TOWER GROVE — With the teeth-gnashing about the Cy Young Award still in full grind around these parts, baseball’s free agency opened at 11 p.m. St. Louis time Thursday, and Cardinals outfielder Matt Holliday could officially entertain offers from all 30 teams.

No more footsie. They can talk financials.

And, yet, according to reports around the majors, more teams were talking about how they wouldn’t be talking to Holliday than teams prepping to talk with Holliday. It’s…

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Asked within the past couple days if he expected the St. Louis Cardinals to make a move on his client, outfielder Matt Holliday, before the window for exclusive negotiations slides shut this week, agent Scott Boras stated the obvious: “Uh, no.”

The Cardinals and Boras have said since before the club clinched the National League Central Division title that both sides expected the righthanded-hitting, All-Star outfielder to hit the open market…

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Back in 2005 and 2006, Matt Holliday, then an outfielder for the Colorado Rockies, began experimenting with a leg kick — a high, pronounced, flamingo-like kick of his leg that he could use as a timing mechanism for his swing. Holliday would try it. Abandon it. Try it. Abandon it.

Then, in August 2006, a former slugger with a fair reputation for hitting visited a friend or two who worked for the Rockies….

TOWER GROVE — Earlier this week, MLBTradeRumors.com — a site that has become an essential clearinghouse and one-stop shop of reports, rumors and, yes, even tweets this time of year — handicapped the 2010 Free Agents by ranking them No. 1 through No. 50 and predicting where each of those free agents will land when the dust and dollar signs clear. Granted, such guesses are little more than blindfolded pin-the-player-on-the-donkey games this time of year.

You’ve got…

TOWER GROVE — The Topps 2009 Update packs are now out in stores*, and card No. UH263 features Matt Holliday reaching up to catch a fly ball, all decked out in his St. Louis Cardinals home whites. With this being the first week of baseball’s blockbuster equivalent of a big card swap meet — trade you one Carlos Gomez foil-stamp for a slightly dog-eared J.J. Hardy All-Star card — and the rhetoric flying, a look…

TOWER GROVE — Of all the statistical bubblegum that is packed into Bill James’ annual Handbooks, among the best to chew over and stretch to the point of popping is the predictions for the coming season.

ACTA Sports recently emailed me the 2010 predictions for several members of the 2009 St. Louis Cardinals — predictions that are featured in Bill James Handbook 2010 — and while it doesn’t take a “statistical oracle” (as The Wall Street Journal…

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 — The wealth of information available on Baseball-Reference.com offered an intriguing kernel yesterday when I was digging around the numbers for today’s article on St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Ryan Ludwick. The goal was to find a snapshot of his consistency in 2008 vs. what he called a “real hot-cold season” in 2009 (check that .200 average in June). Not too far away from those stats, I found this:

Ludwick in wins 2008: BA .373…

LOS ANGELES — By all accounts, there is no truth to the red-eyed reports that the St. Louis Cardinals, when they jetted away from their nightmarish turn of events Thursday, left behind a few players, marooned at Dodger Stadium …

(wait for it)

… stranded on base.

The Cardinals continue to have tremendous success against the Los Angeles when it comes to inflating their on-base percentage in this best-of-five National League Division Series. The Cardinals are getting in…

LOS ANGELES –For Troy Glaus, it has been seven years. For John Smoltz, it’s 17.

The two St. Louis Cardinals veterans know a thing or seven about what it takes to be successful in the postseason, and they each have personal hardware as an October spoil. Glaus won the World Series MVP in 2002 with the Los Angeles Angels, and Smoltz, the winningest postseason pitcher ever, won the National League Championship Series MVP back in 1992….

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…

TOWER GROVE — While the St. Louis Cardinals have plenty to busy themselves with in the final five games of the regular season — see today’s game story for, oh, a few things to be spruced-up — and no reason to look beyond October, there are traces of 2010 in many of the comments coming from the club.

The front office and chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. have talked about the importance of re-signing outfielder Matt Holliday, sure, but…

DENVER — Former Colorado Rockies face-o’-franchise outfielder Matt Holliday held court in the visitors’ dugout for the first time in his career, dutifully answering questions about his first trip back to Coors Field, what being back feels like and how Albert Pujols is the best player ever.

Yes. That’s what he said. Pujols: Best. Player. Ever.

Actually, “all-time” may have been his exact words.

Asked to clarify the statement, Holliday didn’t take the the chance to equivocate.

“I’ve never seen…

DENVER — St. Louis Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan, as he is often apt to do as a Dugout Socrates, answered a question with a question.

“Let me ask it to you in this way,” he said the other day in Houston. “If we were to face Roy Oswalt at his best today and then face him again next week, is facing him today an advantage for us?”

The answer-and-question was in response to an inquiry about the pluses and minuses…

TOWER GROVE — There are many examples of a player storming toward his leagues Most Valuable Player award with a strong September that, in most cases, elevates his team to a postseason berth.

See: Ryan Howard.

Enter Tim Lincecum.

The San Francisco Giants righthander Lincecum struck out 11 and muscled his team to a pivotal victory Monday night against the Wild Card-leading Colorado Rockies. Lincecum skipped his previous start because of back trouble and returned to throw the…