Cardinals news and notes: Rasmus, Diaz, and Duke

The trade deadline came and went yesterday without the Cardinals making a move (not counting the Zach Duke trade over the weekend) and that’s probably wise since it’s hard to identify exactly where they need to upgrade. Since it still wasn’t that long ago, it’s hard around this time of the year to not think about the Colby Rasmus trade from 2011 that was wildly unpopular at the time, perhaps helped the Cardinals win the World Series, and yet, pending on your perspective, still may have been a bad trade.

I remember sitting in my office with a sense of bewilderment when this trade went down, not necessarily because I thought it was a bad trade at the time - which I did - but because the Cardinals were right in the thick of the NL Central race and then they up and traded their centerfielder and former first round pick. Most people remember the Cardinals having to make a furious run at the end of the season just to make the playoffs in 2011, but on July 27, 2011, when this trade happened, though they were 5.5 games behind Atlanta for the wild card, they were only a half-game behind Milwaukee in the NL Central. That just two weeks later they found themselves six games behind the Brewers didn’t make the early returns on the trade look that great (although most of that was due to the Brewers winning 12 of 13 rather than the Cardinals faltering).

Of course, everything worked out. The Cardinals bullied their way into the playoffs and won the whole, dang thing. Along the way they got solid contributions from Edwin Jackson, Octavio Dotel, and Marc Rzepczinski - part of the package they got in exchange for Rasmus. Therefore, and it’s hard to tolerate much disagreement on this, it was a great trade.

Here’s what you may have missed yesterday at VEB:

Aledmys Diaz

The news we didn’t want to hear finally dropped yesterday afternoon and Aledmys Diaz will be missing an extended period of time with a fracture in his right hand. Craig Edwards has all the details here. Before the bad news was announced, I wrote about Diaz’s exceptional season and why it would be a shame to see it cut short. And Lil Scooter isn’t feeling this whole Diaz is hurt thing, either.

Zach Duke

Joe Schwarz put Zach Duke into the Schwarzer (sorry) and I think you’ll like the results. And I agree with what Dan Szymborski had to say here, too.

Down on the farm

If you want to know what’s going on down below, Josey Curtis has a lot of great stuff here.

Have a great Tuesday, everyone.