Here endeth the experiment

Well, I blogged over at mvn.com for about a month. I'm back over here. We won't go into why, however, it's nothing that mvn.com did, and I'm glad I got an opportunity to write over there.

One by-product is I was introduced to Dustin Mattison, who writes for the blog Whiteyball - a great resource for news on the Cardinals farm system. His site is bookmarked under Cool Cardinals Links to the right, and is worth a look.

If you're interested, and missed it, I've included a link to all the stories I posted there in the margin. Below my LEAGUE CHAMPS Rotisserie Baseball roster. You may not care about my fantasy team, but I do - and the reward for my obsession was a not insignificant amount of scratch (which my wife has already spent, by the way).

Speaking of scratch, the Cardinals signed Joel Piniero today to a two-year, $13 Million dollar deal. This will keep him in St Louis through the 2009 season, and provides some much needed depth in the rotation. As I pointed out here, the Cardinals had holes to fill in the rotation; this gives them Wainwright, Looper, and Piniero as definite starters next season. What remains to be seen is who will fill out the final two spots. KFW? No friggin way. Reyes maybe, but I firmly believe that will depend on whether LaRussa returns or not. Mulder says he'll be ready for spring training, but after two surgeries in less than a year on his shoulder I think he's much more of a question mark than he's saying publicly.

In the same linked article above we briefly discussed the Cardinals payroll for next year. With Piniero's signing, the numbers stand at $80.55 Million.

Personally - I think this is a good pick-up. Piniero was solid down the stretch, much more so than we had a right to believe (seeing as he was jettisoned by Boston). With the clubs dearth of starting pitching, and slim pickings expected on the free agent market, this is a good move.