’s got a chip on his shoulder about everyone wondering if he’s done or not, which is good–a motivated Jim Edmonds could be pretty scary.

… which is why I’m not going to mention to him that, contrary to Leach and La Russa proclaiming his 2005 as just “good”, he was arguably the best centerfielder in baseball once again this year. (”MVP Candidate” Andruw Jones hit .263/.347/.575, which would be great if this was the mid-80s.)

In probably the last bit of substantive roster news, World Series Hero™ Scott Spiezio nabbed an NRI, which no doubt made Brian Daubach a very sad human being. There isn’t really a big difference between the two; Daubach looks a little less done on offense–he hammered the ball to the tune of .325/.426/.554 in AAA–while Spiezio has more experience standing at third base, and can hit badly from either side of the plate. I’m hoping Ankiel just thrashes the ball and steals the spot, because as it stands now this is a pretty depressing competition among players with no bat speed left. At least if Ankiel gets the spot we’ll have the occasional massive home run to look forward to, and plus we’ll all get to wonder what’ll happen when La Russa “accidentally” uses all the pitchers in an extra innings game.

Via VEB via, apparently, Cardinals internet renaissance man Hawg Wild. 2 years, $23 million, presumably to take effect after 2006. It would lock him up through his age-30 season.

Is it a good deal? Well, it depends. First off, are you a Mulder pessimist or a Mulder optimist? I, for one, am not predicting any imminent collapse; the guy’s an eminently talented pitcher, and if he starts getting hit more I think he’ll be able to adjust and get his strikeout rate back up. I don’t think he’s an ace, but since he’s still in his prime and he’s getting further away from that injury-marred 2004 I think he’ll be able to split the difference between his outstanding run as an Athletic and his solid first year in St. Louis.

If you think he’s going to do worse than he did in 2005… well, this is a bad deal. Mulder doing significantly worse than he did in 2005 is a bulk starter, like Jeffs Suppan or Weaver, and there’s no need to sign a pitcher in that class for $10 million a season.

Of course, recently there’s been a need to sign them for $8.5 million a season, which is what makes an unpalatable deal on the surface a little easier to swallow. As I see it, Mulder’s probably going to be worth more than the Esteban Loaizas and Jeff Weavers of the world, and even if it’s not $3 million more sometimes you have to pay a premium to keep better players around. This deal certainly looks better than the 4 year, $36 million joke the Mariners tossed at Average Lefty Jarrod Washburn, or the 5 years and $60 million the Rangers handed Kevin Millwood, who makes Swamp Gas look like a model of consistency and is also three years his senior.

The usual conclusion: the pitching market is crazy, but this deal is less crazy than usual. This is why, as with celebrity marriages and Michael Jackson album cuts, one needs to take the baseline crazy value into account beforehand when dealing with pitching contracts.

In more hypothetical news, acr has a VEB diary up about Richard Hidalgo as a potential Cardinal. If he’s really fallen so far that he’d take a sub-million deal, the Cardinals would be crazy not to bring him in. Historically, he’s been an outstanding fielder and an occasionally great hitter. He was fools’ gold back when teams had to pay him real money to show up, but gambling $500,000 on a guy who’s got an outside shot at a .900 OPS and a +10 fielding mark is a great idea for an apparently cash-strapped team.

“Phase one of Operation LOOGJOB is underway!”

