sneak preview of friday morning's post-dispatch, courtesy derrick goold's Bird Land blog:

• the cards have a good shot at landing junior spivey; he has narrowed his list to stl and the colorado rockies.
  
• the cards also are interested in my man willie harris, whom jocketty describes as "a perfect guy for tony."
  
• free-agent juan encarnacion may yet be signed to fill one of the vacant corner-outfield slots . . . . gulp. i could live w him on a one-year contract, but at three years he could be the next tino. (yeh i know i said the same thing about jacque jones.)
  
• felix rodriguez in holding pattern til after the 1st.

elsewhere: the mariners picked up matt lawton on a one-year, $400K contract. absolute steal. incentives may drive the final salary up to $1.25m; still a steal --- .368 career obp, only 33 years old. and at that price you'd still have money left over to sign a rh platoon partner / defensive replacement for lawton.

as someone pointed out here yesterday, if they can forgive ponson for his many sins, why not lawton?