JUPITER, Fla. — Renewal season is upon us, and with it comes the news today that the Cardinals have agreed to terms with 18 players and had to use their right of renewal for two players, pitchers Adam Wainwright and Anthony Reyes.

First, a little bit on how this works.

For players not yet arbitration eligible — the “zero to threes”, in baseball terms — the organization has the power to offer contracts, negotiate deals and, if a figure can not be agreed upon, the organization can unilaterally agree to “renew” the player. In the Cardinals case, agreements could not be struck with Wainwright and Reyes, so the team used its power to force a one-year deal at their preferred dollar figure on the two righthanders.

“No hard feelings,” general manager John Mozeliak said. Wainwright, who was told of the decision by Mozeliak on Monday, said there was no “ill will” on his end, and another member of the front office characterized the renewal of the two pitchers as a “non-event.”

That has not been the case this spring throughout baseball. Check the headlines coming out of Milwaukee’s spring training where Prince Fielder is being described as “irked” and said to have “bristled” at the Brewers’ renewal. Fielder said he’s “not happy about it at all.” Boston is braced to renew closer Jonathan Papelbon, though the young pitcher has said he won’t “sell myself short.” In that same article, Papelbon essentially sounds a rallying bell:

“There will be Dustin Pedroia (after this season),” he said, “and Clay (Buchholz) and Jacoby (Ellsbury) the year after that. We need to take a stand and not let them take advantage of us just because they can.”

The renewal seems to be becoming a more popular tool for teams in recent years. Atlanta is set to renew Jeff Francouer for a second consecutive year, giving the outfielder an incremental climb toward arbitration, from reportedly $427,000 last year to about $450,000 last year. Both Fielder and Papelbon used Ryan Howard’s renewal as their touchstone. But even though Howard’s was $900,000 for last year, it had the whiff of a stick-it offer, because the reigning MVP fell $100,000 short of the coveted “million-dollar player” tag.

As the proxy ace of the team Wainwright has also increased his profile as a face of the team — from World Series closer to (unannounced) opening day starter. The club renewed him at $448,000, a raise from $410,000 last year. Of the Cardinals “zero to threes” he is the highest paid, a nod to his performance and his place on the team.

A year from now, though, when arbitration enters the picture, it’s a different kind of conversation that takes place.

Obviously much more details on this, including comments, in tomorrow’s paper.

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The 18 players (all “zero to threes”) who accepted the club’s offers were: OF Chris Duncan, RHP Brad Thompson, OF Ryan Ludwick, LHP Tyler Johnson (news on his shoulder was earlier this morning), OF Skip Schumaker, INF Brendan Ryan, RHP Josh Kinney, RHP Kelvin Jimenez, INF Brian Barden, OF Brian Barton, OF Cody Haerther, 2B Jarrett Hoffpauir, OF Joe Mather, RHP Kyle McClellan, RHP Blake Hawksworth, RHP Jason Motte, RHP Mike Parisi and RHP Mark Worrell.

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An amazing, wish-I-would-have-thought-of-that study over at Viva el Birdos today. The seminal Cardinals’ fan blog does an autopsy on outfield defense and comes to the conclusion that the Cardinals lost essentially 6 1/2 games of outs in 2007, a stunning drop in overall defensive performance by the team. According to numbers crunched by Viva — and these are standard, box score numbers; no fancy-dan calculator or MIT degree needed — the Cardinals 1,746 flyball last season, 168 of which were home runs. Of the remainder, the Cardnals turns 1,052 of them into outs.

The .667 percentage is a shocking drop from the .778 percent of 2005.

If the Cardinals had tracked down the same amount of flyballs in 2007 as they did in 2005, they would have caught 1,228, or 176 more outs. That’s 6 1/2 games.

Sure this doesn’t account for how hard those balls were hit and how many of them were considered in the “outfielder’s zone” and so on and so forth. But it is an astonishing look at how the outfielder defense kept pace with the infield defense on its slide last year. It also shows how the pitching staff changed, as in 2005 there were only 1,320 flyballs, more than 400 fewer that the staff allowed last season.

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Have received some questions about the Cardinals’ newsletter that the P-D is putting out twice a day. The morning newsletter includes a preview to the day that is exclusive to the newsletter, and the past couple days are an example of what subscribers get:

• On Monday, it was a brief advance of Braden Looper’s debut.

• On Tuesday, it’s a look at how little the leadoff hitters have done.

Was struck first by the obvious rotation of leadoff hitters that the Cardinals have used in the first six games this spring — Brian Barton, Adam Kennedy and Colby Rasmus – and then also by how little production there has been from that spot in the order. A few have done well in other spots in the order, but not leadoff, where Barton is 0-for-7, Kennedy 1-for-6 and Rasmus, entering his start there today, 0-for-3 with a walk.

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Matt Clement threw a bullpen as scheduled this morning, with pitching coach Dave Duncan looking on. Mozeliak said he understands that Clement “should be throwing to hitters by this weekend.” That means live batting practice, the final stepping stone before appearing in a game.

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Barden, the third baseman plucked off waivers from Arizona last season, is making his first start of spring, at, of all places, third base. The defensively skilled infielder won a Gold Glove equivalent in college for his play at third base, but it turns out he went to Oregon State as a walk-on shortstop. Recognizing there was a scholarship shortstop in place, Barden went for and won the starting job at third. He stayed there.

When the Cardinals claimed him to help with their third-base depth last season, one person in the organization said Barden was actually a better fit at shortstop. The Cardinals saw him as a capable major-league middle infielder. That’s always where Barden thought his bat would put him.

Yet, in Arizona’s organization, he was once shooed away from taking grounders at shortstop … until there was a glaring need at the position.

Barden, who will turn 27 in April, is angling for a bench job, perhaps the one vacated by Scott Spiezio. He’s been taking groundballs at third and second bases, plus he recently started doing work at first base. He also has something else up his sleeve. Or rather: in his bag. Barden’s got an outfielders glove, and his plan is to talk with the coaches about taking some work there if/when the crowded outfield is trimmed down a bit and there are innings for Barden to show off additional versatility.

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Jim Hayes of FSN broke the story on the oddest carpool in camp: Russ Springer driving Brendan Ryan to the facility each day. Call it part of the continuing education of Ryan. Last fall, in the cramped clubhouse at Wrigley Field, Springer and Scott Rolen were telling Ryan that the time to be on the team bus was not the time posted, but 30 minutes earlier. If it says be there at 3 p.m., be there at 2:30 p.m. That was the message.

Springer is taking it a step further this spring — driving Ryan to workouts, getting the infielder there in plenty of time to get some (unvoluntary) voluntary early batting practice. Springer has a rule though: “The bus still doesn’t wait.”

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Industrious reader Kurt Hunzeker (Mizzou J-School ‘99) took a suggestion from an earlier Bird Land and designed with it. Check out these t-shirt designs he came up with for one of the early slogans of spring training, Chris Carpenter’s “progressing nicely”. Notice the Redbirds’ bandaged wing. Carpenter took a gander at the shirt designs this morning and gave a nod of approval.

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Clement after his bullpen told reporters that his arm strength and everything was “progressing very nicely.” 

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