Moe's involved, so it's probably Swagerty or Tavares.

He's really really dumb.

Trade Colby's younger brother as a PTBNL.

Better not for this calibur of player. They need to dump him to save cash. We should get a good deal.

:LOL:

Gonna add some music:

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All the Indians wanted to do last season was get rid of Westbrook's contract yet we still peddled a GG caliber RFer and former silver slugger for him.

Since when has Moe cared if he could get a better deal - he'll take the first thing he's offered (but he'll make sure to drag his feet for a few days to give the situation a chance to get even more dire).

Say what you will about the man, support him if you want - but even his strongest supporters have to acknowledge that he's probably the worst horse trader in baseball.

What do you think Amaro is?

Also, the Tribe are about to get Ludwick.

Cards got Furcal.

Wooohoo. Need to see who they gave up.

Why are people excited to (potentially) get Furcal?

How many MIF's that can't hit does one team need?

Furcal's 8 for 22 since coming off the DL.

He moves Theriot out of SS and if he hits anywhere near what he used to hit, he's a nice addition.

It's official, BTW.

I mean, can Furcal be worse than Theriot if he's even marginally healthy?

He can share a breathalyzer with LaRussa. LMAO

And yet he's still batting under .200 for the season.

And is making $13M.

With an OBP of under .300.

Hope I'm wrong, but unless this guy goes nuclear over the next two months, we're just spinning our wheels.

I hate to even ask what we gave up...

No one knows what the Cards gave up, except the Dodgers and Cards, I think. Hasn't been reported on Twitter what they gave up.

Still, a bad Furcal> Theriot.

Cardinals also got cash in this deal. I'm worried now if they don't think they'll be able to sign Pujols because they are going all in.

But is a bad Furcal > Descalso? Greene?

I don't think so, but maybe he gets hot.

Greene is useless. He can't hit at all at the pro level and has been given shots over 3 seasons. If Greene could hit as well as Descalso, which is somewhere in the .260s, they wouldn't have gotten Furcal.

Descalso can't hit lefties.

I'm not excited about it at all. We had better not given up anything of value.

It's just a salary dump pretty much.

Furcal's a nice addition.

Theriot is actually worse than Skip Schumaker and that's probably the worst thing I can say about a baseball player. Theriot is truly truly horrible. If Furcal bats .200 for the rest of the year, his defense alone will be a welcome addition.

Greene isn't much better. Oh sure, he's younger, but his range is putrid and he still doesn't have consistent hands. He seems to hit well in the minors but simply can't handle major league breaking balls. And even if he could hit, I just can't handle cement feet at SS anymore.

Danny D - I love the kid, but he's overmatched at SS. He just doesn't have the feel for the position and I'm not interested in seeing him learn on the job. He makes some nice plays, but he's made at least 4 errors at SS already. Besides, he should be our 2b going forward anyway.

Furcal is a legitimate ML shortstop with a good approach and the ability to actually be a leadoff guy. I could see him being similar to Womack and therefore a very welcome addition to a team that hasn't gotten anything from their leadoff man all season and is stealing about 2 bases/month.

It's the least Dollar Bill could do after allowing LaRussa to have a temper tantrum and run Brendan Ryan out of town.

If he's going to keep his big-money manager in town and excise every bit of young talent we have on the squad, he damn well better be willing to pony up to cover for the mistakes of said lunatic.

Danny D. shouldn't be at SS in the first place. This year is the first time he's played there since he played SS for a short time at A ball. Descalso should be the starting 2B with some decent option behind him in a few years to start against lefties.

We're in complete agreement on Theriot. My displeasure with Furcal is in no way an endorsement of Theriot.

I'm just not terribly excited over getting a leadoff man whos OBP is something piss-poor like .260.

Why do I care? This isn't anything long term. All I care about is he going to produce any better than delcasso, greene and theriot.

You said you were about the Cardinals giving up anything in value. Considering the Dodgers' financial issues and the fact that Furcal has a 12 mil. option, that helps the Cards out big time. Dodgers would get some heat if they declined his option while the Cardinals wouldn't/won't.

I don't think the Dodgers would get any heat for declining a $12 million option on a guy that spent most of the season under the mendoza line and has a history of back issues.

The $12M option is vesting based on a number of PA that can't be reached this year.

If they trade Taveras for Furcal: :(

Strauss tweeted that the ptbnl is a minor leaguer not on the 40 man roster.

Better be Amari Castanza.

Its probably PHam or Luna it is just a salary dump by the Dodgers.

