DENVER — Oh for the blogs not written. Back when the Cardinals acquired Todd Wellemeyer from the waivers, a quick scan of his numbers over at the indispensible Baseball Cube revealed a bloggable kernel of information.

Hidden in the stats of a bona fide wild flamethrower, the clue was there for all to see:

12 G — 12 GS

Much more recently than Braden Looper and far more than Brad Thompson, Wellemeyer had 12 starts in Triple-A as recently as 2005. It was as if the Cardinals were telegraphing their intentions. I poked around the numbers. I looked into that season for the Iowa Cubs. And I sketched out a blog. But, no, I thought. No, this is too much of a reach. Readers will pounce, will fillet the blog for frolicking in speculative reporting.

And now it’s happened.

Wellemeyer will become the fourth major-league career reliever to join the Cardinals’ starting rotation this season. Whereas only five active players had more appearances in relief without a start than Looper, who has done ever so swell in his new life as a starter, and Looper had not made a start since his lowest level of minor-league ball some 10 years ago, Wellemeyer isn’t coming from that far out of the blue to  make a start.  

Wellemeyer has 119 major-league appearances without a start, but locked within 106 minor-league appearances entering this season are 96 starts. Heck, it almost screams that he was going to join the rotation this season.

Should have written that blog.

One of the true power arms in the organization now — the Cardinals “don’t have many like him,” manager Tony La Russa said recently — Wellemeyer has 28 starts at the Triple-A level, 19 more than Thompson had at that level. The lowest ERA he has had in any stop of his career was back in 2005 when he made those dozen starts for Triple-A Iowa. He went 3-2 with a 3.02 ERA. As a starter for the I-Cubs, Wellemeyer struck out 48 to 25 walks in 53 2/3 innings. Walks have dogged his appearances in the majors, as he’s averaged 6.14 walks per nine entering this season.

As a minor-league starter in 2005, his BB/9 was 4.19.

As a minor-league starter in 2003 and ‘05, combined, it was 4.43.

Wrote Baseball America’s Jim Callis a few years ago when measuring Wellemeyer for a spot in the Cubs’ top 15 prospects:

He’s just outside the Top 10. Wellemeyer has a very strong arm but must resist overthrowing and keep his pitches down in the strike zone. He also needs to refine the consistency of his slider. His changeup is OK, so a lot of teams would look at him as a starter. He’s also one of the Cubs’ prime pieces of trade bait.

As a starter.

Of all the relievers the Cardinals have turned into starters this season, we can all agree that Adam Wainwright is the least surprising. He was groomed as starter. The Cardinals traded for him so he would be in the rotation a few years later. He’s a starter. But the argument Wellemeyer is the most obvious starter material of the other three has gained momentum since I didn’t write the blog entry I should have written. Control is Wellemeyer’s biggest hitch. It’s not unreasonable to believe that Wellemeyer calms as a starter and the adrenaline-fueled jumpiness may be stoked  by being a reliever. It’s not unreasonable.

It was, in hindsight,  so, so obvious.

It’s just uncanny that it’s the eve of Memorial Day and the Cardinals have a rotation of five pitchers who made a combined total of 10 major-league starts in 2006.

Ten.

A total of 181 pitchers made at least 10 starts in the majors in 2006. One of the pitchers who made 10 was Juan Mateo – a Rule 5 pick by the Cardinals last season who was returned to the Cubs when he couldn’t make the 25-man roster. If he were in the Cardinals rotation right now, he would have as many starts from 2006 as his peers … combined.

Speaks to the Cardinals’ pitching situation. Speaks to Dave Duncan’s ability and the Cardinals’ confidence in him to spot ability where others might whince.

Speaks to the value the Cardinals place on having Ryan Franklin in the eighth.

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Congrats to Mizzou and on hosting its first regional — a worthy award for coach Tim Jamieson, who has pushed and pushed the school to making a regional a priority, and for a program that’s been on the rise and has now arrived.

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Cardinals reliever Josh Kinney will appear at Monday’s River City Rascals game out in O’Fallon, Mo. Kinney will revisit his roots — he got his pro start as a pitching for the Frontier League team — and the first 1,000 fans in attendance will receive a Kinney bobblehead.

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Troy Cate’s major-league debut comes less than two years after Seattle unceremoniously released him days after a second positive test for performance-enhancing drugs. Cate was injured at the time. Cate was in Single-A at the time. The Mariners,  whose minor leagues have been riddled with positive tests, had no reason not to  cut ties with the aging prospect.

The Cardinals are getting the benefit of Bruce Manno’s willingness to take a chance.

Suspension and all.

Cate pitched 1 1/3  scoreless innings in relief Sunday, joining the bullpen as Anthony Reyes was optioned to Triple-A Memphis. Cate came to spring training as an outside contender for the Cardinals’ open rotation spots. He left where he was earmarked for — a reliever in Memphis. Since, he’s done time in the Redbirds bullpen and in the Redbirds rotation. Overall, he was 1-3 with a 4.54 ERA at Memphis, but the truth lies in the splits.  Most of those numbers came as a starter: 1-3 with a 5.40 ERA and 20 strikeouts to 20 earned runs and 11 walks in 33 1/3 innings.

As a reliever he was stingy: 1.08 ERA in six appearances spanning 8 1/3 innings with eight strikeouts to six hits and a .200  batting average against.

