late last night, numerous rumors flew about the cardinals signing or being on the verge of signing roy oswalt. despite all his health question marks, he'd be a great addition to our rotation. and at the prices being discussed (presumably somewhere between oswalt's rumored aim for an $8m contract and the cardinals' earlier reported $5m offer) oswalt could get away with starting only 10-15 starts to be worth his contract. if he stays at all healthy, he's a great pickup.

here's what ZIPS thinks of the guys on our potential 5th starting pitcher list:

roy oswalt (age 34): 108 ERA+, 154.0 ip

edwin jackson (age 28): 101 ERA+, 198.7 IP

lance lynn (age 25): 93 ERA+, 126.3 IP

jake westbrook (age 34): 83 ERA+, 127.3 IP

this will cause some consternation on the field, assuming - and this is by no means a given - that wainwright, carpenter, lohse, westbrook, garcia, and oswalt all finish spring training healthy.

in that event, i would expect us to start the season with westbrook in the bullpen, as being noticeably the worst option among starters. other options suggested include carrying 6 starters, releasing westbrook, or seeking his permission for a trade.

carrying westbrook in the bullpen would almost certainly mean leaving lynn in memphis as the sixth starter. however, if we're going to have lynn to call up as a starter, carrying westbrook seems awfully redundant. he's probably not a very good addition to a pretty stacked bullpen. and he's not very compelling as a sixth starter because a) he's not likely as good as lynn and b) he can't be kept ready at memphis. stretching him out to start in the majors could be an ugly, cumbersome process. unless there's a protracted need for a seventh starter due to injury, he doesn't seem to make much sense on the team.

one complicating factor is the presence of kyle mcclellan. carrying both in the bullpen would leave two expensive, not very good pitchers on the squad. trading kyle mcclellan might lead to a measure of salary relief for the club, as well as leaving westbrook as the only subpar reliever in the bullpen. one thing to watch is to see whether the fallout of an oswalt signing might be a trade for mcclellan, clearing bullpen space and salary.

i don't like the idea of just releasing westbrook. even if he's not much more than replacement value, he could have substantial trade value by the deadline to a team needing an innings eater. as unpleasant as it might be to carry westbrook in the bullpen while, say, sanchez pitches in memphis, it might be worth doing through june.

and even with the somewhat dicey reliability of the rotation - none of carpenter, wainwright, or oswalt seem like sure 30-game starters - i'm reluctant to put the 6-man rotation into effect, unless one or more other starters look shaky or not at full strength in spring training. a 6-man rotation would mostly replace starts by comparable pitchers with oswalt starts, and leave westbrook still posting a lot of replacement value starts.

The latest Roy Oswalt patter, in case you don't read the comments or Joe Strauss's Twitter—the St. Louis Cardinals did bid on Oswalt, at $5 million or so, but are likely, terribly, to be outbid by one McClellan Unit. That's the default storyline, and it's a powerful one—the Cardinals have spent $4 million on, in Kyle McClellan and Skip Schumaker, replaceable players with nice reputations in the clubhouse.

Oswalt would be nice—and unless the $5 million the Cardinals could offer was already contingent on trading Jake Westbrook, I don't think McClellan and Schumaker are really keeping them from making the move if they want to. But one thing is unequivocally true: The McClellan and Schumaker signings have kept the Cardinals from signing weirder, more interesting players for the end of their bullpen and bench. Such as:

Dan Wheeler: The Indians signed Dan Wheeler to a minor league contract Thursday. You may remember Wheeler as one of a million tough relievers the Houston Astros churned out in the course of moving from Billy Wagner to Octavio Dotel to Brad Lidge. He is also the effective reliever least likely to ever be named a closer, thanks to the 46 home runs he's allowed in his last 300 innings.

Wheeler is a fascinating ROOGY, in that he's likely to get tagged for a home run no matter who he's pitching to—last year righties hit .227/.238/.412, and lefties .278/.333/.431.

Kyle McClellan is pretty interesting himself—he's got a massive reverse platoon split in his career, a .211 average against lefties and a .270 average against righties. But everybody else's replacement-level players are always more interesting than yours.

Jason Isringhausen: Jason Isringhausen wants to pitch again! And the New York Mets have no desire to sign him! Jason Isringhausen!

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I don't think anything can express how weird Prince Fielder's free agency experience was quite as well as the company he kept in free agency—the last few days have seen Fielder's nine-year, $214 million deal, which was not a great idea; Francisco Cordero's one-year, $4.5 million deal with the Blue Jays, which, okay, I guess; and Jeff Francis's minor-league deal with the Cincinnati Reds, which, sure.

For my own sake as much as yours and Prince Fielder's (I'm sure it will make a nice keepsake), here's some of what you've missed if your 2012 baseball senses haven't quite kicked in.

January 1: The Toronto Blue Jays trade Daniel Webb and Myles Jaye to the Chicago White Sox for Jason Frasor.

The Blue Jays grabbed ex-shortstop Sergio Santos in December, got Cordero a few days ago, and completed their all-name-brand bullpen by reacquiring Jason Frasor, who'd been floating around near the top of their bullpen since 2004, who was ballast in one of the interlocking Edwin Jackson trades.

Final deal for the Blue Jays: Zach Stewart, Octavio Dotel, Marc Rzepczynski, Daniel Webb, Myles Jaye [which can't possibly be spelled right, can it?] and Jason Frasor for Colby Rasmus, Mark Teahen, Trever Miller, Brian Tallet, P.J. Walters, and Jason Frasor.

January 3: The Baltimore Orioles purchase Jai Miller from the Oakland Athletics.

