congratulations, one and all: you guys overwhelmed SB Nation's servers right at the deadline. and baseball think factory's. and the post-dispatch's. and rotoworld's. and heaven knows how many other sites.

readers 1, internet 0.

not that you missed anything while the servers were down. the deadline has passed with no further moves by the cardinals; the post-waiver period now commences, and jocketty may be active. we shall see.

Update [2006-7-31 16:32:12 by lboros]: spoke too soon: the cardinals acquired jorge sosa, who was DFA'd by the braves, for triple-a reliever rich scalamandre. more in a moment. . . .

here is sosa's career line; he's no good. had a fluke season last year, but a bad player overall. he has yielded 20 homers in 90 innings this season . . . . . i'm not sure what the point was; whose spot on the pitching staff does he take? maybe this is the prelude to another trade -- marquis for somebody . . .

Update [2006-7-31 16:46:3 by lboros]: another frustrating piece of news: the yankees got craig wilson in exchange for shawn chacon, who got bounced from the rotation and (you may recall) was once offered for sidney ponson . . . . . so the yankees got both abreu and c wilson in exchange for a washed-up starter and some grade-C prospects . . . . . but at least we have sosa.[end update]

derrick goold did some nice number-crunching over at birdland to assess ronnie belliard's defense. if i read his post correctly, goold is saying that belliard is about on par with the platoon he is replacing in terms of range, but is likely to make fewer errors --- hence represents a small upgrade with the leather. . . . .

in an earlier post, goold expressed some unvarnished opinions about the deal; he's not a fan. neither is matthew leach, who in today's mailbag weighs in on the belliard trade and has some insight about reyes and the 2-seamer.

if you haven't already read these opinions, danup places the trade within the context of  the cards' quixotic quest; disaspora deconstructs the post-trade spin; birdwatch looks at the deal that didn't go down; pip at fungoes runs some numbers; 26th man scolds himself for not realizing that 2b was a bigger problem than the imploding rotation; and the right reverend reads from the fielding bible.