TOWER GROVE — As many as seven of the St. Louis Cardinals better prospects must be added to the 40-man roster in the near future or the team will risk losing them through the Rule 5 draft in December. The process of clearing space on the 40-man roster has already begun.

Jarrett Hoffpauir, a Class AAA second baseman, was picked up off waivers late last night by the Toronto Blue Jays. (See the Toronto take on…

DOWNTOWN — One of the best bats in the St. Louis Cardinals system and one of the most reliable arms at their minor-league affiliates won the team’s organization awards for 2009. Outfielder/third baseman Allen Craig, who led Class AAA Memphis to a Pacific Coast League championship with his power, won the Player of the Year Award from the team. Righthanded starter Lance Lynn, who had a cameo appearance in Triple-A about a year after he…

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 — A couple summers ago, a young shortstop was available in the June draft that fit so many of the “buckets” that the St. Louis Cardinals look for in a high pick. He played a premium position. He played a position of some need for the team. He had strong, reliable numbers in a major NCAA conference, and his stats projected well through the metrics the Cardinals use help identify future performance. He…

TOWER GROVE — Maybe it’s the time of year, what with the season just ending and the playoffs still going on. Maybe it’s how the season ended, with a St. Louis Cardinals team riding high expectations and fizzling when it mattered most. Maybe it’s a fanbase adopting the win-now attitude shown by the front office.

Maybe it’s just a lack of patience.

Whatever the reason, the Bird Land Community Top 21 is two votes old and already…

CREVE COEUR — It didn’t take long for the Bird Land Community Top 21 to throw its first curveball. Not that it’s a surprise lefthanded starter Jaime Garcia won the No. 1 spot in the readers’ rankings of St. Louis Cardinals’ prospects. It’s just wasn’t close.

That was unexpected.

Garcia pulled away from first-round fireballer Shelby Miller and had more than twice as many votes. As of last check — a few seconds ago — Garcia had…

TOWER GROVE — The No. 1 spot on any St. Louis Cardinals top prospect list was so obvious the past three seasons that no poll was necessary. We just skipped it. Installed Colby Rasmus at the top. And moved on with the poll. No need to state the obvious. Albert Pujols starts at first base, bats third. Rasmus was No. 1. Next question.

Halfway through this season this year’s Top Anything Prospect Poll figured to be the…

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 — John Smoltz, the St. Louis Cardinals’ recent booster shot for their rotation, freely admits that he’s had a lot of time to think about things in his highly decorated major-league career, and one day he decided to figure out his personal odometer.

For every year of his big-league career but this one, Smoltz had the same route to the ballpark. It was a 70-mile round trip from his house to the parking lot…

TOWER GROVE — A few seasons ago, the St. Louis Cardinals veteran relievers Russ Springer, Ryan Franklin and Jason Isringhausen presented what one of them called a save-your-bullets approach to spring training. The theory, as Springer explained, was their high-mileage arms had only so many throws left, why waste those precious “bullets” on live batting practice or exhibition baseball when there was a whole season ahead of them?

The fewer throws they made in March, the…

TOWER GROVE — Out in San Francisco tonight, Giants ace and reigning Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum pitches against the rival Los Angeles Dodgers with a chance to assert his bid for the pitching Triple Crown. Lincecum takes the league’s best ERA into the game at 2.20, has a chance to tie for the league lead in wins (he has 12 now), and only add to his league lead in strikeouts (his 198 are 27…

DOWNTOWN — If the St. Louis Cardinals flipped the first face cards of trade-deadline hold ‘em with the acquisitions last week of Julio Lugo and Matt Holliday, the Philadelphia Phillies responded by upping the ante Wednesday with a trade for lefty Cliff Lee.

Your deal, Dodgers.

Sitting in the visitors’ dugout Wednesday afternoon some 53 hours before the end of that night’s game — or thereabouts, roughly estimated — Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre said it’s…

JUPITER, Fla. — Two of the batters sent out “to get more playing time” — a common phrase these days as minor-league camp swirls into games — are thriving with the additional at-bats. One has continued his superb spring at the plate. The other may yet save his spring and put himself back on the cusp of the majors.

Both Allen Craig and Brian Barton homered for the St. Louis Cardinals’ Triple-A affiliate in games Sunday….

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Pity Pete Kozma. Through no fault of his own he’s spent the first few years of his professional career doing exactly what was expected. Good glove. Consistently improving bat. Agility in the field that portends of a major-league shortstop with the potential for a reliable, average-oriented bat. That’s why the St. Louis Cardinals drafted him with their first pick in 2007.

The trouble is … He’s not Rick Porcello.

The story has now lapsed…