How poor could the A's possibly be, that they're pawning minor league outfielders off on the Orioles? You don't see a lot of players bought and sold anymore, so I'm going to assume the A's simply put Jai Miller in a prepaid Cash 4 Outfielders envelope, dropped him in the mailbox, and hoped for the best.

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I'm writing this Tuesday. I have some spare time and this is easier than trying to fit a post between things on Wednesday morning. So if something drastic has happened overnight you'll just have to discuss that amongst yourselves instead.

I'm also writing this just a few hours after the Prince Fielder signing was announced. Nine years, $214 million. Wow. He's four years younger than Pujols, but I'm not sure I would be any more comfortable betting a decade's worth of paychecks on a guy with Fielder's build than on Albert. I'm also a little curious what the Tigers plan on doing with all of their first base/DH combo hitters; Victor Martinez will be out this season, sure, but it isn't as if he's going to magically be able to catch again -- or play any other position for that matter -- when he comes back in 2013.

Still, the spectre of facing Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder back to back in the lineup should be enough to give any American League pitchers screaming fits of night terrors. Unless the Royals' prospects all mature and start producing at career peak levels at the same time this season, I think the Tigers are going to run away and hide with the AL Central. That's an horrific division with one super team.

Anyhow, I was already planning on doing a draft preview this week, but in honour of Prince leaving the division I'm going to feature a troika of players who offer a toolset the Cardinals' minor league system is a little light on at the moment. I speak of power. Big time, over the fence power. Thirty homer a year power. Chicks digging it power.

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In a recent article posted on stltoday.com, Post-Dispatch writer Joe Strauss addressed the St. Louis Cardinals' intangibles entering the 2012 season against the backdrop of the 2011 and 2010 teams. Employing the verbage of "vibe," "chemistry," and "mix" to describe this indefinable quality so often found in winning teams by the sportswriters who cover them, Strauss offers a lengthy analysis with many quotes from players as well as general manager John Mozeliak. Strauss's thoroughness makes the article well worth reading as it contains many interesting and thought-provoking statements.

The article revisits a theme of the 2010 season and its aftermath regarding that incarnation of the Cardinals, that the group lacked that much-desired team trait of chemistry. As the club battled the Reds that summer, Mozeliak famously stated that he was looking for "a straw to stir the drink" that would transform the Cardinals into a tasty cocktail of success. If Pedro Feliz was that straw, his clubhouse cocktail mixing would seem to be about on par with his hitting. As Strauss notes in the article, that Cardinals team was in first place at the non-waiver trade deadline but finished the season 5.0 games back of the division champion Reds.

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Grantland has posted an article by Bill James that it describes as "[a] totally, utterly, insanely completist list from the godfather of baseball stats" of the 100 best pitchers' duels of 2011. James attempts to objectively list the top-pitched games by starting pitchers during 2011. In doing so, he lays out the following guiding criteria:

What are the elements of a great pitchers' duel? A pitchers' duel is a low-scoring game, obviously; a 1-0 game is the champion of its list. The term "pitchers' duel" implies that the starting pitchers pitch well, as opposed to staggering through five innings un-scored upon and handing it off to the bullpen. We think of a pitchers' duel more highly if it involves pitchers of stature. A 1-0 game is more memorable if it is Sabathia against Verlander than if it is Marco Estrada against Kevin Correia. Which, by the way, actually happened last year; Marco Estrada and Kevin Correia matched up on August 13 at Miller Park, and the result was a 1-0 game. Go figure. There's a woman involved somewhere.

Anyway, a great pitchers' duel implies that there is something at stake beyond fifth place, although you don't want to place too much emphasis on that criterion, or you wind up warbling on about Jack Morris in 1991, long after anybody cares.

I agree by and large with the elements James lays out. But, like other Cardinals fans, I respectfully disagree with Grantland regarding the completeness of the list, which only seems to include regular season pitchers' duels. By limiting the list in such a way, James has left off the top pitching duel of the 2011 calendar year: Halladay vs. Carpenter in Game 5 of the NLDS.

Applying the four criteria James uses, let's evaluate Game 5 of the NLDS between the Phillies and Cardinals.

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That former St. Louis Cardinals shortstop David Eckstein is officially retiring from the game of baseball, as reported by Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe, should come as little surprise. After his 1.9-fWAR season in 2010 with the Padres, Eckstein did not receive a contract for the 2011 season. [UPDATE: Although, Jon Heyman tweets that Eckstein turned down a contract offer from the Mariners for 2011.] The 37-year-old is hanging up his cleats after ten big-league seasons "even though there were teams willing to bring him into camp" this year, according to Cafardo.

Eckstein is listed at five feet, seven inches tall. I mention this because there is a rule that any newspaper article or blog post about Eckstein must include his relatively short height. His short stature led combined with his style of play led to sportswriters casting him as an underdog who got more out of his talent than other, more-talented players. And it was this narrative that led to a backlash against the player, a backlash that was led by Fire Joe Morgan.

It is not Eckstein's fault that he became the poster boy for intangibles such as heart, hustle, grit, and baseball smarts. It is not the player's fault that questions from the media caused smart baseball men like Joe Maddon to say things like "Even if he goes 0-for-4 and makes three errors, he helps you." No, it is not Eckstein's fault that baseball people and sportswriters discuss him with backhanded compliments that downplay his skill and play up his intangibles.

Eckstein may have had the greatest combination of intangibles in baseball history. Unfortunately, we'll never know because they're intangibles. The singular focus and resultant battle over his indefinable characteristics unfairly marginalized the reality that Eckstein was a pretty valuable ballplayer in the tangible sense, especially for the Cardinals.

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