**** the Cardinals, they and that shithole city deserve no sympathy.... the more it drags out for them. Good.

Rule 5 draft is underway, Royals pick 5th.

In other news, Tim Brown from Yahoo Sports has just tweeted that Pujols is going to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, 10 years, $250MM, full no-trade clause.

That is an interesting development. Can Pujols magic and Disneyland exist in the same space?!

Royals have selected LHP Cesar Cabral from Boston's AAA Team.

LOOGY?

Cabral didn't actually play in AAA for Boston last year, but he was going to play this next season.

22 year old International player, ignoring the low minors, he has 2 years at A-level and above. He hasn't started a game above rookie ball. This is actually the 2nd time he's been picked in the rule 5.

2010 (A and Advanced A): 3.63 ERA, 79.1 IP, 9 SV, 1.223 WHIP, 2.4 BB/9, 9.1 K/9, 0.1 HR/9

2011: (Advanced A and AA): 2.95 ERA, 55 IP, 9 SV, 1.400 WHIP, 3.4 BB/9, 11.5 K/9, 0.5 HR/9

Obviously he's getting picked because of the strikeouts.

appears to have epic control at a glance... 11.5 k/9 and 3.4 bb/9 pretty slick.

Wonder what he throws as his go-to pitch

In the AAA phase, Kansas City selected someone, but the AAA Rule 5 falls well below the "who cares" level, and his last name was something weird and hard to spell, so screw it.

ummm.... if any of you are looking up stats for Cabral, you can stop now.

per Dutton, the Royals have just traded him to the Yankees for cash. This tells me that we had no intention at all of trying to carry a rule 5 guy this year. We must have had something worked out beforehand where we knew the Yankees wanted two people (Yankees also drafted someone) and didn't think both would be available, so we offered to be their middle-man for a fee.

Barring a trade today, we're going to leave the winter meetings with 39 on the 40-man roster.

Damn. First Poopholes now Cabral. Where's the loyalty.

Selling picks for money? Shrewd!

I'm just saying: If Card's fans can be optimistic about life after Pujols, how optimistic do we get to be, given our lineup?

At least the Royals aren't losing their great players to free agency!

Something tells me that DMGM has a trade lined up.