FanHouse JohnMozeliak

CBS Sports' Danny Knobler is reporting on his blog that St. Louis Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak is placing Troy Glaus' odds of returning to the Cardinals' lineup in 2009 as "50-50." Given that Glaus is currently recovering from surgery on a shoulder that's bothered him on and off for six years and the constant changing of his return timetable, this isn't really surprising news, but I don't suspect that that makes it any easier for the Cardinals to hear.

If Glaus can't make it back (and to be fair, a 50-50 chance he doesn't return means that there's a 50-50 chance he does), the Cardinals are going to need more help from someone at third base. Neither Joe Thurston (.224/.336/.364) nor Brian Barden (.259/.315/.414) have been particularly good in Glaus' absence, and Tony La Russa has already chewed up and spit out rookie David Freese, who got 22 miserable at-bats before being demoted back to Triple-A Memphis.

Usually when a team benches one of their players it's because he is doing the team harm. That's definitely the case with Khalil Greene in St. Louis. His OPS is .586 and he's done a poor job defensively as well, each of which is reason enough for the Cardinals to try out a new shortstop for the immediate future.

And that's what they're going to do. Tony La Russa told Greene that he'll move into a utility role for the immediate future, but his play is only part of the reason. The other part is the damage that Greene is doing to himself as a result of his struggles. It seems that Greene isn't able to leave his troubles in his locker at the end of the day.

There's no doubt that the St. Louis Cardinals and their fans had their fingers crossed this season that Chris Carpenter would be able to get through an entire season healthy after missing most of the last two seasons. After seeing the way he pitched in his first start of the season, they probably broke those fingers for them being crossed so hard. Of course their hopes came to an end when Carpenter was placed on the disabled list on Wednesday.

Now the question becomes how much time is Carpenter going to miss because of his strained rib cage. Well, if you ask Carpenter's manager Tony La Russa, he'll tell you that you shouldn't hold your breath. La Russa thinks Carpenter may not be back on the mound until this summer.

Now that the other giant picture of Albert Pujols has fallen back several pages, it is safe for me to repost this classic photo depicting Albert appropriating both the George Gervin finger roll and Michael Jordan tongue wag. Is there anything this man can't do? No, there isn't. I mean, unless "having an acurate birth certificate" is a thing.

Last year's Spring Training Dugout for the Cardinals caused a bit of controversy when I chose to be preachy and somewhat dated instead of doing what I usually do, which is "read comic books, then write off the top of my head." I assure you, the problem has been remedied.

Today's Spring Dugz Dugout is after the jump.

Earlier this month Albert Pujols made some waves when he said that once he becomes a free agent in two years money will not be the most important factor in his decision. The Cardinals could offer him more money than anybody else, but if he felt that the team wasn't doing enough to try and win another World Series, he'd "somewhere else that I can win."

Well now his owner and general manager have responded, sort of. While they didn't say anything about doing whatever it takes to keep Albert in a Cardinals uniform, they did say they'd love for him to be a Cardinal for life.

See this face? This is the face I make when I log on to a baseball news site and have to read about how a grown-up millionaire discovered the internet and thought the best way to deal with a /b/-chan baseball fan was a snarky, wordy version of "your mother." The only way I can imagine it being better is if Mozeliak copy/pasted what the troll said and responded to it sentence by sentence. BECAUSE THAT IS ALWAYS ENTERTAINING.

To counteract this, The Dugout used its pull as the credibility of FanHouse to get our own live-chat with the Cardinals general manager, and here it is. Read more, after the jump.

One of the things I've always hated about the online chats at sites like ESPN is the filtering of questions asked to the "talent" being featured in those chats. I don't want to see Joe Morgan answering a question about how he feels about CC Sabathia's deal with the Yankees, I want to see him answer a question like: "How in the hell do you keep your job considering that you don't know about anything not concerning yourself or the Big Red Machine?"

Which is why I applaud the folks at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch who hosted one of their live-chats on their website with Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak on Wednesday when this question from a reader named I Hate Bill DeWitt! came through.

After news leaked out yesterday that the Cardinals were interested in entering the bidding for A.J. Burnett, GM John Mozeliak pretty quickly started denying those rumors. Of course, he only denied that the Cards were interested in Burnett. It's still pretty clear that the team is looking to add pitching, though now his focus seems to be more on doing it via a trade involving his surplus of outfielders.

Given the amount of money that Burnett is likely to command coupled with the amount of starts he's likely to make every year, it's hard to blame St. Louis for this approach. It's always hard to see who's available on the trade market and who isn't, but an offer of Ryan Ludwick or Rick Ankiel could probably elicit a pretty positive response that could result in some solid Chris Carpenter insurance or some bullpen help if Carpenter is indeed healthy.

Looking at the makeup of the Cardinals outfield, I'd guess that Ankiel is a lot more likely to be dealt than Ludwick at the moment, simply because he's the most valuable of their left-handed hitters (which includes Chris Duncan, Skip Schumaker, and Colby Rasmus) while Ludwick is the only right-handed bat they have in the outfield at the moment. From there, the Cards will likely size up what's available and then decide who they want to move out of the trio of Ankiel, Duncan, and Schumaker.

Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.

Strangely, the Cardinals improved in just about every facet in 2008, winning eight more games than they did in 2007, and in the end finished further down in the division and more games out of the playoffs then they did in 2007. They pitched better in 2008, they got a better year from Albert Pujols in 2008 and Ryan Ludwick broke out in a way that no one saw coming. And still, the gap between them and the top of the division seemed to grow this year.

That leaves the Cardinals in an interesting place this winter. They were decent in a lot of places last year, but they excelled in very few. So what do they need to improve to contend? How can they do that? These questions are likely not as easily answered as they might appear at first glance. It's clear that St. Louis is going to be active this offseason, as they were involved in the Matt Holliday bidding, but can they do what they need to get back on top?

Last week it was starting to look like a trade of Matt Holliday was imminent. The Rockies weren't asking for all that much for their former MVP, and the Cardinals had put together quite an impressive package to get Holliday. As it turns out, though, the fact that we knew that was quite a problem.

Apparently Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak isn't the biggest fan of his trade discussions being known in the media because he's gone ahead and ended any future trade discussions involving Holliday.

Mozeliak insisted Sunday that discussions involving Colorado Rockies left fielder Matt Holliday have ceased and that "nothing is imminent. That one's not happening - at all."

Irritated that details of his discussions with Rockies general manager Dan O'Dowd had leaked, Mozeliak did not deny the seriousness of the talks but took exception to momentum assigned them.

"For me to say there were not serious discussions would be inaccurate," Mozeliak said. "But some of the details reported about it were misleading, at the very least. It was never my intention for it to become front-page news."

Now for a general manager to give up on making a trade just because word leaked seems pretty stupid to me, but at the same time, I think this is better for the Cardinals. As Lackey said in his post about the trade, the Cardinals have more glaring holes that need to be fixed, and Holliday for Ryan Ludwick (after taking Matt out of Coors Field) is basically a lateral move.