Crazy Times at the Hot Stove

This one just made me laugh. 

Apparently a rumor got around that the "mystery team" in the bidding (such as it is, right now) for the services of Manny Ramirez was the Cardinals. In exactly which world does this make sense? 

Sure, the Cards could use the bat, who couldn't? But an outfielder, especially an expensive one? The Cardinals already have too many outfielders and haven't yet been able to trade one off.

An addition of Ramirez would mean that probably two of them would have to be moved, especially if Rasmus is going to start in the bigs.

Nice out-of-the-box thinking, but it just doesn't make sense. You know it's way out of there when the GM actually flat-out denies it instead of goes the political non-answer route.

Ben Sheets apparently wants a guaranteed contract. Of course, we can't always get what we want, as some obscure rock group sang. That said, if he'd go with an $7-8 million guarantee with some incentive clauses built in, I still think it makes sense for the Cardinals. Even if he goes down, the odds of getting their money back on the contract are pretty high.

The Post-Dispatch scribes weigh in on whether Colby Rasmus will make the big squad this spring.  Not terribly surprising answers. They expect an outfielder trade to make room for him, but if that doesn't happen, at least a pretty good possibility he'd start in Memphis, which would delay the arbitration clock at least.

Tomorrow we'll have a guest blogger as part of the UCB blog swap. So if you didn't like today's, come back tomorrow for something better!