Jeff Weaver almost certainly must be included.

to earn a place on that team. He wasn’t that good in the regular season. He had 2 good starts in the playoffs and everyone thinks he can come back here and thrive under Dunc. News flash, when he was here he didn’t. He got lucky twice. End of story he’s a nut job with a crack head agent. Hell he couldn’t cut it in AAA he proved that and got released.

Molina—Okay, so obviously I had to start with the guy with no interesting backstory. Whatever.

LaRue—Only a scrap-heap hero in that he still belongs on the scrap heap…but I’m gonna count that.

Pujols—13th rounder who spent less than a year in the minors before taking the major leagues by storm.

Miles—Hot prospect in Chicago (Sox) who never quite panned out…they swung him off to Colorado where he floundered for a few years before finding a niche role here in the Lou.

Kennedy—Seems to have put last year’s epic fall from grace behind him, chronologically speaking. In terms of hitting, maybe not so much. Scrap-heap dud.

Izturis—Another fall from grace story. Former gold glover turned pariah on the 2007 Cubs. Has turned himself into a somewhat useful player (at least with the glove) for our Cards this year.

Ryan—Not even really considered a good prospect, has come up to the majors and posted an 88 OPS+, a good glove, and a lot of shoulder licking.

Glaus—Struggles with injuries and happiness made his stay in Toronto taste a little bitter. Now thriving (especially defensively) on the soft grass infield of Busch.

Schumaker—After years of alternating between the majors and minors, finally established himself with a rock-solid spring.

Duncan—Classic Cardinal case of being better in the majors than he was in the minors. Another surprise when he came up a few years ago with lightning in his bat.

Ankiel—Well, I mean, seriously…

Ludwick—Once a pretty decent prospect with the Indians, struggled with injuries through his prime development years. Finally healthy in the Lou and displaying the power that the Indians gave up on getting long ago.

Barton—Rule 5 pick? Basically the definition of scrap heap.

Too lazy to do the pitchers, but yeah, this really is a team with a lot of interesting backgrounds.

Cal Eldred: Above average reliever for us for 3 seasons(03-05) after missing the entire 2002 season due to injury.

Darryl Kile: Maybe not a true scrap-heaper, as it was just Colorado that happened to his career. He was a beast in Houston, signed a huge deal with the Rockies, and then was traded to us, where he regained stud status before his untimely death.

Andy Benes: Dude was DONE in 2002, when he came back mid-season and posted a 5-4 record with a 2.78 ERA to help that team win the division.

To agree/disagree with others, Spiezio is a definite on this list. For the current team, Ludwick would be the only one I’d constitute as a scrapheap guy. Carp obviously also needs to make the list.

I wouldn’t list someone like Pujols as scrap-heap, just because he was a later-round draft pick. I don’t think of the late rounds of the draft as scrap-heap. That seems more like where chronically injured or seemingly done players get relegated to.

While watching the craziness of the U.S. Open playoffs, I went through pretty much all the TLR-managed teams to look for “scrap-heap” type of players.

Here’s what I came up with for nominees per positions:

Corner Infielders:

John Mabry – After leaving via Free Agency, he seemed pretty much done as far as being an important piece of a major league team, when he came back in 2004 and had a very good year as a super-sub. (Really played more in the outfield, but I’m putting him here due to lack of good 1st base options).

Will Clark – Not really on the scrap-heap, so this is a weak nomination. He was at the end of his career though, and came up as a big-time bat in 2000 for the Cardinals.

Craig Paquette – In 1999 and 2001, had his two best seasons as a pro. He was never much of a big-time player. He has one good year with KC in ‘96 and otherwise his only good seasons were the ones with St. Louis several years later. After St. Louis, he went to Detroit, and went back to being a pretty bad baseball player, batting under .200 in Detroit over two seasons.

Middle Infield:

Bo Hart – 26 year old 2nd base prospect that wasn’t really very good in the minors, but caught fire in 2003 and was a big part of that team remaining competitive as long as it was. Fizzled out in 2004 though, and has never really been heard from again (However, on a fun note, his jerseys still sat on the bargain rack at the local Hibbett sports for like $25 until around 2006—looking back, I really wish I had picked one up on the cheap).

Aaron Miles – Underachieved early on in his career. Has put up his career best numbers in St. Louis.

Abraham Nunez – His career best OPS+ was his one season with St. Louis. Most of his time was spent at 3rd base, so I’ll mention him there as well, even though he’s really a MIF by trade.

Cesar Izturis – Not sure if I buy him as a hero off the scrap-heap. He’s an excellent glove, but that was always known about him. His OPS+ so far this year is pretty much in-line with his career, so I think we’ll have to see how he does this year before we dub him a “scrap-heap hero”

Outfield:

Rick Ankiel – The only part that’s hard about this is whether he’s actually scrap-heap. But seeing as he successfully made it through waivers when the Cardinals needed him to, I would say he constitutes. He might be the ultimate scrap-heap positional player, with this in mind.

Ryan Ludwick – Had about 300-350 career at-bats before coming to St. Louis at age 28. Now, he’s a potential All-Star, and the 2nd biggest offensive threat behind Pujols on the team.

John Rodriguez – SImilar to Ludwick. He had 0 career at-bats before coming to St. Louis and posted OPS+’s of over 100 in two partial seasons at ages 27-28.

Catchers:

I got nothing. Most of the backups have sucked and all the starters weren’t really scrap-heap guys.

Pitchers: A big list, so I’m just listing them off, since the cases have been made for most of them prior to here

Chris Carpenter
Andy Benes
Darryl Kile
Kent Bottenfield
Woody Williams
Jason Simontacchi
Jeff Weaver
Todd Wellemeyer
Cal Eldred (Reliever)

That’s the best I can do.

Claimed off waivers from the Cubs in late June of 1926, 39 year-old Grover Cleveland Alexander went on to go 9-7 the rest of the way with a 2.91 ERA. In the World Series against the Yankees, he pitched complete game victories in games 2 and 6, allowing only two runs each game. Then he pitched the last 2.1 innings in game 7 to preserve the 3-2 lead and give the Cards their first WS Championship.

Not THAT is a waiver wire pickup!

Oh, and the next year at age 40 he went 21-10 with 22 complete games and had an ERA of 2.52 (ERA+ of 157).