The 26th Man has further reports on the pitchers and catchers… well, reporting. Ricardo Rincon’s got visa problems, apparently; he’s my second least-favorite of the off-season signings (Ponson), not because he’s a bad pitcher–used properly he’s a little above average–but because I think Tyler Johnson will probably be better. And if you can’t break a young player in at Second Lefty, well…

Rule 5-er Juan Mateo is also in visa limbo, and obviously it’s a bigger deal for him. As Baseball America says, “Mateo may have the most upside of the 12 players taken in the big league Rule 5 draft”, and when your system is as thin as the Cardinals’ is you take that if you can get it, even if it means giving him the Simontacchi/Hackman/Jarvis-memorial garbage time position normally reserved for minor league veterans with sub-90 fastballs. BA also brought up an interesting stat I hadn’t heard before. Over his last ten starts–he was initially a reliever–Mateo went 4-1 with a 1.79 ERA. I felt a need to get more information than that, so I went a-hunting through the Daytona box scores to divine his line from those games. On July 13 Mateo went 4 innings and got smacked around, allowing 5 earned runs. From then on he did this:

      IP  H  R  ER  BB  SO  HR   ERA
7/18 5.2  2  0   0   0   4   0  4.22
7/23 6.0  6  1   1   0   5   0  3.97
7/29 7.0  5  4   3   2   8   1  3.96
8/04 6.2  4  0   0   0   2   0  3.63
8/10 6.0  4  1   1   0   6   0  3.48
8/16 7.0  6  4   4   2   4   1  3.61
8/21 5.0  2  0   0   2   6   0  3.42
8/26 7.0  2  0   0   3   9   0  3.19 (CGSO)
8/31 5.0  5  2   2   1   9   0  3.21

  IP   H  ER  BB   K  HR   K/9  BB/9  HR/9
55.1  36  11  10  53   2  8.62  1.63  0.33

Yowza. Admittedly the FSL is a huge pitcher’s league, and he wasn’t exactly young for his league, but he’s worth keeping around. A strikeout rate around 9, good control, striking home run numbers… those are basically the same numbers as Chris Lambert managed. Will the difference between him and Jeff Nelson be big enough this year to make up for losing him to the Cubs? I’m thinking no.

Okay, so let’s say your team has a centerfielder who hits .263/.385/.533. Oh, and he’s the best defensive centerfielder in baseball, by a number of measurements. All in all, an MVP candidate. You’d be–well, you’d be pretty happy, right?

Of course, as it turns out, Jimmy Edmonds’s 2005 decline has left a lot of Cardinals fans worried about just how much Hollywood has left in the tank. Not that this is anything new; people’ve been predicting Edmonds’s demise ever since he came to St. Louis as a guy hurtling past 30 with a reputation as an injury-prone risk-taker. (In fact, after his awful finish to 2003 I doubt anybody would’ve predicted he’d peak in 2004.) In the context of his massive seasons since 2000, .263/.385/.533 takes on a whole different light. But where does he go from here? Most people are predicting a slight bounceback; I decided to take a look at some of his hitting numbers.

        AB   H  2B  HR    K%  BB%
  2000 525 155  25  42  31.8 19.6
  2001 500 152  38  30  27.2 18.6
  2002 476 148  31  28  28.1 18.1
  2003 447 123  32  39  28.4 17.2
  2004 498 150  38  42  30.1 20.2
  2005 467 123  37  29  29.8 19.5

Obviously, he continues to do what he’s always done; strike out a lot, walk a lot, take a lot of pitches for extra bases. Two major indicators of a player on decline, a rising strikeout rate and a sudden jump in walk rate (a la Willie Mays and Toby Harrah), are nonexistent. But it would seem as though, when he’s putting the ball in play, he’s doing it with far less authority than those banner years when he was the best center fielder in baseball, instead of… well, he’s still the best center fielder in baseball. But, uh, less so. When he puts the ball in play, his numbers look like this:

       PA-K  BIP    BA  OBP  SLG
  2000  476  358  .432 .555 .855
  2001  472  364  .418 .528 .775
  2002  442  342  .433 .548 .781
  2003  404  320  .384 .505 .834
  2004  462  348  .431 .555 .920
  2005  428  328  .375 .509 .759

It’s not like we needed a chart to figure this one out; he just hit the ball with less authority than he had in years past. This is especially inconsistent with the rest of his Cardinals career when you replace “2003″ with “2003 sans that horrible Home Run Derby disaster”, where he was having a massive year. But what does it mean? I decided to check out some of Edmonds’ most similars, as per B-Ref, and see what their declines looked like in this context.

