TOWER GROVE — Of all the statistical bubblegum that is packed into Bill James’ annual Handbooks, among the best to chew over and stretch to the point of popping is the predictions for the coming season.

ACTA Sports recently emailed me the 2010 predictions for several members of the 2009 St. Louis Cardinals — predictions that are featured in Bill James Handbook 2010 — and while it doesn’t take a “statistical oracle” (as The Wall Street Journal…

TOWER GROVE — The St. Louis Cardinals pickoff combination of catcher Yadier Molina and first baseman Albert Pujols continued its monopoly of one of baseball’s fast-rising awards for defensive play. The Fielding Bible is in its fourth year of handing out awards for the best defensive play at each position in an attempt to do what the Gold Glove sometimes fails to do with its annual leanings toward incumbency and offense.

Four years of Fielding Bible…

TOWER GROVE — This morning, St. Louis Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright was announced as his peers’ selection for the National League Outstanding Pitcher, as discussed over on the breaking-news blog, Cardinal Beat. The Players Choice awards, founded a little more than a decade ago by the players’ union, doesn’t have the historical oomph or bonus panache of the more revered hardware — the MVP, the Cy Young, etc. — but do they serve as indicators…

TOWER GROVE — Let the annual windfall of awards begin for St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols and his chip-free right elbow. Early this morning, The Sporting News continued its award announcements and revealed that Pujols, for a second consecutive year, is the publication’s choice as the Major League Baseball Player of the Year.

The magazine relied on a panel of 338 current big-league players to make the award selections, and Pujols was the choice for the…

TOWER GROVE — Back in 2008, during St. Louis Cardinals team physician George Paletta’s talk with the media about what’s become the most famous injured elbow in baseball, the doctor described the network of scar tissue and these bone spurs in Albert Pujols’ joint as a support structure, one that maybe was helping his arm operate with a torn ligament.

That was one of the reasons why none of it was disturbed and the ligament wasn’t…

TOWER GROVE — The first edition of this offseason’s PostCards mailbag begins with a favorite parlor game of the press box: Take the best player on the team. Put him on the trading block. Wonder just what it would take in return to make a deal happen. Stir and … Presto! Instant debate.

In the St. Louis Cardinals’ case, that’s Albert Pujols, the best hitter in the game, and a fine place to start when we peer…

TOWER GROVE — The wealth of information available on Baseball-Reference.com offered an intriguing kernel yesterday when I was digging around the numbers for today’s article on St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Ryan Ludwick. The goal was to find a snapshot of his consistency in 2008 vs. what he called a “real hot-cold season” in 2009 (check that .200 average in June). Not too far away from those stats, I found this:

Ludwick in wins 2008: BA .373…

TOWER GROVE — As detailed in the first of Joe Strauss’ post-season autopsies on the St. Louis Cardinals, manager Tony La Russa said a year he enjoyed with a team he professed a fondness for “from Day 1 of spring training really” left a sour, morning-mouth taste because of the way things finished. Not just the sweep in the National League Division Series, but specifically the performance in Game 3 of the playoffs.

“The first two games…

DOWNTOWN — The Los Angeles Dodgers have found the best way to neutralize the best bat in the game is to yield to the inevitable — put him on base. The St. Louis Cardinals have decided they know how to take a different tack with the most prolific postseason hitter of his era.

They think they can keep him off base.

“No chance,” said Adam Wainwright when asked about how he and his team have approached Manny…

PASADENA — When the National League Cy Young Award ballots — which were due yesterday — are tabulated, St. Louis Cardinals budding ace Adam Wainwright may win his first, cementing his arrival as one of the game’s elite starting starting pitchers.

LA’s Clayton Kershaw won’t be far behind.

If this National League Division Series is a stage for young players to burst onto the October scene — Matt Kemp? Skip Schumaker? anyone? — no two figure to…

LOS ANGELES –For Troy Glaus, it has been seven years. For John Smoltz, it’s 17.

The two St. Louis Cardinals veterans know a thing or seven about what it takes to be successful in the postseason, and they each have personal hardware as an October spoil. Glaus won the World Series MVP in 2002 with the Los Angeles Angels, and Smoltz, the winningest postseason pitcher ever, won the National League Championship Series MVP back in 1992….

TOWER GROVE — More than a year ago, Walt Jocketty, freshly installed as the Cincinnati Reds general manager, used an odd word to describe an upcoming series against the St. Louis Cardinals. He said he and manager Dusty Baker had chips on their shoulders. That they each had a “vendetta”.

Turns out it wasn’t that weird of a word choice at all. It was prophetic.

In 2009, the National League Central has only gotten spicier when it…

TOWER GROVE — Leave it to the last 10@10 of the regular season for me to completely and absolutely botch the 10:59 a.m. goal. Been working on a lengthy project — the fruits of which will be in Sunday’s paper — and all of the 10@10 time last night and this morning was spent polishing, reworking and enhancing (I hope) that article.

Still, a 10@10 is forthcoming.

Consider this a peace offering, a place-holder, something interesting up…

TOWER GROVE — St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa and pitching coach Dave Duncan believe not all pitches are created equal. That is why La Russa often bats away questions about a pitcher being on a short-leash with a pitch count or a pitcher being allowed to blow by the mythical (and misleading) labrum-barrier of 100 pitches.

There are high-stress pitches. There are breezy innings. They do count the same.

Both are part of the internal…

TOWER GROVE — While the St. Louis Cardinals have plenty to busy themselves with in the final five games of the regular season — see today’s game story for, oh, a few things to be spruced-up — and no reason to look beyond October, there are traces of 2010 in many of the comments coming from the club.

The front office and chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. have talked about the importance of re-signing outfielder Matt Holliday, sure, but…