TOWER GROVE — The Topps 2009 Update packs are now out in stores*, and card No. UH263 features Matt Holliday reaching up to catch a fly ball, all decked out in his St. Louis Cardinals home whites. With this being the first week of baseball’s blockbuster equivalent of a big card swap meet — trade you one Carlos Gomez foil-stamp for a slightly dog-eared J.J. Hardy All-Star card — and the rhetoric flying, a look at the back of Holliday’s new card helps explain what all the fuss and all the dollars are about.

Quoting directly from the back of the Topps card, this is what the Cardinals are trying to keep:

Matt started 2009 slowly for Oakland, but as soon as he was traded to St. Louis in July, he looked again like the former Rockies superstar. He went 4-for-5 in his debut, then went on to hit safely in his first nine games for the Cardinals (one short of the team record held by Alvin Dark and Charley Smith), going 20-for-33 (.606 AVG) with 10 RBI.

It might as well have been written by Superagent Scott Boras (TM) because it certainly fits the narrative he’ll present this winter about his top client in the current market. Boras is famous for compiling vast volumes about each of his clients that — in three-ring binder form, or bound books — state the case that Player A is about to reach Peak B of his career that puts him on track to be better than Hall of Famer C. Holliday is a perfect fit for the Boras Packaging Treatment. He’s about to enter the prime of his career, having already won a batting title, finished second in MVP voting (2007), helped steer two different teams to the postseason and — oh yeah — just happens to be the best bat available in this year’s market.

The Cardinals, according to both sides and baseball sources, have not formally offered a contract to Holliday. It is obvious that an offer soaring past $100 million is what it’s likely going to take. The Cardinals have given no indication that they are unwilling or hesitant to fish in that deep water or that they refute the heftiness of the contract Holliday can command. The market (er, umm … Boras) will determine the price.

But so will precedent.

And Boras has plenty of that to put in his Story of Holliday.

Dial back a few a years, all the way to 2004, when the Cardinals had another close encounter of the Boras kind. In the National League Championship Series that October, the Cardinals could not contain the human highlight that Carlos Beltran became on the brink of free agency. Beltran invented runs on his own that series. Remember the slider from Julian Tavarez that skimmed the dirt and Beltran still reached it and launched it out of right-center field at Minute Maid Park? Tavarez does. His fingers never healed correctly from when he fractured them punching the dugout phone. That NLCS was just an extension of a remarkable season for Beltran that he started with Kansas City and finished with Houston.

During that year, Beltran became the first player to have 50 RBIs in both the American League and National League in the same season. He slugged .559 for the Astros, scored 70 runs and stole 28 bases — and in 90 games after a midseason trade.

Sound familiar? I mean, minus a few stolen bases.

This past season, Holliday also drove in 50 runs in both the American League and the National League. He hit .353, slugged .604 and hit 13 home runs in 63 games for the Cardinals after joining them in a midseason trade. Both are Boras clients. Both moved teams and switched leagues in the middle of the season, and both were engines that helped drive playoff runs. Both also became free agents at the end of these seasons. And, cue Yoda, “there is another.”

First baseman Mark Teixeira, the newly minted World Series champion with the New York Yankees, had a similar split-season success on the eve of free agency. Yep, he’s a Boras client.

Take a look at what the three batters of Boras Inc. did in split-seasons before becoming free agents (the slash lines are, as always, BA/OBP/SLG):

BELTRAN, in 2004

with KC … 69 games … .278/.367/.534 … 15 HR … 51 RBI … 51 Runs

with HOU … 90 games … .258/.368/.559 … 23 HR … 53 RBI … 70 Runs

***

TEIXEIRA, in 2008

with ATL … 103 games … .283/.390/.512 … 20 HR … 78 RBI … 63 Runs

with LAA … 54 games … .358/.449/.632 … 13 HR … 43 RBI … 39 Runs

***

HOLLIDAY, in 2009

with OAK … 93 games … .286/.378/.454 … 11 HR … 54 RBI … 52 Runs

with STL … 63 games … .353/.419/.604 … 13 HR … 55 RBI … 42 Runs

All three Boras clients had strong pushes — at least in some statistical value — with their second team as they bull-rushed free agency. What happened in the winter after their split-season success for Beltran and Teixeira may offer some insight into what is going to happen with Holliday this winter and what the Cardinals can expect it will take to re-sign the bat that changes their lineup.

Beltran bounced out of the NLCS and into a free agency sweepstakes that netted him a seven-year, $119-million deal with the New York Mets. While the Mets remained a favorite to sign him from the moment Beltran hit the open market, Boras employed a standard maneuver on his part — dragging the New York Yankees into the rumors and perhaps into the mix late in the game. Boras once got the Texas Rangers to bid against themselves for Alex Rodriguez, and with Beltran he used the Yankees as a foil to up the price on their cross-town rivals. There was even reports of Beltran preferring the Yankees, willing to take less to play for the Yankees, admiring of the Yankees and their winning tradition …

Matt Holliday 2009 Topps Update (Topps Baseball Cards)

This past year, Teixeira hit free agency and was a chief target of his former team (the Angels) and the Boston Red Sox. The Yankees were also brought into the negotiations, but only as a blockbuster stunner. At the winter meetings last year, the Yankees were heavily invested in pitching, signing CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett in what was already a record-setting sum of contracts. Out of the blue (pinstripes), the Yankees swooped in to sign Teixeira, too, with an eight-year, $180-million deal. That is the one that Boras has cited a few times in recent weeks as Holliday’s target price tag.

