Here is an interesting story to highlight, one that Cardinals fans might have some empathy for.  Adam Loewen is a former top starting pitcher prospect of the Baltimore Orioles.  

From 2004-06 he was consistently in the Oriole's top three top prospects, and was a top fifty prospect in baseball with a high ranking of #13 in all of baseball.  (thebaseballcube.com)  Since the beginning of 2007, Loewen's career has been much more difficult.  A stress factor in his pitching forearm sidelined him for much of 2007, and another stress fracture has ended his pitching career.

You'll never guess what he's up to now......that's right, he is trying to reinvent himself as a position player!  Apparently he was a pretty good hitter before he became a full time pitcher and wants to see if he can still hit.  I say good for him.

So if you are looking for a ballplayer to root for outside of our organization (for now....) and loved the Rick Ankiel story, here is another opportunity to follow a career resurrection attempt.  Good luck, Adam, I hope you make the Show!  He is currently a free agent and the Toronto Blue Jays are kicking the tires on him.

Just wanted to bring an interesting and under the radar story to everyone's attention.  Maybe we should sign him, and see if lightning can strike twice!

Hardcore Legend recently wrote a diary about the Cardinals search for a cleanup hitter that many of you read and commented on.  He referenced a certain promise from Cardinal ownership regarding our team’s pursuit of elite free agents.  Most of us have heard it:  “When the right guy comes along, we will certainly be in the bidding.”  This phrase, “the right guy” is certainly referring to the elite free agent acquisitions and not the Kip Wells/Matt Clement reclamation project 

My concern is simple.  There will not be another “right guy,” maybe ever.  This offseason and other recent ones have seen the development of a new trend that threatens the quality of upcoming free agents classes: the signing of young, up and coming stars to long term deals.  Quite frankly, this practice makes the promise of signing an elite free agent a hollow one. 

Here is a list of some young players who have received contract extensions along with the type of deal. 

Grady Sizemore- 6 years/$23.45 million with club option

Troy Tulowitzki- 6 years/$31 million with club option

Chris Young- six year deal, similar terms as Tulo deal

James Shields- 4 year deal guaranteed, three club option years, worth up to $44 million

Evan Longoria- 6 years/$17.5 million, potentially worth up to 7 years/$44 million

Miguel Cabrera- 7 years/140 million (much bigger deal, but Miggy is still very young) 

Our own Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina, and even Albert are also examples of this.  I am sure there are more I am missing.  Baseball is flowing with cash right now, and that money is getting to the individual clubs and then to the players.  I believe this type of deal will become more and more commonplace as teams with money to spend will seek to lock up the stars they have exclusive negotiating rights with.  This is awesome for small market teams who can keep their young stars cost-controlled for potentially several years into arbitration and even free agency, but it is drastically thinning out the free agent markets each offseason. 

The problem is worse than just young players signing elsewhere, veterans are also signing extensions as well.  Vernon Wells, Ichiro, Peavy, Carlos Zambrano, and Johan Santana are all very recent example of players who reupped with their squads instead of truly testing the free agent market, whether it was just after a trade or through a long term player/team relationship.  All of this combines to create a situation where free agency will be a thin market in seeking superlative talent. 

I hear many people talking about the amount of money coming off the books for the Cardinals in upcoming seasons and people getting excited about using that money to sign free agents.  The problem is that many of this elite talents are not going to be hitting the free agent market for years, if ever.  Even if they do hit free agency, many of them are into their early 30’s and even later.  As time goes by, the free agent market will have some good players, but very few who aren’t flawed in some significant way.  This trend will continue to hit the free agent classes hard and really limit the amount of quality talent available to sign.  Of course, the cost for this talent will be huge, as recent markets has seen.  In this dynamic, an entirely new strategy for building a baseball team is required. 

There are a few possible solutions to this issue.  One is being aggressive in the trade markets and acquiring elite level talent that way.  Of course, to do this, we must have talent to send to the other team, and that brings us to the true solution to this problem. 

We must draft and develop our own elite talent.  This is incredibly simple, maybe almost stupid to say, but it is true.  I would like to see the Cardinals invest a lot of money into the amateur draft and our farm system so we will have premium talent flowing to the big club on a regular basis.  An overflow of talent also gives us the option of trading for megastars when they come to be available from time to time, like last offseason.  Let’s all hope that Colby Rasmus is merely the first of a series of excellent players that are developed by our Cardinals.  If he is alone, then it could be difficult and extremely expensive to build the next core of a title seeking Cardinals squad. 

In this new era, info about upcoming draftees and about our current farm situation will be just as important as info on the upcoming free agents.  It may be even more important.  That’s why Future Redbirds and the red baron’s posts about draftees have been so cool.  I am convinced more than ever that our team must be a organization that develops young talent and then gives those players a chance to contribute at the major league level.  Every Aaron Miles, Cesar Izturis, Adam Kennedy, Mark Mulder v2.0, Kip Wells, Matt Clement deal is taking up money and roster spots that could be used for talent development and evaluation.  I believe that path is a much better investment. 

