Cardinals news and notes: Holliday, Martinez, and free agents

It snowed in St. Louis on Monday. It may snow today and it is expected to snow on Sunday. Forget whether or not it is baseball season: does it feel like baseball season to you? No, not yet. But a month from today, the Cardinals will play a Spring Training game. Two months from today, the Cardinals will play a regular season game. It will require patience, but in time, baseball will be here. Until then, here's some posts to whet your appetite.

The Gurriel brothers

• Craig Edwards analyzed recent Cuban defectors Yulieski and Lourdes Gurriel, who are expected to sign free agent contracts with Major League teams soon. Yulieski, 31, is widely considered to be the best player in Cuba while Lourdes, 22, is considered the top prospect in the country. Although no rumors beyond wild speculation exist regarding the Cardinals' interest or lack thereof in the Gurriel brothers, Craig cites Aledmys Diaz as an example which proves that the Cardinals would give sincere consideration to one or both of the Gurriels.

A potential change to the "neighborhood play"

• Joe Schwarz discussed recent reports that Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Union are likely to agree upon a rule change regarding slides into second base. The so-called "neighborhood play" drew national attention during the 2015 NLDS after Chase Utley of the Los Angeles Dodgers aggressively broke up a potential double play and broke the leg of Ruben Tejada of the New York Mets. There is a ton of gray area here, but Joe does a good job analyzing the focal points of the discussion.

Carlos Martinez as a breakout candidate?

• VEB's Carlos Martinez beat reporter Lil Scooter had a post about Carlos Martinez. And it wasn't even on Tsunamy Thursday (if only I could come up with a good Tsunamy-related title for a post which took place on a Tuesday, but alas, this is her department and not mine). At first, I was taken aback at the implication that Carlos Martinez hadn't already had a breakout season in 2015, but the idea of a 2016 which makes 2015 seem a distant disappointment by comparison is, um, I like that.

The 2015 changes of Matt Holliday

• Ben Markham dissected Matt Holliday's 2015, looking at the type of contact he made throughout the year and expressing concern about Holliday going forward. None of Ben's concerns are illegitimate, and the numbers are right there to be read, but one silver lining is that the numbers are still a relatively small sample size during a season in which Holliday was nursing an injury. Yes, Matt's pre-injury numbers weren't great, but the duration was a short one. So there's that.

The return of David Freese?

• I asked if the Cardinals should consider signing former Cardinal, most recently former Angel, David Freese. I consider Freese to be an intriguing short-term option for depth, but as usual, I'm terrible at summarizing my own post, so I'll present you with a bonus Freese fun fact. David Freese had the highest Win Probability Added in postseason history in Game 6 of the 2011 World Series. The fifth highest postseason WPA belonged to Lance Berkman, in that same game. And incredibly, #58 on the list is Josh Hamilton, in a Game 6 losing effort, eclipsing the WPA of any player in any postseason game in 2013 or 2015. That was a good game, I think.