For starters, Baseball Prospectus has a great in-depth analysis of Ryan Ludwick and his season which details his playing and injury history, and the reasons for his success this year.  It's premium content, but if you're a subscriber, enjoy...

http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=8032

Also, mlbtraderumors is reporting that Kyle Lohse currently projects to be aType A free agent this offseason.  If this is true and it holds up, then I don't think there's any way that we can sign Lohse to a deal, right?  Thanks for the great year, and thanks for the extra picks.

Thoughts?

Here is a pretty cool article on Salon.com about Rick.  Basically talking about how ridiculous it is that Ankiel is now in the Majors as an outfielder.  Every time I think about it myself I just shake my head.  Keep it up, as long as you can, man.

http://www.salon.com/sports/col/kaufman/2007/08/13/monday/

I was thinking about this the other day, and wondering...when was the last time you were actually excited about a move that the Cardinals/Jocketty made?  I mean any move at all-free agent (ha!), trade, hell even an exciting draft pick...The last one I can think of being even remotely excited about was trading for Larry Walker, nearly three freakin' years ago.  I may be missing something, but I don't think so.  Boring rocks when you're winning 100 games a year and/or falling bass-ackwards into world series championships, but neither of those things are happening this year.  When was the last time you were legitimately excited about a Cardinals' personnel move?  

Smartass alert: ditching some useless sack of strikeouts or one of Duncan's noodle armed projects doesn't count.  I'm talking about ACQUIRING players.

I've said this before, but why not give Chris Duncan the thing that he most needs to be successful this season: an evil twin!  Check out this blurb from Dayn Perry at Fox Sports:

9. Craig Wilson, 1B/OF
Um, yeah, there's really not much left ... Wilson can serve as the right-handed half of a left field, right field or first base platoon, and he can be the right-handed pinch hitter of first resort. He's useful provided the team that signs him recognizes his limitations and deploys him accordingly. Wilson's a career .296 AVG/.395 OBP/.543 SLG hitter against lefties, but he's not an every-day talent.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but he definitely fits the bill, don't you think?  What would he command?  More than Speizio money?