Wrote a story about the lefty early in spring training, and the blog gives  me the (shameless)  opportunity to unearth it from the paper’s morgue:

JUPITER, Fla. - As a young aspiring pitcher, Troy Cate decided to delay his career and devote two formative years to a religious mission. He returned and stormed his way back into baseball, only to jeopardize it all with another choice.

One he has pitched to overcome.

One he may never escape from.

Making up for lost time, Cate arrived last week at his first major-league spring training as the unexpected contender for the Cardinals’ starting rotation. At 26, the lefthander is aging as a prospect who has just one game above the Class AA level. With two suspensions for positive steroid tests in 2005, age was the least of his concerns as he used 2006 in the Cardinals’ minors to reclaim a career.

“This last year and a half has been a long road and it’s been a lot of work and it’s been a lot of (unknowns),” Cate said. “But it’s been worth all of the work because of where I am. St. Louis took a chance on me and thank goodness they did. Everything has paid off, so far.”

As pitchers begin throwing live batting practice today at Cardinals’ camp, the plan is to give Cate opportunities to win a starting job, take a relief role, or leave an impression. In reality, he’s likely bound for Class AAA, but to dismiss Cate has a spring lark is to miss what he’s done the last year.

He’s surprised at every stop.

When they signed him after the 2005 season, the Cardinals did not know what to make of the discarded lefty. They knew he had a 30-game suspension to serve, and the only spot they had open was relief in Class A Palm Beach. Cate handled that job and hurdled Single-A, finishing 2006 at Double-A Springfield with 78 strikeouts and a 1.27 in 56 2/3 combined innings.

The Cardinals added him to the 40-man roster and pencilled him in as a Triple-A reliever. Then he went out and shined as a starter in Mexico’s winter league, going 3-1 with a 1.21 ERA in 29 2/3 innings.

The Cardinals rethought his role.

“One of the real surprises because that opened our eyes what he did (in Mexico),” said Mark Riggins, the Cardinals’ minor-league pitching coordinator. “We didn’t really know what we had even when he came here. We knew he hadn’t pitched much above (Single-A). Going by his numbers and his numbers weren’t exciting. We didn’t know what to expect.”

The unexpected is not an isolated event for Cate.

As a freshman at Ricks College (now BYU-Idaho), Cate had just been ejected from the starting rotation when he was called from the bullpen to rescue a teammate in the first inning. It was the inaugural game at Viking Field and the starter couldn’t get an out. Cate pitched the remaining seven innings of the shortened game, struck out 13 and won.

The next season he was in England.

Cate stowed his mid-80s-mph fastball and followed his Mormon faith to a two-year mission through London and southeast England. When most young pitchers are eyeing the draft, Cate was proselytizing for the Church of Latter Day Saints. He packed two gloves and a baseball for his trip and played catch maybe once a month, he said.

Ricks College, accustomed to players leaving for missions, had a spot waiting for him, but Cate returned a different, stronger, more mature pitcher.

“Oh yeah he did a lot of growing up,” said his father Steve Cate, who has been watching drills this week in Jupiter. “The way he talked to people, the responsibility he started to take. It seemed he brought more focus to baseball. He was more serious. I knew he missed it.”

Working with the same pitching coach he’s had since he was 8, Cate threw himself into a long-toss program when he returned from England. That mild fastball revved and by 2002 he was chucking it at more than 90 mph. Seattle made him a sixth-pick and a 6-1 start to his pro career put him on their prospect list, with a bullet.

He stalled at Class A.

His arm became sore, injured.

That’s when he sought help.

Cate declines to discuss details now, but in published reports from 2005 he described going to Tijuana to buy steroids and using them in November 2004 to speed up the healing process. On April 4, 2005, he was one of 38 minor-leaguers who had positive tests announced. His second positive test, which is being reported here for the first time, was taken on July 31, 2005. The Mariners released him days after they were notified.

He felt stained.

“It made me realize how stupid I was. The big mistake that I made,” Cate said. “After I came back with a positive test I found myself on the outside of baseball looking in. Literally, I was right there on the outside. … I got caught. I did my time and it’s in the past. There is nothing I can do about it. All I can do is compete in this game and show I’m doing it the right way.”

Said his personal pitching coach Dave Hedenz: “I was mad, mad at him. I’ve told him not to even talk to me until he cleaned himself up so that there wasn’t even cold medicine in his system. He doesn’t need this stuff.”

Cate said his only offer after 2005 came from the Cardinals. He still had to serve his second suspension, but soared through his first season in the bullpen. He’s one of three players in the Cardinals’ camp who have positive-test suspensions in their past. (Pitcher Ryan Franklin and catcher Ryan Christianson are the others.)

To the starter competition, Cate brings control and four legit pitches. His fastball climbed from 88 mph at the start of the summer to 92 mph at the end, touching at times 94 mph. His changeup is a setup pitch. His curve gets the strikeouts.

Four Ks, that is, for every walk last summer.

When he gave up two years for his mission, he resumed pitching better than he ever had. When he nearly gave it all up for a quick fix, he recovered his reputation and pitched better than he ever has.

“He really took advantage of the opportunity,” Riggins said. “Sometimes you’re there waiting and wondering if there’s every going be another knock at your door or if it’s over. You don’t want to miss the knock, and he’s taken full advantage of a second chance.”

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