Cardinals news and notes: Cooney, Davis, Shelby, Chen

VEB Recap:

VEB had plenty of analysis yesterday on the recent Cardinals news. Here's everything you could have missed:

Let's not forget about Tim Cooney: Even if the Redbirds don't sign a fancy new free agent pitcher, we still have better options than most at filling out the 5th spot of the rotation. Joe's interesting piece reminds us not to count out one of the less celebrated options for that spot.

The end of the Jon Jay narrative: Ben Godar gives a great eulogy on Jon Jay's career in St. Louis. A good reminder that however it ended, Jon Jay was an important piece to a lot of good Cardinals teams.

The curious case of Aledmys Diaz: The Red Baron ponders what the Gyorko trade means for Diaz, whose has reclaimed his prospect status after being DFA'd in the second half of last year.

Johnny Cueto's agent thinks the Cards would be a good fit: The VEB community gives their opinion on whether they could stand to see Cueto in a Cardinals jersey after his prior actions.

Cardinals roster and payroll after Gyorko-Jay trade: Craig breaks down the 40-man roster after the trade, and gives us some info on new waiver claim Jayson Aquino. According to Craig the 2016 Opening Day payroll sits at $118M, which gives the Cardinals a lot of space to work with.

Comparing Jedd Gyorko to the Free Agent market: Yours truly compares Gyroko to a strikingly similar free agent and concludes that the Cardinals owe Gorkyo less than what he would likely get on the free agent market.

Hot Stove News:

Chris Davis reportedly seeking $200M over eight years: Some in the VEB community have wanted the Cardinals to sign Davis, I assume less are interested after this news.

Giants, Cardinals interested in Wei-Yin Chen: Steve Adams of MLBTR offers up analysis on the market for Chen as well as Mike Leake

Nationals interest in Mike Leake cooling off: Leake is one of the more interesting pitching options left on the market, and is still available after receiving an offer from the Nationals.

Told #Astros trading pitchers Vince Velasquez, Brett Oberholtzer and Brian Fisher to Phillies for closer Ken Giles, pending physicals.

— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) December 10, 2015

The Astros has been shopping for a front line closer, and now they got one. So much for my hopes to get a package like this for the Magical Trev.

Former Cardinal News

Mark Reynolds likely will have a deal by the end of the meetings with the rockies

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) December 10, 2015

Can't say I'm too broke up over this move, but he was a Cardinal darn-it.

Fangraphs had two pieces recently analyzing the Shelby Miller trade:

• Diamondbacks pay for ace, get Shelby Miller: Jeff Sullivan sees this as one of the most lopsided trades in a while.
• Attempting to rationalize the Shelby Miller trade: Our own Craig Edwards at his other job, assigned the task of somehow seeing this as the right move from Arizona's perspective.

Cardinal Crusher News

Source: #Brewers interested in Pedro Alvarez to play first base following Lind trade; he is son-in-law of MIL bench coach Pat Murphy.

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) December 9, 2015

Cardinals fans could have to deal with noted Cardinal destroyer Pedro Alvarez being in the same division as the Birds for another year.