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. — A time-honored tradition here at Roger Dean Stadium for a few members of the copy klatch is keeping a stopwatch on the National Anthem. It’s spring training for the vocalists, too, and some can run a little … say, showy … with their interpretations. A similar exercise could be done with the questions that make up The PD-Q.

As mentioned before, some click through the questions and others ponder. And then there are…

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. — When working my way through the St. Louis Cardinals clubhouse with The P-DQ this spring training, many of his teammates have suggested that, “Oh, you’ve got to try this Todd.” Todd being the clubhouse Colonel, the bluegrass conservative and starting pitcher Todd Wellemeyer.

On Wednesday morning, I pulled up a stool — Josh Kinney’s stool, to be precise — next to Wellemeyer’s locker and asked him the handful of questions that make up…

JUPITER, Fla. — The plan was to play Curt Smith often, but not necessarily every day. Then Smith got in the lineup, his manager at Johnson City told me this past fall, and it was impossible to take him out. He just kept hitting. He hit his way from Johnson City all the way to the league’s Player of the Year award. He hit his way from that hardware all the way to Low-A Quad…

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. — A staple of spring training coverage here in Bird Land since 2006, the Vuch Report is a detailed look at the performances on the backfields of the St. Louis Cardinals facility here at Roger Dean Stadium. The major leagues get all of the ink, but there are some bytes left over around here to cover the minor-league games that begin, in earnest, on Thursday.

Cardinals director of minor-league operations John Vuch compiles the…

JUPITER, Fla. — Although his team was eliminated from the World Baseball Classic earlier this week, St. Louis Cardinals lefty reliever Dennys Reyes will not report to spring training until Sunday for a handful of reasons he cleared with the team just this afternoon.

Reyes, signed to a two-year deal a couple weeks into spring training, requested a few days to address what GM John Mozeliak called a “personal matter.” Needing time to do that delayed…

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. — There aren’t many players here early this morning at Roger Dean Stadium, what with it being one of the many off days of this spring training. But right now, as I type this, out in the cages that are adjacent to the clubhouse is one of the prospects who has shined this spring: Tyler Greene.

To think his status as a prospect was on tilt just 12 months ago.

Greene was a first-round pick…

JUPITER, Fla. — This morning, the St. Louis Cardinals minor-league staff is bunkered in here at Roger Dean Stadium for the final hours of their pre-camp meetings. This afternoon, about the time the meetings end, pitchers will start reporting and within the next couple days the backlots will bloom with minor leaguers. Even as minor-league camp opens for 2009, there are certainly plenty of questions about who is headed where and what is expected when…

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. — With the first off day of spring training here for the St. Louis Cardinals, there’s time to ride some tangents — when you’re not riding the birthday boy’s “tsunami,” that is.

While working on a blog entry that you will see up in this space shortly about outfielder Colby Rasmus and how to read the recently released Baseball America Top 100 Prospects, I was intrigued by how BA took the depth charts us correspondents file…