FanHouse ChrisPerez

The Cardinals, in need of offense, have traded with the Indians for infielder/outfielder Mark DeRosa. St. Louis sent right-hander Chris Perez to Cleveland, along with a player to be named.

DeRosa, acquired from the Cubs in the offseason, had hit .270 for the Indians, with 47 runs scored, 13 doubles, 13 homers and 50 RBI in 71 games. He provides the kind of versatility Cards manager Tony La Russa uses well.

Perez was 1-1 with a save and a 4.18 ERA in 29 appearances. He began the 2009 season at Triple-A Memphis, going 1-0 with two saves and a 0.00 ERA in three appearances before being recalled to St. Louis on April 15th. He has held big-league hitters to a .195 average. He will report to the Indians in the next few days, the team said.

With the Cubs imploding and the Brewers still in desperate need of pitching, the road to a playoff return for the St. Louis Cardinals is looking more and more wide open. The Cardinals see this opportunity themselves.

As such, they have begun keeping tabs on A's slugger Matt Holliday should Oakland decide to move him before the trade deadline, a major league source told FanHouse's Jeff Fletcher. St. Louis is cautious because of the size of Holliday's paycheck -- $13.5 million this year -- and his sagging performance in his first season away from Coors Field, but the team is interested in getting perennial MVP candidate Albert Pujols some help in the middle of the order.

Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch also reported that the team is stepping up its efforts to bring Holliday back to the National League for a stretch run.

We haven't even completed two full weeks of the Major League Baseball season yet, but the (arguably) best rivalry in the National League is already giving us a taste of what an exciting race the NL Central could be this year. With all due respect to the Reds, Astros, Brewers and Pirates, and with all due disclaimers about how long the baseball season is, it seems blatantly obvious the two best teams in the division are the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals.

For the past three days, the two teams have put on an entertaining show for anyone fortunate enough to be watching. Each game went down the wire, with both teams showing a flair for the dramatic.

As we left Spring Training, everyone was sure Jason Motte was going to be the closer for the St. Louis Cardinals in 2009. He was dominant in the spring, Chris Perez was headed to the minors, and Tony LaRussa even named him the closer. After four games, we already have reason to be skeptical.

Motte got his first big-league save opportunity on Opening Day, but he promptly blew it ... to the Pirates. After a Freddy Sanchez double, he got two consecutive outs before completely unraveling. Single, double, hit by pitch and double, and you have 4 runs on 4 hits -- and a blown save.

Dan Haren has been awful this spring. Adam Jones is raking, as is Chris Shelton. Michael Bourn has been a completely worthless hitter. Of the above players, two have stat-lines that matter, and two have ones that don't.

You see, judging spring training stat-lines in fantasy baseball can be helpful, but you don't want to get too caught up in it. After all, the games are meaningless. Most established veterans are just going through the motions in attempt to get their body ready for the real season. For them, the stat-lines are meaningless. Thus, I don't care that Haren has sucked thus far. I'd still draft him with confidence.

Let's take a deeper look at a when they matter, when they don't, and why.

FanHouse continues its 2009 MLB Preview with a look at the St. Louis Cardinals.

The pride and joy of Gateway City, the Cardinals certainly have a stacked resume of success both historically and recently. In Tony La Russa's 13 seasons, the Cardinals have reached the playoffs seven times -- which, in turn has yielded two trips to the World Series and one championship. In that span, they have only finished below .500 three times, while winning at least 93 games five times.

When drafting in fantasy baseball, I often find rankings are a lot less useful than using the tier system. Simply group guys together with others who will perform similarly, and you won't focus on single players. Being frazzled when that single player is taken immediately before your pick is a good way to ruin your draft.

We're definitely not proponents of drafting closers high, but getting the last member of a tier at good value could work in the right situations.

Once we stumble into the first few weeks of fantasy draft season, we have the luxury of trolling through some average draft position charts (ADP, henceforth). One of the problems is that most of the early-to-mid February drafting is being done by hypothetical fantasy fanatics, so there aren't a ton of skewed averages.

Of course, recently-retired Jeff Kent has found a way to get drafted in 1.6 percent of the leagues on Mock Draft Central (MDC, henceforth), so they're worth a look. We'll use the ADP per position* on MDC for the rest of our analysis here. Most of the guys listed are not to be targeted in shallow to medium-sized leagues, as they are later-round steals for the deepest of fantasy leagues.

*positional ADP in parentheses

Fantasy baseball draft season is coming, so you best be prepared by delving through every major player on each team. Fantasy FanHouse is here to help with a quick once-over.

Meet the ...
Home of the best hitter in baseball. Yes, I'm proclaiming that Albert Pujols is the modern-day (and real-life) Roy Hobbs. Last year, people counted him as a huge injury-risk and he went out and won the NL MVP. I think we should have all learned by now that this man should never be drafted outside the top five overall picks.

Wondering which young players could have an impact in the majors this year? Let MLB FanHouse guide the way in Better Know a Prospect. In this edition we look at three players from the St. Louis Cardinals' system.

Colby Rasmus, CF: Rasmus' path to the majors may have just been cemented this week when the Cards' released Adam Kennedy and said that they'd be trying Skip Schumaker at the newly vacant second base position. Depending on what happens with Chris Duncan, moving Schumaker to the infield should create a role for Rasmus in St. Louis. The only obstacle right now is his ugly .251/.346/.393 line from Triple-A last year. That's not too worrisome, though, since in 2007, Rasmus whacked 29 homers as a 20-year-old in Double-A. Concerns over the way he hit last year may result in an assignment in Memphis to start the season, but unless he completely tanks, Rasmus will be a starting outfielder for the Cardinals before the year ends.