Weekend thoughts:

1. You Gotta Love Scott Boras: I got a kick out of his comments about Rick Ankiel in today’s Post-Dispatch. Boras, the best and most imposing agent in the biz, is Ankiel’s rep. Ankiel becomes a free agent after the season, and though he’s had a difficult year to this point, Boras already is trying to convince MLB general managers that his client is a combination of Willie Mays,  Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Duke Snider. And you know what? Boras will find a fish. He’ll find a fool. Some GM, some team, will wildly overpay Ankiel in a new contract. That’s why Boras is the best at what he does. He gets the money for his guys. He gets these GMs in a trance, and they capitulate.

Not that I can get into the mind of Boras, but here is some of what he’ll be peddling. You’ll notice that he’s marketing Ankiel as a center fielder, not an outfielder. And here’s the thing: if you take Ankiel’s batting stats over the last two seasons when he plays CF, he looks very good in the rankings. Since the start of the 2008 season, Ankiel is 5th among MLB center fielders in slugging, 8th in OPS, 5th in HRs per AB, and 8th in RBIs per AB. Does that tell a complete story? Of course not. Most of the slugging and producing was done in 2008, before the pitchers found the holes in Ankiel’s swing. He’s had a much rougher go of it this season. As a CF in 2009, he’s batted .250 with a .301 OBP and .395 SLG. He has 5 HRs in 200 ABs when playing center. But will this matter to Boras? Heck, no. He’ll get into a meeting with some hapless GM and spin those numbers into gold.

And if we rank Ankiel’s offensive stats among all MLB outfielders over the last two seasons, this is what we have: He’s 49th in slugging, 107th in OBP, 69th in OPS, 29th in HR per AB, 51st in RBI per AB. His slugging percentage is lower than that of Jody Gerut, Marlon Byrd, Nick Swisher, Scott Hairston. His OPS is less than that of the creaky Ken Griffey Jr., the washed-up Brian Giles, Michael Cuddyer, Reed Johnson, Fred Lewis, Willie Harris, Gabe Kapler, Gerut, Swisher.

Ankiel’s issue is making contact. Since the start of last season, he’s missed making contact on 28.3 percent of his swings; that ranks 329th among 352 MLB hitters. He puts the ball in play on 35.7 percent of his swings; that ranks 318th among MLB hitters since the start of 2008.

And what about the Ankiel arm? We know he has a bazooka out there. But the numbers show that, as a CF, Ankiel has allowed the runner to advance an extra base 29 times in 68 opportunities (42.6 %). Last year, the runners took the extra base on him 45 times in 107 chances (42.1 %). That’s not bad; Ankiel ranks in the upper half of CF in this category. But it’s not as if guys are afraid to run on him. They are not.

(Now let me add this in support of Ankiel: people around the Cardinals, including manager Tony La Russa, insist that Ankiel’s performance declined after he suffered a shoulder injury while making that sensational wall-banging catch early in the season. If that, indeed, was a significant factor, then Ankiel may be in line to hit much better in 2010.)

Again, that’s irrelevant. And I can’t wait to watch Boras at work this winter. Ankiel will get paid. Big-time. That’s why Boras is No. 1. There are already reports coming out of Pittsburgh, speculating that the Pirates will aggressively target Ankiel after the season. This will be fun, to see Boras reel another one in.

Of course, it won’t be as much fun for Cardinals fans to watch Boras do this thing when he takes Cardinals’ pending free-agent LF Matt Holliday to market and initiates a frantic bidding war between Boston, the LA Angels, and others

2. The Growth of Gabbert: If folks with no knowledge of Missouri football watched Friday’s 31-21 win at Nevada, they wouldn’t be impressed with Tigers, especially the offense. (The defense was feisty and made plays). On offense the Tigers were ragged and out of synch for much of the first half. Nevada was able to hassle MU’s soph quarterback, Blaine Gabbert. The MU running game was sluggish. And all of this was occuring against a Nevada defense that had been shredded by Notre Dame QB Jimmy Claussen and Colorado State QB Grant Stucker for six TD passes and 25 completions in 38 attempts (combined). That included 11 for 13 passing on third down. Nevada really had Gabbert on the run, and a bit frazzled, in the second quarter. He lost a fumble on a sack. He threw a couple of wild passes. Under the gun, he completed one pass that lost 7 yards. The MU offensive line wasn’t keeping the Wolfpack out; in this helter-skelter environment, a young QB was flustered.

