FanHouse Jason Motte

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.

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.

As Opening Day approached, Tony La Russa wouldn't proclaim Jason Motte his closer or commit to Khalil Greene as his cleanup hitter.

Good thing.

Motte, a hard-throwing rookie, blew a save chance as the Cardinals lost 6-4 to the Pirates today. And Greene didn't look like sufficient protection for Albert Pujols (right).

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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.