Isn't that part of the definition of a PTBNL? Looks like the Dodgers might be eating part of his contract. Assuming that the Cards gave up nothing of real value I love this trade. Furcal has been terrible this season but the Cards seem to be able to squeeze out performance from players like this. Please be the end of the ****ing Riot platoon at SS.

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner!

Twitterverse is saying it's Pham.

Pham has never stayed healthy seems like nbd to move him in this.

A beat guy for the Dodgers on ESPN Los Angeles.com is saying it's not Pham.

Castellanos didn't play tonight as scheduled. No explanation given.

Well it is official Furcal is the new start SS for the Cardinals.

A 33 year old SS hitting below .200 who lately has spent more time on the disabled list than on the field.:hmmm:

Hey Mo, Excuse me for not getting excited.

He's a name player that will appease the "true fans" :p

Rumor has it the Cardinals are talking to the Mariners about Bedard and the Padres about Bell.

Wow. Looks like the M's are talking to the Cards about Eric Bedard. Since we suck cock this year, and for the foreseeable future with that ****head Howard Lincoln running the team, I hope you guys land him and he can help you out. He's out there, but dude can pitch.

Bedard doesn't really fill a need unless the Cardinals gave up someone like Westrbook or Lohse.

Wouldn't getting out from under Westbrook be phenominal?

Ship him out for Bedard and free up that money to actually re-sign Jackson. At that point, Moe would get some decent marks from me.

Jackson's problem isn't his ability; he has legit #2 starter stuff. It's his FA status and the fact that we can't resign him given Moe's handywork last season. If he's able to improve the ballclub and dump Westbrook in the process, I'll be pretty damn impressed.

More likely is that he'll give up Ryan Jackson for him.

Maybe we can get them to take Mikael Cleto back.

This.

I'm not disagreeing about with anything you said. If he manages to trade Westbrook, I'll be happy.

Now the question is if Mo is going to trade any decent prospects and either Boggs or Motte for Bell.

Jon Jay will switch over to #19 as Furcal takes #15.

P-D reporting he was dealt to LA for Furcal.

Luddy is about to be a Pirate.

Looks like Bedard went to the Red Sox.

Castellanos? Guy has no plate discipline it sounds like so we didn't give up much. Potential bench player for a chance to upgrade over the suck we have at SS.

Will the cards get the sweep tonight?

History says no.

Typically in a weekend series with an opportunity for a sweep, Tony throws out his bullshit lineup. Haven't seen it yet, but that's typically the case, and we throw away a perfectly good chance to win a game and complete the sweep.

However, we are playing the Cubs, so we might be able to throw half of Memphis out there and pull out a win.

Schumaker, 2B
Jay, CF
Pujols, 1B
Holliday, LF
Berkman, RF
Freese, 3B
Molina, C
Descalso, SS
Westbrook, P

Furcal isn't that good historically against Dempster. Glad to have the Puma back.

Good to see that we didn't go with the traditional "give up" lineup, but FFS, you just traded for a starting SS and you don't start him?

Starting the SS you just traded for wouldn't be genius.

You know Tony LaRussa needs his stamp on the game, afterall it's nationally televised. How are the broadcasters going to talk about his brilliant "RFer at 2b, 2b at SS" experiments if he starts a SS at SS and a 2b at 2b?

GENIUS AT WORK!

I'm shocked he's not batting Westbrook 8th.

Took the cards and ovr. I'm sure they will blow it knowing my luck.

Oh, and thanks to ESPN for blowing off the first 20 minutes of Baseball Tonight so you can show a bunch of douchebags driving ****ing Ford Festiva's around the streets of LA.

Yeah, doesn't seem much upside there. But, before we start high 5'ing each other, let's don't forget what we got....

A 33 year old SS hitting below .200 who lately has spent more time on the disabled list than on the field. This isn't a pitcher off the MLB trash heap for Duncan to work his magic on. Maybe we catch lightening in a bottle for a 1/2 season. We can always put Theriot and or Greene back in there.... :rolleyes:

I'll go on record now: If Furcal performs well this season we will sign him to a 1-yr "make good" deal for 2012 and Ryan Jackson will take over in 2013.

I'm damn impressed by Jackson's performance this season.

Thats a pretty strong line up for a series sweep game from TLR. Especially with Milwaukee series starting tommorrow. Must be the national TV audience and the broadcasters get a chance to talk about the brileence of TLR. Totally surprised he's not hitting Westbrook 8th.

Wow - you re-posted the holy hell out of that one...

You still say re-signing Pujols is a mistake?

Yup.