His most similar player is longtime teammate Tim Salmon, one of the fiercest, most underrated bats in baseball during the late 90s. Salmon’s career–which apparently isn’t over–has come sputtering to a halt thanks to a variety of injuries. But, aside from one .227 year nestled between two big ones, he’s yet to play poorly over a full season, without some injury or another hanging over his head. The problem is, nobody’s really similar to Jim Edmonds; next on the list, however, is an outfielder with more injury problems than Edmonds could ever dream of, Ellis Burks. Once again, Burks has no decline phase; as a 37-year-old he thrashed the ball as the Indians’ DH, hitting .301/.362/.541, and he only had 231 at-bats after that. #3 is the enigmatic, always-controversial Dick Allen. Finally–a guy who obviously fell off a plateau. Here are his last five seasons:

       PA-K  BIP    BA  OBP  SLG    K%  BB%  (OPS)
  1973  237  199  .397 .477 .769  20.4 13.2  1.006
  1974  436  373  .372 .452 .697  19.2 12.3   .938
  1975  372  307  .316 .422 .521  26.2 13.9   .712
  1976  276  235  .340 .424 .609  21.1 12.4   .826
  1977  164  135  .304 .402 .444  21.1 14.0   .681

Well, so much for that theory; Allen declined the same way as Edmonds, although considerably more forcefully. In his case, at least, the decline in hitting authority came initially on the back of an increased strikeout rate. How about two more? Here’s Dale Murphy, a guy who was a sure-fire Hall of Famer while he was playing, until–well, suddenly he wasn’t playing. Here’s the peak and sudden drop-off:

       PA-K  BIP    BA  OBP  SLG    K%  BB%  (OPS)
  1984  557  473  .372 .461 .702  22.1 13.0   .919
  1985  571  475  .389 .483 .699  22.9 14.6   .927
  1986  551  473  .345 .436 .619  23.0 12.2   .824
  1987  557  430  .388 .519 .763  24.0 20.3   .997
  1988  546  467  .287 .385 .533  21.1 12.5   .734
  1989  505  432  .303 .392 .479  24.7 11.3   .667

That is what I was looking for. Murphy lost a step, and lost 50 points of batting average as a result. So the next year, he compensates by boosting his walk rate while pitchers–who still remember THE Dale Murphy–nibble, and then he crushes pitches he can still hit. When they figured out he couldn’t hit the ball like he used to, they pitched it to him and he couldn’t punish them anymore.

What’s left to be judged is what caused Edmonds’s decline; the way they fell off across the board, and as suddenly as they did, I have to think he wasn’t all the way healthy. Of course, with Edmonds, you don’t know that he ever will be again, so it doesn’t matter.

This (extremely) cursory glance has left me with a few conclusions; first of all, most of these players bounced back up for a year or two after their in-play numbers fell before declining for good. Second, if Edmonds somehow managed to get his walk rate even higher than it normally is next year–think .280/.430/.550–enjoy the massive season while it lasts and ready the Colby Rasmus bandwagon. My totally unscientific prediction for Edmonds? .280/.400/.570. I think he’s got another 35 home run season squirreled away somewhere. As for playing time, well–what do you think I am, an idiot?

Are you like me? Are you watching bellyitcher’s Opening Day countdown a little too closely? Does the mention of Roger Cedeño set the tears flowing again? Are you eagerly awaiting a look at this year’s Mike Coolbaughs and Emil Browns?

Soon. Soon. Soon. That’s what I tell myself. The video in this entry at redbirdbrain is what really did it. Watching Edmonds work that walk, watching Lidge’s slow burn as his mechanics and his slider failed him, and watching Albert Pujols quiet a stadium full of drunk people and small children with one ridiculously perfect swing… it’s pretty much concentrated baseball goodness. Up to that point I’d been content with pro basketball, but now that’s just not doing it. So now I watch basketball–usually while I’m reading something else–but there’s something about the constant, consistent build-up of suspense between every pitch that makes watching baseball horribly stressful and satisfying and–and baseball.