Beltran was 27 the season before he signed his deal. Teixeira was 28. Holliday turns 30 in January.

Both Beltran and Teixeira hit the open market with solid individual performances in the previous postseason, but neither of their teams won a pennant. Beltran hit .434 in October 2004 and slugged 1.02. Teixeira hit .467 for the Angels in October 2008 and had a .550 on-base percentage. Holliday, meanwhile, hit a home run but hit only .167 in an abbreviated playoff appearance this past October and he dropped a rather infamous fly ball (not pictured in the Topps card pictured to the left).

The career resumes that Beltran and Teixeira took into free agency were dotted with the usual assortment of trophies and statistical ornaments, all spit-clean, polished, buffed and made all the brighter by the Boras bound book. Beltran had been a Rookie of the Year. Teixeira had a couple Gold Gloves to go with a couple Silver Sluggers, most from his time with the Texas Rangers. Both were switch-hitters. Beltran played a premium defensive position as well — and mostly better — than anyone. Teixeira played first base as if it were a premium defensive position. Both are more complete players than Holliday.

Their trophy shelves upon hitting free agency:

BELTRAN: AL Rookie of the Year. (He later won three Gold Gloves, after signing)

TEIXEIRA: 2 Gold Gloves, 2 Silver Sluggers, 7th in MVP voting (2005), led the league in total bases that season as well, a 40-homer season.

Holliday, shall we say, is a tad more decorated when it comes to the accessories that come with “franchise player”-like performance. Perhaps this is where the Alfonso Soriano comparison comes into play. Back when Soriano was a free agent, the Cardinals did reach out to him and meet with him about coming in as the club’s starting left fielder. The Chicago Cubs, however, trumped everyone with a eight-year, $136-million deal for the player.

Here is what Soriano took into free agency, and what Holliday has on the back of his baseball card already:

SORIANO: 4 Silver Sluggers, 3rd in MVP voting (2002), 6th in MVP voting (2006), a 40-40 season (and a 39-40 season), and one 40-homer year.

HOLLIDAY: NLCS MVP 2007, 3 Silver Sluggers, 2007 batting title, 2nd in MVP voting (2007).

Holliday is a better defensive player than Soriano and is going to hit for a higher average and not bring the leadoff-wishes angst to the lineup. Soriano has a history of more power and more speed. Beltran is the best defensive player of the group and plays that key position. Teixeira may have the most RBI potential of the foursome and handles his position as well as anyone, as mentioned.

In his deal, Soriano scored a high season salary of $18 million. Beltran’s season-salary high is $18.5 million in his deal, and Teixeira tops out at $22.5 million. Within the deals for Beltran and Teixeira there are myriad of bonuses and clauses, chutes and ladders and bells and whistles that aren’t unusual, but are common for big-ticket Boras clients. You can check out the details at the invaluable Cot’s Baseball Contracts:

• Carlos Beltran at Cot’s
• Mark Teixeira at Cot’s

Keep inflation in mind and understand that this market offers very few impact bats (two at last count), and the lowest Boras has scored for one of his split-season success clients is Beltran’s $119 million deal. He was also the youngest of the group, and his deal is the shortest at seven years. You start to see the kind of dollars and years that can logically be applied to Holliday this winter. Is it $180-million like Teixeira? Doubtful. That was a situation that involved the biggest pocketbooks in the game. Will the Yankees or another big-check team (see this report from The Boston Globe) be dragged into the Holliday talks? Undoubtedly.

The path Boras follows is all there. He’s followed it before.

Beltran didn’t sign until January 2005. Teixeira signed on Dec. 23, 2008. Boras likes to slow-play his ace client. Build the drama as well as the market and help, no matter what the result, create the impression that he got the best offer that was out there — sometimes even better than the best.

There are many similarities between Beltran, Teixeira and Holliday. As detailed above: all were traded before becoming free agents, all hit the market as the best available at their position, all had helped teams into the postseason, all were nearing their prime (not yet 30) and two of them scored massive deals. The other is on deck. The similarities don’t stop there. The teams that traded for them gave up substantial pieces to get them. Houston traded Mark Teahen and Octavio Dotel in the Beltran deal. The Angels traded their starting first baseman Casey Kotchman to get Teixeira. The Cardinals, you know, dealt Brett Wallace in a three-player package for Holliday.

Those teams — the Astros, the Angels and the Cardinals — all pledged to re-sign the player.

All of them tried or are trying.

And there is another trend to keep in mind. The other two failed.

* San Francisco Giants ace Tim Lincecum is the wax-pack pic, following Alex Rodriguez as the face on all of the Topps packs. Each guy has had his p.r. issue shortly after those packs hit shelves. Is there a curse?

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