The St. Louis Cardinals news cycle this week was dominated by Chris Carpenter, and I don't want to take anything away from that. But Lance Lynn has lost approximately 0.5 Lance Lynns over the course of a single offseason, and Derrick Goold was cruel enough not to warn us before he tweeted out the first-ever picture of Lynn looking like something other than an ornery mountain man. So I'm warning you here, before I get to the links for Friday's VEB Monitor.

(If you have a link you think would be of interest to VEB readers—yours or someone else's—and you're not selling anything, feel free to send me an e-mail. If you're a VEB regular who thinks collating a semi-regular link-dump sounds like a good time, also feel free to send me an e-mail.)

STLToday: Ex-Cards Ankiel, Greene eye roles with Astros
STLToday writer Derrick Goold eyes easy pageviews from Dan Moore. Trying to get Rick Ankiel to agree to become a pitcher-outfielder is passé, but Tyler Greene has a great arm, too. Think about how flexible a roster could be with two mop-up pitchers on the bench.

MLB Injury News: Forced Out: Chris Carpenter the latest to have injuries derail career
There's a nice reminder in this post about the difference between a baseball player's retirement—sudden, typically undesired—and anybody else's. Chris Carpenter has been good enough that he'll be able to announce his retirement, whenever it happens, but most of the time I think the idea of a player retiring "on his own terms" is a little inaccurate.

C70 At the Bat: The End Of An Era
A solid look at the sudden end of the Chris Carpenter era.

Minor League Ball: Enigma Prospect: Pete Kozma, INF, St. Louis Cardinals
It makes me feel better to know John Sickels doesn't know what to make of Pete Kozma, either. Read the comments for some interesting discussion from some VEB regulars.

#Cardinals PC Lilliquist talks with Lance Lynn this morning twitpic.com/c1vx40

— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) February 8, 2013

This is a rare example of someone successfully burying the lede in a tweet.