That this trade was made while my computer was broken is probably for the best, because if Law and Order: Special Victims Unit has told me anything it is that online threats from young white males are always the result of some sociopathic personality disorder or another, and the end result is a dramatic arrest at the bottom of the hour. At this point I’ve cooled down slightly. Slightly. On the Public Debacle Continuum my movement breaks down like this: If I see John Mozeliak at a family restaurant sometime in the future I will no longer feel compelled to break a glass souvenir cup over the table and menace him with the pointed end. But I’ll probably still be thrown out of the family restaurant.

Jed’s contract money isn’t going to buy the Cardinals anything interesting, because there isn’t anything interesting on the market, and it runs out at the end of the year, and David Freese is a crappy prospect whose upside involves becoming a mediocre prospect; when your main resume bullet point involves beating up on the Cal League as a 24-year-old you’d better manage to hoist your slugging percentage over .500. That’s my problem with this trade, emotions aside: if you’re going to trade Jim Edmonds, you don’t trade him for a package that would be considered marginal even if the aging center fielder in question wasn’t a guy who earned the “Baseball” sobriquet on a team that employs Albert Pujols.

Regardless of whoever is named–and I don’t really care about whoever is named, even if, as rumored, Albert’s on the list–the biggest dishonoring that’ll come out of the list is headed directly in Bud Selig’s direction. Football dealt with its steroids problems internally and now almost no one cares about it, even though it is, almost certainly, far more steroid-infested than baseball. Selig allowed this to turn into a sanctimonious three-ring circus, complete with, here in Mitchell’s hand, a list of names etc. etc. when he should have told congress and the media and everyone else to go pound sand. If this Ruins Baseball’s Integrity and leads to a bunch of crappy movies and sportswriters and comedians re-appropriating the phrase “Say it ain’t so”, it will be his fault.

POST-REPORT EDIT: I just knew something would happen to shake the Cardinals’ very foundation, and it’s true: I’ll never look at his magical 1998 season the same way again, or that surprising 2001 where we thought anything was possible. Say it ain’t so.

Anyway, there was about an hour in which Albert Pujols was being falsely accused, but the big “winners” in this report, inasmuch as no new evidence was found or even insinuated, are Rick Ankiel and… wait for it:

Mark McGwire.

Seriously.

Over at Future Redbirds the Reader Top 25 has wrapped, and it’s a pretty good list–if you’re not one of the people who helped make it I highly advise checking it out. The most interesting thing about it is just how many of these guys are low-level pitchers, especially now that stalwart older-prospect Blake Hawksworth is now a stalwart older-suspect. (Fearless prediction: Hawksworth makes at least one quality start in 2008 in his new role as Randy Keisler-Memorial Prospect Shield.) Levels and age-next-year for the pitchers in question:

AAA
Chris Perez (22)

AA
Jaime Garcia (21)
Mitchell Boggs (24)
P.J. Walters (23)
Jason Motte (26)
Kyle McClellan (24)

A+
Adam Ottavino (22)
Mark McCormick (24)

A
Tyler Herron (21)
Clay Mortensen (23)
Ken Maiques (23)

SS/R
Jess Todd (22)
Deryk Hooker (19)

Aside from what seems to be an overrating of low-minors relievers this seems to be a pretty accurate list, and what it says to me is this: at the end of 2007 the Cardinals are going to either have a bunch of really nice pitching prospects or a very new-looking prospect list.

Well, this is a happy accident–I’ve been following the Brian Barton sweepstakes for some time now but, certain that he wouldn’t fall to the Cardinals, didn’t bother writing about him. It’s not Johan or Josh Hamilton, as far as Rule 5 bonanzas go, but Barton is the kind of right-handed, defensively competent outfielder the Cardinals would otherwise have spent money on, and in their still-thin system he becomes a pretty solid prospect. Here are the relevant minor league statistics, up to this point:

AGE  LVL   G   AB    H  2B  3B  HR  BB   K  HBP  AVG  OBP  SLG  SB  CS  K%  BB%
 23    A  35  133   55  14   1   4  18  21    8 .414 .506 .624   7   2  16   13
      A+  64  223   61  15   6   3  34  57   15 .274 .404 .435  13   8  26   15
 24   A+  82  295   91  16   3  13  39  83   16 .308 .410 .515  26   3  28   13
      AA  42  151   53   5   0   6  13  26    5 .351 .415 .503  15   5  17    9
 25   AA 106  389  122  18   2   9  41  99   28 .314 .416 .440  20   9  25   11
     AAA  25   87   23   3   0   1   7  18    2 .264 .333 .333   1   1  21    8

As a late-blooming, fast outfielder with not-insignificant power and a good on-base percentage, Barton reminds me the most of Matt Lawton, with the optimistic projection being some kind of right-handed poor-man’s Ray Lankford. Ah, the Ray Lankford stamp of approval–that lets you know that I am optimistic about Brian Barton. The main concern, besides his gimp knee, is that that on-base percentage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be–take a look at those hit by pitch totals! But even if you cut them in half he gets on base plenty.

Barton’s not a star in the making, but he’s got the potential to be an extremely useful player, even a starter, and with the current makeup of this team he gives the Cardinals different “looks”, as sportswriters are so fond of saying. As a fast outfielder who isn’t afraid to get plunked, one thing is certain: Busch Stadium will make this man a cult hero.

This is what those $12 million you’re looking to free up will buy you today. You’ll notice he’s much like Scott Rolen, only he plays the outfield and he has even more character questions.