Especially now that Moe has traded away one of the few high-upside cost-controlled players we have for a rental. If you re-sign Pujols, you have absolutely no freedom whatsoever to fill in the hole left by dealing Rasmus (and not dealing him for a long-term, cost controlled middle-infielder).

Matt Adams is a legitimate 1b prospect that has absolutely demolished the low minors. He's terrorized the Texas League this season and could be ready to go as soon as next year. Offer Albert and Jackson arbitration, trade Carpenter, get your 2-4 1st round picks and build around Holliday, Wainwright, Craig, Freese and a new MFing manager.

I must have missed the clamor for his services among other teams searching for a previously unheard of fat kid at the AA level. I actually like him potentially as a prospect, but I think expecting him to come close to producing what Pujols would produce (at least in the next 5 years) is quite a leap of faith.

The FO shouldn't mortgage the entire future to keep Albert, but I think there could be some creative ways to keep him in the fold without hamstringing them for needed future moves. I don't think Albert would want that either. He certainly wants and deserves respect, but he wants the team to win first and foremost.

I don't expect him to approximate Albert's production, but I see no reason why he couldn't give us 25 HRs, a .280 BA and an OPS around .825. In other words, nice steady production right at/near league average for cheap while the AP $$ goes to the middle-infield.

I'm not saying he's a premier prospect, just that he's a legitimate prospect; he can play at this level and I think he can play well. He's not someone like Stavinoha (AAAA player), but a guy that we can really watch as a potential major leaguer. He won't be Eric Hosmer, but he could very easily be Ike Davis. On limited resources, that's a pretty handy guy to have.

As for your 'creative' avenues; they're either insanely shortsighted (back-loading the deal) or illegal (Selig has still not approved ownership stakes as part of ML contracts).

It's going to take money and a hell of a lot of it for a very long time. I'd rather bring back Berkman, Sign Reyes and eat some of the Lohse/Westbrook deals to free up money for Jackson while slotting in Scrabble as our 5th starter. Deal Carpenter for another young arm and/or Montero (if you don't like the idea of Berkman or trust Adams) and call it a day.

Don't let this team get too old. Don't become the mid-70s Chiefs. Recognize that nothing lasts forever and plan accordingly.

Ouch! Spikes up
http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townn...review-300.jpg
You think they plunk him in the ribs tonight as pay back?

We have two cost controlled possible #1/#2 starters coming by 2013. We already have Garcia signed to a reasonable contract. even when you pay Waino top $ you should have plenty of money to pay for offense.

Only Westbrook.

No hitter through 5 2/3, gives up 4 runs in 6th.

facepalm

Going from Jake Westbrook to Jason Motte cannot be a comfortable experience.

Lance ****ing Berkman.

99.9% of the time with runners on first and second and no outs tlr bunts. Why does he let furcal hit?

4-3 in a 7 game homestand against 2 of the 4 worst teams in baseball.

What a pile of shit Moe and LaRussa have assembled.

Winning 2 out of 3 against a rival isn't so bad. It's Carp and Garcia losing to one of the worst teams in baseball that killed us.

But, we're so much better now. /Mo

Bullshit. It's games like this that make it obvious that this team will do no damage in the playoffs, if they are even lucky enough to win the division.

I won't be the least bit surprised if we're 4.5 or more out of 1st by Thursday.

This team should consider 1 of 3 in Milwaukee an absolute win.

They're simply nowhere near as good as the Brewers; not even close.

But don't worry - they're "all in" so clearly the rest of the league will lay down and die for them in honor of how much long-term damage the Cardinals did to themselves over the last 3 days.

Busch is falling apart.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/m...a4bcf6878.html

O NOES.

We finally get to see Pujols vs. Grienke. Looks like Larussa is putting the best lineup on the field.

The Cardinals are 0-3 at Miller this season.

Furcal joined the club Sunday and made his debut that night as a pinch-hitter. Before the game Sunday, manager Tony La Russa said he saw Furcal as a "top of the order" hitter, and on Monday he followed through on the description. The switch-hitting shortstop will hit leadoff, the first batter to face Milwaukee's would-be ace Zack Greinke.

Here is the lineup for the Cardinals, with all members of the middle of the order present and accounted for:
1. Rafael Furcal, SS
2. Jon Jay, CF
3. Albert Pujols, 1B
4. Matt Holliday, LF
5. Lance Berkman, RF
6. David Freese, 3B
7. Skip Schumaker, 2B
8. Yadier Molina, C
9. Chris Carpenter, P

WTF is the deal with the back of Holliday's head?