Pour a cup of coffee, I went long with this post.

The Cardinals, led now by John Mozeliak, made their first roster management move recently when they removed Cody Haerther from the 40-man roster and saw him snatched up by the Toronot Blue Jays, raising some eyebrows. This reduced the number of players protected for the December 6 Rule 5 Draft to 35. That list is here:

The Cardinals have a number of players who may draw interest in the Rule 5 Draft coming up:

• Jason Motte, the hard throwing catcher-turned pitcher.
• Jarrett Hoffpauir, the 2nd baseman with excellent plate discipline.
• Stuart Pomeranz, the 6’7″ RHSP who was nearly impossible to score upon in the AFL in spite of an inability to strike batters out. He missed most of the 2007 season to injuries.
• Mike Parisi, a RHSP who’s probably safe left unprotected, but may draw attention from any teams more desperate for durable-looking fifth starters than the Cardinals, if such a team exists.
• Kyle McClellan, a local product who put it all together last season in relief.
• Mark Worrell, another reliever with a lovely strikeout rate.
• Mike Sillman, a reliever who probably didn’t pitch enough last year to draw serious consideration from other teams.
• Matt Scherer might attract a few teams.

That’s five players that I’d guess we’d want to add to the 40-man roster and thus protect from the Rule 5 draft: Hoffpauir, Motte, Pomeranz, McClellan, and Worrell.

Some may ask, wouldn’t it have been easier to cut Andy Cavazos or Kelvin Jimenez from the 40-man instead of Haerther in order to open up the desired five roster spots? Or just DFA Taguchi, since he’ll be non-tendered six days after the Rule-5 draft anyway, after his option was bought out a week or two ago? And it seems likely to me that the time has come to part ways with Aaron Miles, if only to further shake up the middle infield that’s been a problem the past season.

I’m guessing they’ve got some plans for making waiver claims and perhaps a Rule 5 draft pick that they need more roster flexibility for. Maybe they’ve got a trade in the works that they need roster space for before December 6th. It wouldn’t surprise me if Cavazos and Jimenez are both cut in the next few weeks as well. The timing is strange—you’d have liked to see a trade worked out. I, for one, am not a big believer in Haerther like many of the projection systems, but would be happy to see him produce for the Blue Rays and crush the Yankees on a routine basis.

Let’s say the Cardinals plan to add those five players mentioned before, which would bring the total for now to 40, with opportunity to open up to four more roster spaces by parting with any of Miles, Taguchi, Cavazos, and Jimenez. They need to add a “number two starting pitcher” by trade and at minimum, a shortstop to compete for playing time at short with Brendan Ryan.

I hope that I’ve made clear my belief that the only starting pitcher possibly available by trade who could turn out to be #2 quality this season and who could be acquired without destroying the farm system is Mike Hampton, who threw a successful bullpen session the other day and is scheduled to start a game in the Mexican Winter League on Tuesday. (The boxscore will be up here after the game.) The Braves rounded out the front three of their rotation tonight by signing Tom Glavine for $8M. That’s $14M for Smoltz, $13M for Hudson, and $8M for Glavine in the front three—$35 million clams for the arithmetically challenged. They’d have Hampton at $8M and four cost-controlled options {Jurrjens, James, Carlyle, Reyes} for the last two spots, so I’d have to think Hampton could be available. For what it’s worth, they’re supposedly looking for a backup middle-infielder, someone with MLB experience to compete with newly acquired Josh Anderson to keep center field warm for a year or two. I hate trade proposals like this, but what if So Taguchi, Aaron Miles, and Jason Motte could get it done. Not sure why they wouldn’t just use Lillibridge as the backup MI, so the Miles suggestion shouldn’t be taken too seriously. The Twins already traded for Monroe, who would’ve been available after the non-tender deadline, so why not Taguchi and Miles, right? Right? I’d imagine Bruce Manno would have nice things to say about Taguchi, who’s already making $100,000 from the buyout. Maybe someone will think that Miles could do better when not overexposed like he was with the Cardinals.

