TOWER GROVE — The Bird Land Community Top 21’s top 10 is completed, and we’re just about halfway through the annual ranking of St. Louis Cardinals prospects by readers here at the blog. The overarching lessons of the first 10 are two-fold: Voters have adopted the perceived franchise emphasis on winning now/contributing now and the Cardinals system, as a whole, is significantly diluted, even lacking.

Second baseman Daniel Descalso, who had one of a handful of…

TOWER GROVE — Another day, another runoff.

The fallout from the high-end changes to the St. Louis Cardinals’ depth chart of prospects appears to be close votes and very few clear-cut, obvious prospects who stand out above their peers. The vote for No. 9 in the Bird Land Community Top 21 is another example. Tyler Greene and Daniel Descalso are separated by a total of nine votes at last check. Greene has received 29 percent of…

TOWER GROVE — In what probably was the closest vote yet in any Bird Land Community prospect poll, Eduardo Sanchez, the fireballer righthanded reliever, took 52 percent of the vote in the runoff and will be your No. 7 prospect on the Top 21 poll this year. Lance Lynn, the steady starter, will be No. 8. At 4 o’clock St. Louis time on Monday one vote separated the two.

So, I gave the poll another day…

TOWER GROVE — The Arizona Fall League is settling into gear, and while Stephen Strasburg is the headliner out at the annual gathering of some of the better prospects in baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals have sent some noteworthy names out west. A few are making up for lost time. A few are trying to extend their strong seasons. And more than one is trying to find a way onto the organization’s radar.

Several, as you…

CREVE COEUR — It didn’t take long for the Bird Land Community Top 21 to throw its first curveball. Not that it’s a surprise lefthanded starter Jaime Garcia won the No. 1 spot in the readers’ rankings of St. Louis Cardinals’ prospects. It’s just wasn’t close.

That was unexpected.

Garcia pulled away from first-round fireballer Shelby Miller and had more than twice as many votes. As of last check — a few seconds ago — Garcia had…

TOWER GROVE — It started as a cumbersome, at-times chaotic, count-by-hand poll posted in the Cardinals’ message board here at StlToday.com. Through four years and four attempts to refine the process it has improved to an at-times cumbersome and slightly less chaotic poll based here at Bird Land.

But, hey, we no longer have to count it by hand. Viva technology.

With the St. Louis Cardinals’ season over with the sudden sweep by the Los Angeles Dodgers,…

TOWER GROVE — A few hours after detailing the benefits of carrying an eighth reliever instead of another bat for the bench, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa was reminded that having an extra pitcher isn’t always the same thing as having ample pitching.

In his office before Wednesday’s game against the Cincinnati Reds, La Russa stressed that the benefit of “playing a player short has been … a minimum of (bogus) innings pitched by…

TOWER GROVE — The St. Louis Cardinals have managed three runs total in the first two games of the series that concludes tonight at PNC Park. Albert Pujols has driven in two of those three runs. Two of the three runs have come from solo home runs, by Pujols and Skip Schumaker.

Where has all the offense gone? Why, it’s on rehab.

The R&R of what Bernie Miklasz called appropriately this morning the Cardinals’ “first crisis stage…

TOWER GROVE — For the fourth time in the past five seasons, the St. Louis Cardinals will reach May Day with the best record in the National League Central. In 2005, 2006, 2008 and now 2009, the Cardinals have led their division after the first month of play, and in two of those previous three seasons they reached the playoffs.

And they’ve done it by seemingly getting younger and more inexperienced with every move.

The new model…

CREVE COEUR — It’s a story worth telling again: As the 28th pick of the 2005 draft approached for the St. Louis Cardinals, their plan was to take the athletic shortstop from Georgia Tech, a middle infielder who many believed had a safe-best and projectable path to the majors. And then they caught wind that another team was sniffing around the high school, high-ceiling player the Cardinals planned to take 30th.

The Cardinals, led by Jeff…

JUPITER, Fla. — Violent weather, including a reported tornado a few blocks away from the ballpark, moved into the area about a half hour after the St. Louis Cardinals affiliates finished their camp games Tuesday at Roger Dean Stadium. An early start time and quick games allowed the minor leaguers to finish before rain lashed the fields and angry winds kicked up all kinds of dirt and wood chips that surround the area.

Still, they got…

JUPITER, Fla. — Weather threatened to wash out an entire day of minor-league games all across the Grapefruit League on Sunday. Advisories zipped around the inboxes of minor-league officials announcing how games here were cancelled, games there were cancelled.

But games involving the St. Louis Cardinals’ affiliates went on — though not entirely as scheduled.

Some quick thinking and re-organizing by camp coordinator Mike Shildt and coaches Derek Lilliquist and Dyar Miller allowed the Cardinals to race…

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. — As innings get more scarce and at-bats get more important late in spring training, some of the major-league players — or, more precisely, those battling for major-league jobs — have to find their swings and their pitches elsewhere. Enter the minor-league games.

The trip across the state and a couple other assignments put me a couple days behind on the Vuch Reports. How better to spend an overcast Sunday back here at the…

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…