PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — During his daily morning briefing with the media today, Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon said he was reading a copy of Branch Rickey’s book last year and realized that before Rickey, Rogers Hornsby and Sam Breadon came along the Cardinals weren’t much. And, yet, Maddon went on to say the Cardinals now standout as one of the most successful franchises of the past century.

“It’s very complimentary” that people now talk…

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Pity Pete Kozma. Through no fault of his own he’s spent the first few years of his professional career doing exactly what was expected. Good glove. Consistently improving bat. Agility in the field that portends of a major-league shortstop with the potential for a reliable, average-oriented bat. That’s why the St. Louis Cardinals drafted him with their first pick in 2007.

The trouble is … He’s not Rick Porcello.

The story has now lapsed…

JUPITER, Fla. — What with Skip Schumaker learning a new position, Joe Mather reintroducing himself to an old position and a whole gaggle of prospects who could use some tutoring at their positions, one of the hardest working men in Camp Cardinals this spring is a coach.

The club that once asked Jose Oquendo to play every position, now needs him to coach every position.

Seemingly all at once.

On the field furthest from the clubhouse here at…

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…

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…

TOWER GROVE — Back in 1997, a young shortstop named Edgar Renteria was still a few days away from a defining moment in his career — that title-winning single to center field in the 11th inning of the World Series’ Game 7 — when he took a seat at a press conference. Renteria and the upstart Florida Marlins were the surprise winners of the National League pennant, the wild-card team made good, and  they came…

TOWER GROVE — Gentlemen, start your transactions.

General managers from around baseball are converging at AIG’s favorite hangout in Dana Point, Calif., today and all week for the first round of window-shopping and swap-talking. Unlike last year when the pitching market was headlined by Carlos Silva and trades were the currency of winter, this offseason has the high-watt free agents (CC Sabathia and Manny Ramirez) and the superstar trade chips (Jake Peavy and Matt Holliday). There…

SOUTH GRAND — Would have had the weekly PostCards posted much earlier this morning if the first question — from the sharp, witty and ever-adept keyboard of regular Frank Fuhrig, of course — had not been as much a homework assignment as a question.

It’s written less for a mailbag and more for a syllabus.

One element of the St. Louis Cardinals’ interest/chances in landing San Diego ace Jake Peavy is the amount of money the Cardinals…

TOWER GROVE — During instructs a few weeks ago in Jupiter, Fla., the Cardinals lined up a group of minor leagues at home plate. Coaches readied their stopwatches. Thumbs poised over the plungers. From his usual side of the plate, the player was going to sprint from the batter’s box to first.

The coaches let a pitcher try his cleats at the dash, too.

He dusted almost everybody.

Samuel (Sam) Freeman, a lefty, may have been the best…

JUPITER, Fla. — With one of the myriad channels offering Olympic coverage on in the background, Cardinals prospect Colby Rasmus spoke about being here instead of over there and the knee that cost him more than a stamp on his passport.

He shrugged.

“I’m not really thinking about it,” Rasmus said. “It would have been a great opportunity. It didn’t happen.”

Rasmus sprained his knee while making a check swing back in late July. He offered at a…

DOWNTOWN — Not to be missed amidst a quick burst of roster moves Sunday morning was a tall lefthander striding through the Busch Stadium outfield to do what he hasn’t done in nearly a year.

Mark Mulder was off to throw a bullpen.

Cast as a reliever in his return to majors after two years of rehab from shoulder surgery and several failed attempts to start again, Mulder is back in the rotation, Cardinals manager Tony La…

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — Manager Brian Poldberg and his Northwest Arkansas Naturals came to Hammons Field this week in the midst of a title race, a three-way joust for a Texas League first-half division title. What he saw across the way for a doubleheader Saturday was the team the Naturals were chasing and its two starters.

Both major-league pitchers.

“It just happens,” Poldberg said the visitor’s clubhouse at Hammons Field before losing both games in the doubleheader. “That’s why the minor…

TOWER GROVE — The last bundle of mail exchanged between readers and the Cardinals vice president of player procurement and farm director Jeff Luhnow featured some of the finer-tuned questions in this couple weeks of PostCards.

Of specific interest to readers is the idea of cost-benefit analysis when it comes the draft. There were many questions about it over the past two weeks and I tried to capture the repetition by selecting a few representatives. Below…

TOWER GROVE – With the draft approaching, Cardinals vice president of player procurement and farm director Jeff Luhnow is a traveling man.

Constantly traveling.

There’s less than three weeks before the draft and soon the Cardinals will be holding scouting workouts at various sites around the country — and scout meetings at each place. While the Cardinals held a mock draft this past winter to help get more familiar with the amateur players available this June, and take…

TOWER GROVE – The PostCards inbin was overrun with spam and the Cyrillic alphabet – who knew four years of Russian would help me wade through questions for a baseball mailbag? спасибо Большое. One email that had the subject line: “Thanks Houston/We Have Liftoff!”

Thought for sure that was a love letter to Brandon Backe. But no.

It was a religious group’s mass email with a space travel pun. Houston? Liftoff? Getit? Dah. (Just wait until the Cardinals’…