JUPITER, Fla. — That 2005 draft that the St. Louis Cardinals have billed as transformative for the organization had its first player make his major-league debut last year, could produce its first major-league contributor officially this weekend (see: Colby Rasmus), and it passed another milestone within the past couple weeks. One of the picks is coming out of retirement to try again.

Josh Wilson, a righthanded pitcher taken 70th overall, had his agent contact the Cardinals…

JUPITER, Fla. — What is true for major-league spring training is also true in minor-league spring training: The statistics are the ends, and often the means are more important.

Consider Adam Ottavino’s day.

The former first-round pick had a garish line from Monday’s game against Class AA Jacksonville. It read:

4.2 IP, 7 H, 6 runs, 2 BB, 4 Ks

But there is a story behind the numbers. Five of those six runs were unearned, and he was darn…

JUPITER, Fla. — However the St. Louis Cardinals third base position shakes out at the major-league level, it seems certain that first-round pick Brett Wallace will begin this season at Class AA Springfield. Few think that he will stay there for long.

Though given barely a second glance at the major-league camp this spring, Wallace has clicked along at his usual 3-for-5, 2-for-5 pace during minor-league games. On Saturday, he broke loose.

Wallace, a third baseman, went…

JUPITER, Fla. — The St. Louis Cardinals knew coming into camp who their two major-league catchers were going to be going into the regular season. Yadier Molina is the starter now, later and as long as the Cardinals can keep the Gold Glove-winning, rocket-armed Molina brother behind the plate. Jason LaRue was brought back — one of the first signings of the winter — to be his backup.

But after that …

One of the Cardinals most…

JUPITER, Fla. — One of the tricky things about reading box scores from spring training back there in the northern tundra is the inability to see the defensive side of the game. It’s impossible to know how Skip Schumaker is adjusting to second base this late in the camp or how he and Khalil Greene are clicking as a double-play combo without the benefit of something beyond the box score.

Ditto with the minors — only…

JUPITER, Fla. — There is little doubt that Mark McCormick has the arm that merited a big signing bonus and early selection in the 2005 draft. He just hasn’t been able to do much with it. Injuries have hurt his development, but so has his inability to rein in that right arm.

Last season was billed as a pivotal one for the righthander. This one just better be a productive one.

McCormick, a starter since his days…

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….

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. — Less than 50 feet from his locker in the St. Louis Cardinals clubhouse and on his way to the kitchen for a snack, outfielder Colby Rasmus cannot help but walk by a stack of copies of Baseball America. It’s right there by the shelves of bubblegum and sunflower seeds.

The current issue might be of especially interest to Rasmus as it’s the annual rankings of the Top 100 Prospects in baseball. One of the…

JUPITER, Fla. — Some of the best parts of our ever-expanding universe of online St. Louis Cardinals coverage are the slide shows that Post-Dispatch lens-crafter Chris Lee puts together from each and every day’s workouts.

If Lee sees it, there’s a good picture of it.

During the afternoon, Lee puts up a slide show from that day’s activities. They can be found at this link — Chris Lee Slide Shows — and they are updated daily. This afternoon, Lee…

TAMPA, Fla. — In the days that followed the release of the Mitchell Report in December 2007, I spoke with a player mentioned in the report and asked about how he was going to explain it to his kids before they heard about it at school. He said when the time was right he would tell them the whole truth. It was only fair to give them the facts.

What works at home, works at large,…

JUPITER, Fla. — Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, in the wake of another steroid-revelation quake to disrupt spring training, said that baseball must act immediately to save the game’s integrity with its fan base that only a “zero tolerance” policy will be good enough.

“I would have to agree with those who said no ifs, ands or buts — zero tolerance,” La Russa said on the first day of Cardinals’ spring training. “It should be zero…

DOWNTOWN — Former Cardinals first baseman and slugger Mark McGwire wakes up this morning not in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, as expected, but still clinging to a primo spot in career home run list, firmly in the top 10. That too could be fleeting.

McGwire’s 583 home runs rank eighth all-time, nestled between Hall of Famer Frank Robinson (586) and Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew (573). When next the tenured members of the Baseball Writers Association…

TOWER GROVE — An outcome of the Mitchell Report, which was published a year ago during the offseason, was that Major League Baseball and the players’ union agreed to release publicly a review of the drug-testing program. The audit does not include names, just facts and figures, but it offers a snapshot of how a sport once described as “infested” with performance-enhancing drugs is addressing the issue.

The report, issued by the Independent Program Administrator Dr….