I agree that many of us (myself included), probably over value prospects, but the best way to add a difference maker to your team is through the draft…they are cheaper and stick around longer. Every stud once was a prospect and many were called over-rated and traded for rental/peanuts (you don’t think Atlanta would love to have Wainright and all the guys they gave up for Tex instead of the time they got from JD and Tex?). We just don’t want to give one of those away for a 1-2% increase in odds of winning the WS in one year, when keeping that player possibly could increase the odds of winning a WS by more than that for 5-6 years.

Plus…it just pains me that the Cards gave up way more for 2 months of Holliday than the A’s gave up for to get him.

As for Pujols, he has to know Bill DeWitt doesn’t have a YES Network feeding him 50 million a year or whatever it was. He has to know that if he wants an A-Rod contract, his time in St. Louis will soon be like A-Rod’s in Texas. 8 years, 180 million is 22.5 million a year, AKA enough.
And where will he get A-Rod money from? I doubt he’ll want to DH in New York and not many teams have A-Rod money.

As for Shelby Miller, that is what I said, he’d be up at the end of Holliday’s contract. And like you said, the money is there for the short term. We need to be worried about the long term.

Pujols is a team player and wants the front office to upgrade the team and I could see him giving us a little discount. However, he is also a very proud man and the best player in baseball. He will certainly want more than Teixeira’s $180mil/8 years. Something closer to A-Rod’s $275mil/10 years would probably be a little more accurate.

You are optimistic on our pitching prospects and I agree I’m very high on Garcia, who hopefully will come back with good stuff after surgery, but Miller is the only one who probably has ace potential and he’s likely around 4 years away from the majors. If we lock up Holliday for 5 years, there might be a couple years where we have a very bleak rotation once Carp’s contract ends.

Up to this point, I was happy with most of Mo’s moves; now I’m not sure.

I don’t think Holliday will resign – he could cost the Cardinals an opportunity to lock up Pujols. We already have something like $40MM tied up in the rotation when Albert hits free agency. If we have to add another $15MM for Holliday, there is no way we can keep Albert and still have a full 25-man roster.

I also don’t think Holliday is the answer for the team. He’s better than Ankiel, but I haven’t been impressed since he left Colorado.

The cost is also too high – Wallace would most-likely contributed next year, as would Mort. Now, we may need to get someone for 3B. I would have preferred having Wallace there, re-signing DeRosa for second, and moving Schu back to the outfield.

A very good friend of mine works in Minor League Baseball and knows a few scouts. We both grew up Cardinals fans (he doesn’t work for a Cardinals affiliate) and so its nice that we can talk shop when I get to see him. About a month or so ago I asked him if he had heard anything on any Cardinals prospects i.e. whether or not the Cardinals where overvaluing them as was the rumor at the time.

He basically told me that the Cardinals have been burned a couple times in recent years with prospects that at one point had faily high trade values but lost most if not all once they got into the upper minors (read: Bryan Anderson). He said that there were 4 or 5 guys that they were very torn about because they felt like they were headed down the same road (fairly high now, questionable in the future).

I didn’t put too much stock into it (because I, too, have an biased love for Cardinal prospects) but since then 3 of the 5 guys he mentioned have been traded. Take it with a grain of salt, this guy is no where near high up enough to have any real inside information, he just bs’s with other teams personnel from time to time, I just thought it was interesting that 3 of the players he had heard the Cardinals were a little concerned about are now gone.

Chin up! Think of this as a college team. Every four years there’s a new set of faces. The Cards only had Wallace for a year. Think of him as a freshman who goes pro. There will be another prospect to taking his sunny place in the minors soon. As long as Luhnow keeps doing what he’s doing the system will be fine.