CREVE COEUR — They are at very different stages in their careers, at very different positions and they were talking about two very different subjects, but St. Louis Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter and minor-league outfielder Tyler Henley hit on the same theme during interviews I had with them Wednesday.

In discussing how his career changed when he won the Cy Young Award back in 2005, Carpenter described how expectations changed around him. He wasn’t just the…

TOWER GROVE — Some members of the St. Louis Cardinals brass, including VP/farm director Jeff Luhnow and assistant general manager John Abbamondi, traveled west this week to see the Arizona Fall League and the prospects there in person. They were greeted with a marquee start — against their players.

Stephen Strasburg, the Washington Nationals’ No. 1 overall pick in last year’s draft and widely billed as the best pitching prospect to reach the draft in years,…

TOWER GROVE — The Bird Land Community Top 21’s top 10 is completed, and we’re just about halfway through the annual ranking of St. Louis Cardinals prospects by readers here at the blog. The overarching lessons of the first 10 are two-fold: Voters have adopted the perceived franchise emphasis on winning now/contributing now and the Cardinals system, as a whole, is significantly diluted, even lacking.

Second baseman Daniel Descalso, who had one of a handful of…

TOWER GROVE — In what probably was the closest vote yet in any Bird Land Community prospect poll, Eduardo Sanchez, the fireballer righthanded reliever, took 52 percent of the vote in the runoff and will be your No. 7 prospect on the Top 21 poll this year. Lance Lynn, the steady starter, will be No. 8. At 4 o’clock St. Louis time on Monday one vote separated the two.

So, I gave the poll another day…

TOWER GROVE — Back in 2003, a high-profile draft-and-follow pitcher who received a stout bonus joined the St. Louis Cardinals and was described this way by Baseball America:

(He) has the highest ceiling of any St. Louis pitching prospect since Rick Ankiel. His fastball usually ranges from 90-92 mph, but it was clocked at 96 in the seventh inning of one start. He could pitch at 92-94 consistently as he fills out, and he has started…

TOWER GROVE — Judging from some of the comments at the tails of the first three Bird Land Community Top 21 polls, one question continues to perplex many voters: What age is too aged to be a prospect?

There is no real answer.

The St. Louis Cardinals, as described by farm director Jeff Luhnow, have studied how high-end players — the top-notch, elite, standout prospects — reach the majors in their early 20s, and how they excel…

TOWER GROVE — It started as a cumbersome, at-times chaotic, count-by-hand poll posted in the Cardinals’ message board here at StlToday.com. Through four years and four attempts to refine the process it has improved to an at-times cumbersome and slightly less chaotic poll based here at Bird Land.

But, hey, we no longer have to count it by hand. Viva technology.

With the St. Louis Cardinals’ season over with the sudden sweep by the Los Angeles Dodgers,…

TOWER GROVE — For the moment, St. Louis Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright pulled ahead in wins. On Tuesday night, he set a new career high with his 15th victory of the season, and he’s the first National League pitcher and the second pitcher in the majors to reach 15. But, as he said after the game, he’ll have to keep his “sprinting shoes on” if he plans to stay ahead.

Chris Carpenter is coming.

“I like the push,”…

TOWER GROVE — The premeditated celebration began the moment Bill Hall’s 10th-inning single landed Monday and winning run Casey McGehee crossed home plate. Immediately the Milwaukee Brewers bolted for their clubhouse, turning, as Tom Haudricourt wrote at the Journal-Sentinel, a walk-off into a run-off and again stoking the discussion about those brash and bold Brewers and their post-win ways.

Untucking. Posing. Behind closed doors. Or otherwise.

A rivalry that has its roots in Milwaukee’s public compliments and…

JUPITER, Fla. — The players who will open the season with the St. Louis Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliate, the Memphis Redbirds, left this afternoon for Tennessee, where they will be joined tomorrow by the (newly revealed) big-league club. They took six starting pitchers with them.

Do the math and you’ll have a good idea that all six won’t be starting.

Adam Ottavino flew north with the Triple-A rotation — a bump up for the righthander from the original…