“These moves could be relatively cheap in terms of prospects.”

Fuentes, especially, will not come cheap. Sherrill is one of the better closers in the game right now, he certainly won’t be cheap either. Mahay maybe, but good LHRPs are always in high demand, and use their price is always high.

As for Polanco…like you said, he’s pretty cheap and very productive, offensively and defensively. What makes you think he would be cheap in a trade?

Bottom line - almost invariably, you can’t trade nothing for something. You want good players? You have to give good talent, or at least talent that has good potential. I don’t think any of the teams you mentioned are exactly fumbling to give away those players - thus, they won’t be “relatively cheap in terms of prospects.”

but the undrafted Cardinal farmhand Justin Fiske is getting the results you want and rocketing through the system.

His numbers are quite remarkable at AA

If he pitches this year or ever again in the majors, he could be our soft-tossing lefty specialist. In fact, I think one left-handed hitter a game is all I’m comfortable with in regards to Mark Mulder pitching with this team.

In no way do I think we should be trading any prospects with a pulse for a LOOGY.

I have mentioned this before but the Yankee’s are in desperate need of pitching, Cano is hitting for shit right now. I think if somehow we can get some of our starting pitchers healthy and have a surplus that we could trade Lohse + prospects to the Yankee’s for Cano.

Admit we screwed up and bring back Eric Haberer. He could get it done. It was also somewhat surprising that we didn’t claim Threets off waivers when he was available….

players coming in relatively cheap, I was actually saying that they wouldn’t require us to trade Rasmus, Perez, or Garcia – I was not clear; my fault. I am content with trading many of the players on the farm, but not any of those 3. If one of them is traded, I will be very disappointed in the decision. These are the cornerstones of the future that should stay Cardinals until performance proves otherwise.

Orlando Hudson is a gold glove caliber 2nd baseman, but his asking price will be around 8-10 mil/year and if you add Kennedy’s salary to that, it doesn’t seem to be as valuable as Polanco.

I believe Marte will be very costly, but Grabow could be had for less. One thing that could help the Cardinals is if the Pirates decide to trade Bay and Nady, which would open a spot for Pearce (Pirates AAA OF/1B) and they could use another OF, such as John Jay or Joe Mather? I can only see a deal with the Pirates if they make other deals for the future, but from what I have seen while working in Pittsburgh is that attendance is low and the city sees a .500 winning percentage as a great season, so they are probably not going to make any moves.

Cano will not be a very good option even though he does hit (he tends to really heat up in the second half of the year). Cano is projecting to be moved to the outfield at some point in his career due to his defense and the Yankees will want some top notch prospects in return. I don’t see the Yankees buying into any pitchers the Cardinals have to offer.

If the A’s become sellers, Alan Embree may become available. The Mariners may look to move Arthur Rhodes. Everyday Eddie Guardado may be moved by Texas. Bobby Seay in Detroit. Jack Taschner in San Fran. These guys will probably come a lot cheaper and I believe they are all an upgrade over Flores or Villone.

kennedy’s costs are sunk, just like encarnacion. adds to the total payroll, so should be viewed as a part of the total payroll calculations, not dumped on a specific player we might acquire. hudson’s cost is hudson’s cost, no fair adding kennedy’s burden to o-dog.

age 30 is fine by me, especially for a second baseman. i certainly favor orlando over roberts. bigger question is what do we have they (backs) want, probably not much i’m afraid. they spent a bunch of prospects for haren, so maybe some AA talent could play a roll. to do anything, though, we need reyes (and cd) to get going.