Do not trade Rolen or Edmonds. After the Izturis deal and the Pedro Feliz rumors I’m wary of any salary dumps, because you’ll probably just spend it on booze mediocrities anyway.

THE CESARIAN SECTION
A PLAY IN ONE ACT

Winter has left much of downtown St. Louis empty and dark, but on this November evening light pours out of TONY LA RUSSA’s new Busch office. Behind the locked door there’s a strange clack-clacking noise, and the occasional protestation of new Cardinals GM JOHN MOZELIAK. Important things must be going on, because that door’s been closed for hours; at the door, standing watch, is a low-level employee who’s been told nothing–only that the proceedings must, at all costs, be kept secret. If you go there, even now, I’m told he’ll flash his Stadium ID and flag you down:

ANTHONY REYES: Sorry, nobody allowed in here but authorized personnel.

Eventually the clacking becomes too much to bear. ANTHONY has no choice but to investigate. The door opens on this scene:

ANTHONY: Boss?

TONY: Wait, wait–there.

TONY unleashes a vicious spinning shot that bounces off of JOHN’s paddle and into the slot for the game point. The air hockey table beeps a victory tune and then powers down.

TONY: See, Anthony? Movement and contact. It’s like I keep telling you.

ANTHONY: Yes, boss.

JOHN: You win again, sir.

TONY: It’s alright, John, I’m the king of air hockey. I haven’t lost a game since Walt left. Anyway, since it’s ten games to none I’m going to have to invoke the Paquette rule and end this match, but keep working on your game.

JOHN: I made it clear on my resumé that I had minimal arcade game experience.

TONY: Don’t worry about it, Moz, even after that performance I’m glad you got the job. That Antonetti kid, he wasn’t bad, but I don’t trust any thirtysomething Italians who I’ve never employed as utility infielders.

JOHN: Thank you, sir. I’m happy to be here.

TONY: Yeah. You know what you’ve got, John? You’ve got scrap. It won’t help you win against the Prime Minister of air hockey, but I like it. Anyway, let’s get down to business.

TONY: We have business, right?

JOHN: Oh–right. I don’t know if you know this, sir, but David Eckstein is planning on testing the free agent waters. He wants four years, and our projections don’t have him aging so well, so we’re looking for his replacement.

TONY: It’s like I said when we had to trade Joe McEwing: you don’t replace scrap like that, you just don’t, but sometimes you just need craftiness. What are the options? In order of craftiness.

JOHN: Well, we could go after Miguel Tejada.

TONY: Miguel Tejada the outfielder?

JOHN: No, the–wait, there’s a Miguel Tejada the outfielder?

TONY: Sure, plays for the Orioles. Former MVP, good power, .280 average. Not a great outfielder, but–

JOHN: He’s a shortstop.

TONY: Are you listening to me? Look, John, I know I said I liked you, and we can’t all go to law school, but you’ve got to keep your head in the game, here. Miguel Tejada hit 30 home runs a few times, even drove in 150 runs one year. Those are textbook outfielder numbers.

JOHN: Oh–oh. Alright, sir. We could also take a look at Adam Everett.

TONY: The pitcher?

JOHN: I–I’ll come back to him. Another option is Jack Wilson, the Pirate.

TONY: Oh, I like that guy. Great range, good hands.

JOHN: He’s got a decent bat, sometimes, too.

TONY: Decent? Did you know he’s 3-5 with two doubles and a triple against that clod Anthony Reyes? And get this–8-12 against Kaz Ishii. If we don’t bite now, the Japanese Leagues might beat us to him.

TONY: On the other hand… you know what, John? You might be right. His bat might force him off shortstop, and if there’s one thing we don’t need it’s another light-hitting outfielder. Who else can we get with a good glove?

JOHN: Cesar Izturis.

TONY: Wha–the Dodger? Remember those bang-bang plays he used to make with Joey Cora’s son? Cora would jump and then he’d throw the ball and Izturis would do a barrel-roll and catch it barehanded and–did you ever see Live Free or Die Hard like I said, John? He’d–oh, I can’t wait to see him make diving plays over our broken-glass-filled infield. Who do we have to trade to the Dodgers to make this happen?

JOHN: He–he’s a free agent.

TONY: Why are we even wasting our air hockey time? Sign the kid!

JOHN (sadly): It’s just–it’s just–he can’t hit, sir. I’m sorry to be the one having to say this, but he can’t hit. At all. He’s only been adequate once in his whole career.

TONY: Look, John, I know you’re trying. I really do. And I appreciate it. But allow the Archduke of air hockey to present an object lesson. I’m going to put the paddle in front of my goal, and I want you to hit the puck as hard as you possibly can at it.

JOHN: Alright.

TONY has positioned the paddle such that, when JOHN lets fly with his best fastball, the puck bounces against TONY’s paddle and into JOHN’s goal. TONY does a shallow bow.

TONY: You see, John? The best offense is a good defense; it only took six tries and I’m already ahead 1-0! Now imagine how Cesar will play air hockey. Come Chuck E. Cheese night Krivsky’s going to owe me enough tickets to buy a spider ring for each finger.

JOHN: I’ll get on the phone, sir.

TONY: Good. Anyway, all this talk of Chuck E. Cheese has got me hungry. You in?

JOHN: Yes, sir.

TONY: Alright. Round up the whole Busch crew, this party’s on me!

JOHN: Yes, sir!

TONY: (Walking out the door.) So anyway, Cesar’s got his gun out and he bursts in and he says, “Yippie-ki-yay, mother”–sorry, I need to lock up.

(Several minutes pass.)

ANTHONY: Boss? Boss?

ANTHONY: I–I’m still in here.