Thanks for reading!

This is something that has been bouncing around in my head for the last several days and I wanted to share it with this community and see what you guys think.  Before we continue, I want everyone to know this is all in fun and is NOT intended to put down players in the league.  With all the steroids talk being so serious I wanted to put a lighter spin on things, and I hope you enjoy and participate.

Basically, I am proposing the start of a "Mitchell Report League" with a draft and nominees for different categories.  Since I am starting off, I will set the model for how this works.

The report from the committee headed by George Mitchell is due out sometime before the end of this year and is expected to name players that have been involved in using performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) in this past era.  It is our mission to determine who will be in the report beforehand.  I want your best guesses, both serious and humorous, on who you think will be in the fabled report.

My nominees:

The Jose Canseco divison:
I am interested to know if some other players that Canseco singled out will be indicated as users in the past decade or so.  Top on this list is Pudge Rodriguez and Brett Boone.  I will be fascinated if Canseco is validated more or just embellished to sell books.

The "Obvious" division:
Guys who obviously took steroids, and let's get more creative than Bonds, Barry.....I may just call this the "Adrian Beltre division."

The Sleeper division:
This is probably where many pitchers and non-power hitters reside.  I would probably nominate an Alex Sanchez-type player here.  Juan Pierre is the crazy choice.

The Betrayal division:
These are players who have publicly denounced steroid use.  Inevitably, some players who were vocally against the use of PEDs will be found to have used them.  I nominate Curt Schilling.  After being invited to testify in front of Congress on behalf of players who were fed up with steroid use, Curt is found to have been on the juice all along.  The 2004 Red Sox are stripped of their title, the Cardinals are awarded the 2004 championship.  A guy can dream, right?

Cardinals:
Simple enough.  What Cardinals do you suspect in the depth of your heart?  Why is Eckstein really so gritty?  This is also known as the "Please, no Albert! Division"

Who are your nominees?  What are your categories?  Discuss.

Crisp will almost certainly be traded this offseason after Jacoby Ellsbury emerged for the Red Sox during their postseason run.  Based on his performance in Boston, it will most likely be a salary dump on the part of the Red Sox and he could be had cheaply.

He was a disappointment in Boston to be sure, posting OPS+ of 77 and 83 the last two years there, but in his previous two seasons in Cleveland he posted OPS+ numbers of 110 (2004) and 117 (2005) while hitting 15 plus HRs both years, getting on base at an average clip (.345ish) and having some serious speed in the OF tracking down fly balls.

I think he could be a decent fit here, and could allow us to trade one of our young OF for a premium arm.  Duncan's use in that area has been noted by many in this community.

He could be a leadoff hitter if he can mature a bit more.  At the very least he will improve our overall OF depth and make its defense better, he could also be very useful as a leadoff hitter if he could get his OBP in the .360 range (not unfeasible) and he could be had for little, I am sure Reyes would get the job done, perhaps even less would do it.

This is by no means a fix all move, but it gives us a younger type OF with some upside and athleticism.  Just a thought.

Apparently the New York Daily News is reporting that   Rick Ankiel received shipments of HGH in 2004 up until the point that MLB banned its use in the Majors.

Obviously if this is true, then it seems to damper the story a bit, and its a shame this comes on a day  when Ankiel had a huge night at the plate.

I love Rick, he seems like a genuine guy and has been a great story for us.  What are your reactions to this?  Do you think its true?  Do you care?

Personally, this wouldn't surprise me, but it the story does indicate he stopped receiving doses from a Florida doctor when MLB banned the substance.  The Cardinals would do well to learn from the lessons of McGwire a few years back and address this before it becomes a spot on the franchise.

A great look at the Cardinals organization from the Sports Review Magazine online, this link is courtesy of Deadspin...

http://sportsreviewmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1374

This article details some steps the Cardinals can take to clear a ton of payroll and sign some big name players in the process.  This guy has some good ideas and has a firm grasp of the Cardinal organization.  A lot of these moves have been promoted by the community here, (like the Juan salary dump) yet I truly feel these things literally have zero chance of happening.  It is almost as if the Cardinals are too stubborn to try anything unique or out of the ordinary for fear of it blowing up or being ridiculed.

Using this idea in the article as a basis...what can we do as an organization to improve quickly and to sustain that excellence?  I truly believe we can be a winning team again by the time Rasmus and the crew down there in AA - AAA mature if we can make some intelligent and visonary moves.  We need to dump some of our OF contracts that are eating up payroll and plug in cheap (young) talent to fill in the gaps.  We take the savings, apply a 15-20 percent payroll increase and we have a new, younger core that can compete for years to come.  Just some ideas from this magazine and a new member of this community.