JUPITER, Fla. — A few weeks ago, asking who was the top prospect for the St. Louis Cardinals at third base would have produced a yawner of a poll, a runaway favorite plucked straight from the universal top 10 rankings of prospects. No doubt: Brett Wallace. Signed. Paid. Promoted. Delivering. Next question.

The same is probably true today, meaning the real interest is for who finishes second.

Both Wallace and David Freese are back with the major-league…

JUPITER, Fla. — Less than 50 feet from his locker in the St. Louis Cardinals clubhouse and on his way to the kitchen for a snack, outfielder Colby Rasmus cannot help but walk by a stack of copies of Baseball America. It’s right there by the shelves of bubblegum and sunflower seeds.

The current issue might be of especially interest to Rasmus as it’s the annual rankings of the Top 100 Prospects in baseball. One of the…

JUPITER, Fla. — With the first off day of spring training here for the St. Louis Cardinals, there’s time to ride some tangents — when you’re not riding the birthday boy’s “tsunami,” that is.

While working on a blog entry that you will see up in this space shortly about outfielder Colby Rasmus and how to read the recently released Baseball America Top 100 Prospects, I was intrigued by how BA took the depth charts us correspondents file…

TOWER GROVE — The St. Louis Cardinals sudden and curious move to release Adam Kennedy on the eve of spring training leaves them with a hole at second base and an open casting call for the job.

So, it’s business at usual down in Jupiter.

With all due respect to the St. Louis Blues, whose revolving door in goal was chronicled and counted in this morning’s paper by Dan O’Neill (ah, where have you gone Tom Barrasso?), the real…

TOWER GROVE — For the third consecutive year the blog will be coming live this weekend from the Winter Warm-up in downtown St. Louis. Throughout the three days of the event, I’ll update the blog with comments from players, quotes from prospects (10 or so will be in attendance), tidbits from executives, the scene at the fest and, of course, news (i.e., pre-arbitration signings).

A wrinkle to the coverage this year will be the Twitter feed….

TOWER GROVE — By definition, any list of the top 10 or top 30 prospects within the St. Louis Cardinals system is flawed. The concept itself has one glaring weakness: Cardinals prospects are compared only against Cardinals prospects, leaving the reader to wonder if a top-10 talent here is a top-five talent in Cleveland? Maybe a top 20 talent in Boston … and so on.

Rankings prospects within an organization has value. It just doesn’t have…

DOWNTOWN — One of the best aspects of spring training is the access each day to the backlots — the scattered fields behind Roger Dean Stadium that host drills, batting practice and some scrimmages, and that the prospects call home. Each day it’s possible to go back there and see Colby Rasmus step-in against, say, Jason Motte or Daryl Jones shag flies beside Jon Edwards. It’s not game speed, but it does allow you see the prospects in…

DOWNTOWN — With National League MVP Albert Pujols topping the charts with a $175 autograph fee, the St. Louis Cardinals announced this afternoon the schedule and cost for the annual autograph pell mell that is Winter Warmup in downtown St. Louis. A total of 81 former or current Cardinals are schedule to attend the autograph sessions that are the headline event at the three-day fanfest, January 17-19.

Admission passes for the event are $40 for adults, $10…

TOWER GROVE — About a week ago, Baseball America slipped me the information that for the first time since they began publishing their rankings of overall minor-league systems the St. Louis Cardinals would reach the top 10, finishing eighth in a poll and discussion of editors there at BA. Since then, there has been a, ahem, tsunami of questions and criticisms.

The general theme of those comments has been: What does it mean, and what does it…

TOWER GROVE — Just to get a feel for where cult hit Amaury Cazana Marti fits within the spectrum of prospects, I popped him in the previous poll and watched, a tad surprised, as he finished second. Apparently, he still has his followers. But does he fit the definition of “prospect”? Not to some.

There are baseball people who argue that the age of a player also defines his status as a prospect. When you look at…

TOWER GROVE — With the turn of the year behind us, ’tis the season for prospect rankings across the industry. Future Redbirds, the fan-fueled site that keeps tabs on the St. Louis Cardinals’ minor-league system, has been going through its Top 20 prospect, and just this morning John Sickels’ published his Top 20+ for the Cardinals’ system. Later this week Kevin Goldstein will release his Cardinals Top 11, and within a couple weeks the Baseball America Top 10…

TOWER GROVE — As I start writing this entry I’m watching another replay of Don Larsen’s perfect game on the shiny new MLB Network — man,  could I really go for a Gillette shave — and the game is just about to enter the ninth inning. What a new year’s treat to see the gem of the 1956 World Series and hear Vin Scully deftly avoid the karmic land mine that would be mentioning the perfect game.

Instead…

TOWER GROVE — After taking him in 39th round of the most recent draft, the St. Louis Cardinals couldn’t get Curt Smith into the rookie-level lineup because of a visa issue. Once the paperwork snarl was loosened, they couldn’t keep him out of the lineup.

Smith, fresh from Curacao by way of the University of Maine, got a hit in his debut and didn’t stop hitting until he had earned a promotion to Low-A Quad Cities. The…

TOWER GROVE — Back during those 100-win salad days of 2004 and 2005, the St. Louis Cardinals’ tremendous success at the major-league level was a facade for what anyone with an eye on the minors knew, and knew well: It all could be fleeting.

A sobering reminder of the situation they put themselves in came the winter after the Cardinals juggernaut run to the National League pennant and World Series in 2004. Baseball America, viewed by…

TOWER GROVE — A year or so ago while organizing the rankings for Baseball America’s Cardinals Top 30, I came upon a pitcher who had been ranked for three consecutive years, had been considered a prospect at every level, and yet as he advanced was steadily sliding in the poll. There were some sources I spoke to who suggested that he shouldn’t be ranked a fourth time.

He had his term, went the argument, and it…