But Gabbert has a chance to be special for many reasons. And here’s one: he has a short memory. So far in his career as a starter — and we’re only talking four games, against rather weak competition — Gabbert has displayed some genuine mental toughness. He shakes off bad plays, clears away his confusion, collects himself, and makes plays. When challenged, when pressed, he gets better as the game progresses. Just when you think Gabbert is teetering, and maybe about to fall apart, he holds it together. The kid had a lot of chances to cough it up in his first road game, and he didn’t. Instead, the opposite thing happened: Gabbert took command. He fought off the Wolfback, fought off the adversity, and brought his A game when the Tigers needed it. It’s a very impressive trait in a young quarterback. I won’t go into the play-by-play; MU fans already know what happened. But the Best of Gabbert was on display in that 97-yard drive in the 3rd quarter. And once he started rolling, forget about it. Nevada retreated. On four second-half scoring drives that produced two touchdowns and two FGs, Gabbert completed 9 of 13 for 162 yards (and two TDS). That’s what you want in a QB: leadership and grace under fire.

Look, the real tests are up ahead for Gabbert. He hasn’t faced elite competition. Maybe he won’t be able to get away with some of the chances he’s been taking downfield, once MU encounters better athletes in the secondary. Gabbert ripped into the Wolfpack for 414 yards and 4 TDs, but he’ll have to get it done in much tougher settings than Reno, Nevada. Down the road, he’ll be pushed to the edge, and will face pressure situations where he could go one way or the other. He’ll have to pull himself together, many times over. He may go up against some defenses that will be a lot less forgiving, after MU gets off to the kind of slow starts we saw against Bowling Green and Nevade. These are the trials of a young QB. This is how they grow. And so far, Gabbert has been an ace.

3. Bernie Bytes: Going into Sunday’s game at Colorado, the Cardinals had scored 3 runs or fewer in 21 of their previous 46 games … Mizzou true freshman RB Kendial Lawrence has a lot of talent; hope we see more of him… Mizzou found a terrific kicker in Grant Ressel … non-sports: I’m enjoying the newly released (and first) album by the indie-rock all-star group Monsters of Folk. (The album carries the same name). It features Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis, Jim James and M. Ward… Steven Jackson runs well out of the shotgun formation; 78 carries for 429 (5.5 average) in his career…congrats to former Mizzou QB Chase Daniel, who was promoted from the New Orleans practice squad to the 53-man active roster for Sunday’s game at Buffalo. Daniel is a fit; New Orleans runs about the closest thing thing the NFL has to a “spread” offense that’s become so popular in college football. In their first two games, when the Saints spread the field and go with 4 or more wideouts in a formation, QB Drew Brees has completed 22 of 27 for five TDs and 348. That’s an astounding 12.48 yards per pass attempt… selfishly, I wish the Blues were opening the season in St. Louis instead of Stockholm… I wonder when and if Blues’ defenseman prospect Jonas Junland will get a full opportunity with St. Louis; then again, he could be an attractive trade chip…let the damn Phoenix Coyotes go to Canada, already … through two games, Isaac Bruce (49ers) still looks young; Torry Holt (Jaguars) not so much… get your DVRs ready: on Oct. 8, we’ll have the Cardinals playing Game 2 of the NLDS, Nebraska will be taking on Mizzou at Faurot Field, and the Blues will be having their home opener. One word: OVERLOAD. But for local sports fans, it doesn’t get much better than Oct. 8… is there really an excuse for the Illinois offense to be as bad as it is? Another stinker, this time in a 30-0 loss at Ohio State. Heck, Navy was far more competitive in opening the season at Ohio State.

As always, thanks for reading…

-Bernie