I’ve mentioned Zobrist as a candidate for short, borrowing an idea from Azruavatar. He’s either real bad, below average, or slightly slightly above average defensively at short, depending on who you ask, and was an on-base machine as a minor-leaguer. I’m thinking he may become available via waiver. The Devil Rays need to cut down to a 24-man roster since becoming a hockey team. They have 39 men on the 40-man right now. Quickly scanning the peripherals of some of their unprotected minor leaguers who are eligible for the Rule 5 draft turns up eight players that the Rays will have to risk losing:

• John Jaso, a super catching prospect who would be a might nice backup next season, and who will certainly be protected
• Fernando Perez, a speedy outfielder with great on-base skills who looks like a nice lead-off man
• Jason Pridie, an outfielder who put up a very nice line in 2007 and who was taken by the Twins in the Rule 5 draft last season
• Dale Thayer, a relief pitcher who dominated at AA and AAA (although with an unsustainably low .231 BABIP)
• James Houser, a big RHSP with pretty nice peripherals
• Reliever Evan Meek
• Michael Prochaska, a lefty starter who gets ground balls
• Nick DeBarr, a big RHRP with extreme groundball tendencies.

I’d guess keeping at least one of those non-Jaso players in the organization will be end up being more valuable to Tampa Bay than waiting for Zobrist to adjust to the majors and he’ll be available by trade or on waivers. If you pick up Zobrist on or before rosters are set, you can safely non-tender Miles and have an improved team. I’d hope Mo keeps in touch with the Rays’ GM over the next few weeks.

My favorite current Cardinal is Scott Rolen. I love the way he plays baseball—if I have a son some day who likes the game, I’ll teach him to play with the same kind of class and dedication that Scott plays with. I love seeing him hit a key home run and circle the bases full-speed and head-down. Celebrating is for fans. Hitting and fielding is his job. True to form, he’s got a thoughtful, low-profile charity, the Enis Furley Foundation.

Scott’s career is currently derailed due to some hard-luck injuries stemming from on-field collisions and—perhaps more pertinently, personality clashes with Tony La Russa and the Cardinal organization in general. The current GM is open to trading Scott Rolen due to the problems he’s having with the organization and the VeB sidebar is littered with nonsensical trade proposals involving him. Given his trade value coming off an injury-plagued season, moving him elsewhere would be no more than a salary dump. A wasteful salary dump, motivated by fear or foolishness, in my opinion.

Mike Lowell was the 2007 World Series MVP. Two years ago, he was included in the big Hanley Ramirez and Anibal Sanchez for Josh Beckett trade between the Red Sox and the Marlins. At the time of the trade, I saw his inclusion as the wealthy Boston taking on a large contract for a broken-down third baseman in exchange for the Marlins parting with an ace pitcher for prospects. He was a throw-in, coming off an awful age-31 season with an OPS+ of 77. It was a smart move for the Marlins, who could use the cost-controlled Miguel Cabrera at third base and it was an acceptable trade requirement for the Red Sox, who could afford to gamble on Lowell bouncing back. He did, and is now most likely heading into a four year contract as a player a year older than Rolen.

Scott Rolen’s a better defender than Lowell and hasn’t ever had as bad a season as Lowell did in 2005, even the past few years when his shoulder pain has caused him to scream noticeably with every swing of the bat. To trade him for peanuts would be a real shame—a damned sin.

If I had John Mozeliak’s ear, I’d make sure that he was making every effort to make Rolen happy, to make him enthusiastic about playing in St. Louis for the rest of his career, or at least the remainder of his contract. I don’t know exactly what the problem is except that it stems from the handling of his shoulder injuries, but I’d make it clear that he’s a big part of our future plans. We’d make it clear that Mo will advocate on his behalf to La Russa and that whatever problems the organization had with dealing with medical problems are going to be fixed.

Scott Rolen’s got a lot of good baseball in him. The Cardinals are a wealthy-enough team that they shouldn’t have to play the Marlins and dump his contract to a richer team who can afford to gamble that he’ll be physically sound and producinc at an above average level in 2008 before reverting to his career arc in 2009.

(As insurance, we should sign Marshall McDougall to a split contract to compete with Spiezio as the big-bat utility guy or AAA depth at a number of positions. I said the same thing last off-season, when he went on to hit well for the Dodgers’ AAA team.)

In short, if the Cardinals can’t convince Scott Rolen to play for us next year, we’re in deep trouble as an organization. Mozeliak should work hard after the winter meetings to connect with Rolen and convince him that he’s wanted in a Cardinal uniform.