TOWER GROVE — The final results of a radical re-write of the prospect rankings for St. Louis Cardinals’ minor-league system just slid through the mail slot here at the home office.

The current issue of Baseball America ranks the top 10 prospects for each team in the National League Central, and you’ll hardly recognize the top 10 for the local nine. There are only two players from last year’s top 10 who remain in this year’s….

TOWER GROVE — The numerical bounty (especially when it comes to types of pitches) available at Fan Graphs has made that Web site increasingly valuable when it comes to using and exploring some of the — what’s the phrase we learned yesterday? — nouveau riche’s statistics that are out there.

But Fan Graphs, like so many sites these days, are also in the prospect-ranking business.

Marc Hulet, a writer at Fan Graphs, posted his St. Louis Cardinals…

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,…

DOWNTOWN — For the second time in as many playoff games, St. Louis Cardinals prospect third baseman and St. Louis native David Freese homered to provide the only run Triple-A Memphis needed.

In the clincher of the Redbirds first-round playoff series against Albuquerque, Freese hit a opposite field home run that proved the difference in a 1-0 victory. Last night, in Memphis, Freese broke a scoreless tie in the sixth inning of the Pacific Coast League championship…

TOWER GROVE — Even though his team has gone unbeaten in 11 consecutive series and will be visiting a division rival that is 24 1/2 games back in the race, manager Tony La Russa will have that familiar, unsettled, and caustic sensation in his gut before tonight’s game at PNC Park.

Blame those Baseball Gods.

As if delivering a sermon from the mount atop the NL Central standings, La Russa has invoked the phrase “baseball gods” at…

TOWER GROVE — Today’s 10@10 begins with an anecdote, before diving into the Tool Chest: Every indication late Wednesday night was St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Mark DeRosa had no interest in leaving the ballpark until he had a swing that satisfied him. Late after the game, DeRosa was dressed to hit the cages and talking like a batter in need of some work.

Albert Pujols encouraged him to go home. Take a break. Get the swing…

TOWER GROVE — St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols has batted nine times this season with the bases loaded. By definition, that means there have been 18 runners in scoring position for Pujols to drive in. Eighteen.

In those nine at-bats, Pujols has 24 RBIs.

The max he could drive in from those at-bats is 36.

After his record-tying grand slam last night at Citi Field, Pujols improved this season to 7-for-9 with the bases loaded. He…