Well yesterday's thread was quite the discussion as far as our shortstop options.  I'm going to tail off of yesterday's post; I've got another name to add to the mix but I want to set the table first before I bring out the eats.

Let's preface this whole discussion with a slight tangent. I have a confession: I would be the worst GM on the planet. Worse than Dave Littlefield. Worse than Chuck Lamar. Worse than Ed Wade. OK, maybe not worse than Ed Wade. Being a GM is about vastly more than evaluating talent. I'd like to think I'm pretty good at that. What I would fail at miserably would be managing a set of strong-willed, type-A personalities that permeate baseball on the field, in the dugouts and throughout front offices. I asked a teacher in high school to write me a letter of recommendation my senior year. In it he wrote, "[azruavatar] is very intelligent and motivated but also tends to be abrasive and does not work well with others."  Since I'm both abrasive and vindictive, I was quite the problem student for the remainder of my time in that class. The point being that as a GM the ability to work with a sizable number of opinionated people is not something to be overlooked.

I have to wonder then what a GM would do when confronted with the situation that the Cardinals have now. I'm not convinced of Brendan Ryan's ability to play everyday. In fact, I think he's probably more of a nice utility infielder than an everyday player but he's the only current option with upside. Putting aside any speculation as to why, Tony La Russa exhibited a distinct proclivity last year for playing other players at short rather than Brendan Ryan (where's Luis Vizcaino when you need him???). David Eckstein has been testing the free agent waters and seems to be finding them a bit chillier than expected. Let's assume for a moment that the Cardinals offer arbitration and he accepts. Does anyone really wonder who the starting shortstop would be next year? If the Cardinals acquired Cezar Izturis or Jack Wilson, can anyone envision a likelihood where Brendan Ryan gets a sustained opportunity to disprove his doubters.

We'd all like the Cardinals to get younger I think. At the same time, we'd like to see them get better. Bringing in any of the aforementioned options at this point (Eckstein, Izturis or Wilson) doesn't represent a significant improvement and probably isn't the caliber shortstop you'd want on a contending team.  Mozeliak is thus left in a position where he can bring in a stop-gap SS that will be adequate but eminently mediocre. That kind of a move would probably endear him to his manager but it has a cost beyond just the apparent monetary one. There's an opportunity cost to Ryan in some form.  I'm sure that Mozeliak is aware of the likes and dislikes of his manager. His first responsibility is to provide the best roster he can but recognizing that contention probably isn't a likely outcome for the Cardinals this year, looking ahead to the future has to be balanced in as well. Finding a viable alternative to Brendan Ryan both next year and in the future would be ideal.

Premier shortstops don't hit the free agent market often and that's not an option I'd want to rely on if I were Mozeliak. The farm system lacks a slam-dunk option. Tyler Greene blew his knee out at the end of this past season and there were questions about whether he could stick defensively and if his tools would ever translate to an ability to hit for average. Jose Martinez doesn't profile as an everyday shortstop but more of a second baseman or utility player. Pete Kozma is -- at minimum -- 2 years away and more likely 3-4 before he'll be ready to contribute.  Thus, it would appear as if the Cardinals need to swing a trade of sorts or deal with a several years and potentially longer of mediocrity.

The name Ben Zobrist has been bandied about in the past as a trade target and with the Ray's acquisition of Jason Bartlett the possibility snatching away Zobrist would seem to be even more possible. As I was reading the prolific and somewhat varied trade rumors yesterday, something caught my eye.  About a month ago, I vaguely tossed out the idea of targeting Jed Lowrie from the Boston Red Sox system.  He's rumored to be part of the offer the Red Sox have made for Johan Santana so it would appear that the Sox are at least open to moving him. He's currently blocked by Julio Lugo who suffered through a truly terrible 2007 campaign but has another 3 years on his contract. Oscar Tejada is a toolsy SS in the system behind Lowrie, although he's very far removed from being major league ready. Kevin Goldstein ranked Lowrie as the 4th best prospect in the Red Sox system. Here's the good things that Goldstein said about him:

Regardless of what the exact package would look like, trading for Zobrist or Lowrie presents La Russa with two options for SS. All three (Ryan, Zobrist and Lowrie) represent cheap short-term options that could be both an immediate upgrade and a long-term solution compared to their more elderly counterparts. Lowrie had some interesting numbers last year in AA and AAA where he posted a .909 and .850 OPS respectively. Baseball Prospectus translates those numbers to a .805 OPS and a .818 OPS in terms of equivalent major league numbers. Now, whether that's a Zobrist/Lowrie and Brendan Ryan is a pair of options that TLR would be willing to work with, I don't know. My cold, synthetic robot heart doesn't know how to compute factors like that. I'll leave those issues up to my betters (Mozeliak) with the hopes that they can find a palatable option for everyone that isn't just a return of the mediocre status quo.

********

Baseball America releases it's Top Ten Cardinal Prospects online today. The list is compiled by the esteemed Derrick Goold. He'll also be holding a chat over there at 11 a.m. central time.  I'll have a post at Future Redbirds about it sometime in the morning but I'm sure that will be a significant topic of discussion today in these parts as well.