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 — 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…

HOUSTON — With 2009 speeding to a close, discussions about the decade behind us are already popping up. Some baseball writers, like Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci’s have picked their Team of the Aughts, others have just explored who might be the Player of the Decade. Here we’ve been convicted of over-stating the Decade Triple Crown notion (scroll down).

Time to look at the bigger picture.

In the past week or 10 days, the St. Louis Cardinals have clinched the…

TOWER GROVE — The biggest swing and miss of my preseason predictions, as any of my friendly and oh-so supportive colleagues are bound to tell you, was picking the Cleveland Indians to play in the World Series. My pick was based on two things: The Indians smart addition of two former Chicago Cubs that fit their team — closer Kerry Wood and that one guy, Mark DeRosa — and the presence of Grady Sizemore.

Not sure if…

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 — The way Todd Wellemeyer describes it, he joined the St. Louis Cardinals at a vulnerable time in his career. He could not figure out why good stuff was getting bad results. He had just been hammered by the Detroit Tigers in consecutive games against them, and he was about to face the Tigers for a third time in four appearances after being a Cardinals’ waiver claim out of Kansas City’s pitching staff.

He…

TOWER GROVE — It was only last year, barely more than 13 months ago, that the St. Louis Cardinals were changing Mark Mulder’s arm slot and still waiting to see if Matt Clement could pitch his way to the majors. General manager John Mozeliak called Clement “a lottery ticket”, and really the description applied to Mulder as well.

The Cardinals banked plenty in 2008 on what the scratch of a coin revealed.

This year, as the Cardinals…

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 — 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…

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…

TOWER GROVE — Ignore the throwing error. Errors are going to happen. And Adam Wainwright pitched around it anyway as the Cardinals shut out the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night. Ignore the throwing error and Brendan Ryan is putting on a defensive clinic at shortstop this week.

On one sharply hit groundball Tuesday night, Ryan sprinted to his left, snared the ball on the run past second base, went at least a stride — maybe…

HOUSTON (for the moment) — The St. Louis Cardinals were scheduled to land in Washington D.C. for their one-game visit to the nation’s capital sometime around, oh, about now.

The wheels down time for the Cardinals’ charter flight from Houston to D.C. was around 4 a.m. according to folks as they packed up the clubhouse last night. Manager Tony La Russa said how smooth the hasty and late travel that a rainout forced upon the team…

HOUSTON — St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Mark DeRosa didn’t see his first hit for his new team as a relief. He described it as progress.

In DeRosa’s first at-bat Monday night at Minute Maid Park, he stung a single to left field and a couple at-bats later he had his second hit of the game and his second hit as a Redbird. Like the first one, DeRosa’s hit went to the left side of the…

TOWER GROVE — Say this about St. Louis Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter as he makes a backstretch bid for an invitation to the 80th All-Star Game — he’s doing it with an increasing degree of difficulty.

Carpenter will face his fourth different former Cy Young Award winner in his past seven starts tonight, and the punctuation at the end of this streak has more trophies than the other three combined. Carpenter started the run of Cys against…

TOWER GROVE — The new St. Louis Cardinals hybrid fielder, Mark DeRosa, once wrote on his blog, “The Pulse”, that he was “the glue” of a team, “the bell curve,” the guy who could easily float from the elites at the top of a team’s food chain to the newcomer, just out of the taxi from the minors.

This was abundantly clear with the Chicago Cubs, was starting to happen with the Cleveland Indians, and won’t…