Cardinals news and notes: Keith Law, Woodford, and the Marlins

This weekend was a pretty lackluster sports weekend. Baseball continues to not be played, the NFL is on its pre-Super Bowl bye week, basketball of both the professional and collegiate variety continued but remain in firmly regular season mode, and the NHL is on its All-Star Break. And the latter is what is going to serve as the framing device of this post.

The NHL All-Star Game changes formats a lot. Formerly, assigned captains drafted teams (a format the NBA is now wisely using, because it is awesome, but regrettably, the NBA is not televising their draft or even publicizing the draft order like the NHL did) and formerly the league had a format of North American-born players against stars from elsewhere, in addition to the old staple of East vs. West. But now the league uses division all-star teams.

The game is also 3-on-3, and I’m not feeling creative enough to imagine the baseball equivalent to that, but I am feeling the whole “division all-star team” thing. So here is my approximation of an NL Central team, as designed to play one game. I also threw in a designated hitter because that seemed the most realistic.

3B Kris Bryant

DH Joey Votto

RF Christian Yelich

1B Anthony Rizzo

LF Marcell Ozuna

CF Tommy Pham

C Willson Contreras

SS Addison Russell

2B Javier Baez

SP Jose Quintana

Bench: Yadier Molina, Matt Carpenter, Paul DeJong, Josh Harrison, Lorenzo Cain

Bullpen: Carlos Martinez, Jon Lester, Jameson Taillon, Kyle Hendricks, Michael Wacha, Luke Weaver, Felipe Rivero, Corey Knebel, Raisel Iglesias, Tyler Lyons

Hope y’all enjoyed my arbitrarily decided, hastily assembled roster. Here’s the VEB stuff.

• Craig Edwards talked with ESPN prospect analyst Keith Law about the Cardinals’ minor leagues and whether the depth of the farm system means the Cardinals should be looking to piece together prospects for a Major League acquisition.
• Take a look at Aaron Schafer’s write-up of Cardinals pitcher prospect Jake Woodford here.
• Speaking of Aaron, he also wrote about the three Miami Marlins outfielders who have largely shaped this off-season: Giancarlo Stanton, Marcell Ozuna, and Christian Yelich.