But enough pontificating. The commentators only have the stage for another week or two, and then, thank God, the players will take center stage once more. What do I want? Well, I certainly wouldn’t be averse to Rick Ankiel returning to pitching under an assumed identity and a set of Groucho glasses to win the fifth starter spot (That’s strikeout 21 for #99, the mysterious Rack Inkiel!), upon which time Sidney Ponson reveals he’s best used as a backup catcher with a little pop in his bat. Right after that, of course, the Cardinals wire me a desperate plea to sign on and fill their left field vacancy, and I hit .343/.471/.616. (Yes, we use telegrams and OPS breakdowns in my dreams. And we all talk like Woody Allen, sans mincing.)

But barring that, I guess I’ll just settle for some baseball.

At this point in the non-season something interesting happening is about as likely as somebody uncovering a lost Captain and Tennille cover by Elliott Smith. In both cases, it’s for the best, really; the only news is usually bad, and I imagine the next bit of info will be something like Blake Hawksworth shredding his finally-healed right arm trying to save a heated table-tennis match.

But there’s not even that. I meant to link to this earlier: John Sickel’s look back on the brothers Benes. He leaves out Adam, but I suppose somebody had to be the Craig Griffey.

If there’s one non-Lankford-related thing about the La Russa era that really bothers me, it’s how Alan Benes has never made it back. Sure, Morris’s arm got shredded, but he came back; Ankiel lost it, despite having the most potential of the three–of any prospect, really, in a good long while–but I don’t know who to throw that blame on. But Alan Benes had high strikeout rates and a career minor league WHIP under 1.00 before the injuries, and he was striking out a batter per inning at the major league level before they finally caught up to him.

Andy… well, could a pitcher ask for a better last act than Andy Benes? Totally counted out, booed pretty much whenever he was sighted in the bullpen, he comes back when the Cardinals most desperately need a starter and puts up a 1.86 ERA over 14 starts. Not only that, but he was also (arguably) the ace on the pennant-winners that almost were in 1996. And as if all that weren’t enough, he’s Fredbird’s straight man on “the Cardinals Crew.” You can’t beat that.

Matthew Leach’s latest is also linkworthy. The headline–Cardinals inject some youth into outfield–exemplifies just how old the Cardinals were last year, seeing as Juancarnacion is just now hitting 30, but the main draw is a word from Super Bowl hero Jim Edmonds, who appears in this article somewhere between his two default moods–”Everything’s great!” and “My body is about to fall apart! This could be it!”

“Getting to the end of my career has motivated me to try to keep in shape,” Edmonds said. “I get into better shape each year. It’s working.

“If they don’t pick [the option] up, I don’t know how many opportunities there are going to be for me to play. So I’m just going to approach it that this season will be one of the last ones I have, and hopefully they’ll allow me to come back. But if they don’t, I’ve got to be ready for that. I’ve got to be ready for ‘Plan B.’”

I, for one, hope he plays at least the next two years, but it’s mainly because I’m a big proponent of the Jim-Edmonds-for-Hall-of-Fame campaign. The semi-magical 400 homer mark is 69 away; if he manages to bounce back a little for one of the next two years, it’s certainly within reach. (It would be a considerable achievement for a guy who didn’t break in his first full season until 25.)

In site news, I’ve updated Cardinals Coming Attractions to include all of the Birdhouse Top 40 prospects who seem likely to make a full season squad this year, and also to reflect changes suggested by commenters more perceptive than I managed to be. (In short: placed the wrong John Webb, forgot about Chris Narveson.) If you notice anything else that looks wrong, or you’re more privy to inside information than I am, leave a comment or e-mail me. (Dan at getupbaby dot net.)