Finally, A Little Heat: St. Louis Cardinals' Hot Stove Gets Going

The Cardinals have finally put a log on the fire, because the hot stove is putting off a little bit of warmth now.

First off, the Redbirds signed another lefty.  Royce Ring isn't quite the prospect he was when he was included in the deal that sent Roberto Alomar from the Mets to the White Sox in 2003.  In fact, most people will point to the fact that he was pretty awful last year.  As Bernie Mikalsz points out, though, a lot of that is control issues.  If that could be solved, he looks like he'd be a servicable LOOGY and for a very cheap price.

Before I leave Bernie's blog entry, though, something in it bothered me.  Bernie talks about the Cubs signing Milton Bradley, how it'll hurt their outfield defense and could have explosive issues in their clubhouse...but then gives the Cubs credit for "spending money" and moving away from the Cardinals.  Really?  C'mon.

Just spending money doesn't mean you are a better team.  Ask the Yankees from the last few years.  Bradley may help their offense, but he could hurt their pitching staff.  I guess what I'm trying to say is he may make the team better, but it's not because they spent $30 million on him, which seems to be what Bernie is implying.

OK, off that tangent.  The other piece of hot stove goodness is the possibility raised by Tony LaRussa that they may be targeting "the next Dennis Eckersley," a long-time starter that could turn into a closer.  Which seems only fair, given how many relievers TLR and Dave Duncan have turned into starters in the last few years.  Time to give something back.

LaRussa stated that he doesn't think it'd be best for Chris Perez or Jason Motte to close, thinking that it'd hinder their development.  I'd think there could be some debate on that score, but if you aren't bringing in a top-dollar closer for a long-term deal, I think I could go with it.  A transitional guy to help them along.

A lot of names have been floated around.  Pedro Martinez seems to be a popular guess, though I've seen Mark Prior's name come up.  I still wonder why they'd go after these injury-plagued pitchers and leave Ben Sheets alone, especially with a cheaper market.  I realize that they'd pitch less, but there's different stresses on the arm.  We'll see if anything happens on that front.

Also found at Bird Land's Facebook group, a link to a comparison of Hiroki Kuroda, the Dodger pitcher, to Kenshin Kawakami.  It looks like they are pretty similar, at least in results, which would be an encouraging thing.

Lastly, the big news, at least from my point of view.  The UCB Radio Hour will be airing tomorrow night at 10:00 CST, getting back into the groove after the holidays.  This first show is going to be special, because Matthew Leach, the Cardinal writer for MLB.com, has agreed to join us for the first portion of the show. 

We only have him for a few minutes, so we're looking for questions you might want to ask him.  No promises that we'll get them all in, but we'll try to take the best two or three.  Leave them in the comments and then listen tomorrow night!