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….

JUPITER, Fla. — Big-bonus import Roberto De La Cruz made his spring game debut Thursday with the St. Louis Cardinals Low-A affiliate, and he rapped a couple hits, including a double. Just because the Dominican Republic teen is with a full-season squad to open the spring, doesn’t mean he’ll be with one when the season starts. De La Cruz received a record bonus, the highest ever given by the Cardinals to an international free agent,…

JUPITER, Fla. — For the St. Louis Cardinals, the plan is to never need a prospect to fill the position of first base — at least not for another decade or so — but that doesn’t alter the value of having some options at the position and the possibility to deal a player or two for help elsewhere.

The Cardinals depth chart at first base has one prospect likely be moved there, another prospect who started…

WEST COUNTY — We reach the penultimate stop on the Bird Land Community Top 30 with a couple new faces and several familiar ones still hanging on in the poll. Long about the time we reached the early 20s in your ranking of the St. Louis Cardinals’ Top 30 prospects, the voting began to fracture and the pool of legitimate candidates grew. That speaks to the depth of the organization, but also the similarity of…

TOWER GROVE — The minor-league regular seasons are storming toward an end and that can only mean one thing — the beginning of work on the 2009 Baseball America Prospect Handbook. The assignment popped up in my inbox within the past couple weeks, and the best way to start working on next year’s guide is to take a look at last year’s.

That’s what I intend to do over the course of a couple blog entries —…

The major league team may have left Friday morning — and taken the Double-A team with it — but most of the Cardinals’ minor leaguers remained in Florida for the weekend. They’re still playing. Which means there are still Vuch Reports coming.

Below are the complete reports from Friday’s scrimmages, and after them are the highlights from the two previous days — Vuch Reports that slipped through the cracks of packing, traveling and other writing. The minor league teams…

JUPITER, Fla. — Continuing what’s become a lengthier — even arduous — grind back to a major-league rotation, Cardinals right hander Matt Clement made his first appearance in a game Tuesday, throwing for the Cardinals Double-A affiliate.

Clement threw 37 pitches and walked four of the seven batters he faced. While his command was flighty and his velocity sat in the mid-80s — according to the radar gun the Cardinals kept — his pitches all had…

FORT MYERS, Fla. — The Cardinals stuffed their bus with outfielders for the trip across Alligator Alley to the opposite coast of Florida. Not just the major-leaguers are this trip as Colby Rasmus continues to tagalong days after he was assigned to the minors.

With a designated hitter available and first base unoccupied, the Cardinals can cram into one lineup all five of the outfielders they plan to take north.

Actually, they are the first five hitters…

JUPITER, Fla. — One of the talent pools the Cardinals are intent on tapping is the international veins of baseball, from Caribbean to East Asia. The club’s expanding efforts in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and even Nicaragua are well documented. And, at the start of spring, they invited a European player across the pond and signed their first player from South Korea.

Well, the pipeline is clearly open, but as Jeff Luhnow has said, it’s time…

JUPITER, Fla. — The moves made at the major-league level Monday began to have their ripple effect on the minors Tuesday. The Cardinals placing Colby Rasmus and Joe Mather on the Memphis roster makes for a crowded house in the Triple-A outfield, where Cody Haerther, Nick Stavinoha and Amaury Marti were already slugging it out for playing time.

Rasmus and Mather will play, no doubt. Rasmus in center. The others …

The Cardinals also expect the infield to get…

JUPITER, Fla. — The question was posed in the comment section of the previous Vuch Report, and the answer to just who Carlos Pupo is begins with a simple rule.

Location. Location. Location.

The strapping first baseman lives near Jupiter and he worked out often with the Gulf Coast League team last summer. So much that he made an impression on coach Dan Radison and the Cardinals signed him for this season. Pupo has pop — “raw…

JUPITER, Fla. — The Cardinals’ minor-league camp begin games today, facing the Florida affiliates from across campus. And that means the first good look for us of first-round pick Peter Kozma and a peek at the layout of the organization’s minor-league rosters.

Cardinals official John Vuch said a goal this spring was to assign players to the team they probably will open with. That doesn’t necessarily mean the starting lineups for today’s games are representative, but the…

TOWER GROVE — Returned home after a delayed, fogged, re-routed and serpentine trek back from Prague to be greeted by a true sign of spring: Lindy’s Fantasy Baseball was on the airport’s magazine racks.

Ah, preview mags. 

Flipped through Lindy’s on the last leg of the flight home and loved scanning the mock draft and the predicted statistics. One of the first places I turned was to the list of ”Hot Properties”, or 40 fantasy rookies to watch in…

TOWER GROVE — A reminder of the Cardinals possible future was in Nashville yesterday, a free agent selling his services to the gathered general managers.

Outfielder Steve Finley, who rejected acceptance to a prestigious chiropractor school ot pursue a career in baseball, visited the Opryland this week to talk with club executives about his desire to keep playing, at 42. It’s a name that has not only been mentioned as a prospective Cardinal, in the past,…

TOWER GROVE — No matter the topic this offseason, when it comes to the Cardinals the conversation always finds its way back to the minor-league system.

Talking shortstop? Well, the Cardinals are out looking for one because the internal feeling is that the best middle infield prospect in the system, Brendan Ryan, isn’t quite ready to take on the full-time job. OK, so they’ll try for a trade. Except, the Cardinals may not have the prospects…