Dear Albert Pujols.

Wow, I can’t believe that there is even a slight chance the Cardinals could manage to screw up your contract.  I wanted to take a minute to let you know how I feel about you.  I don’t think I’m alone in this...

Albert, We were born the same year but I feel like you're a decade older than me.  
This feeling is based roughly 20% on fear and 80% on respect.  You're a 9 time All-Star, 3 Time NL MVP. 
You’re the best in baseball; no one else is even close.  Has there ever been a better 13th round draft pick?  No, Albert, there hasn’t. 
The day you donned Cardinal red, my whole world and St. Louis history changed.   

Any time there is in argument about greatness, I immediately invoke your name.
I've been watching you break records since 2001.   You’re my silver slugger every year. 
You're the only man I want to hug.  

I'd like to share a dream I had with you, AP, because that's what people who care about each other do: they share.  I was floating through the ocean on an inflatable raft when I came across an island. At the center of the island was SI Swimsuit Model Brooklyn Decker lying a bed of shredded iceberg lettuce and surrounded by the chicks from the "Addicted to Love" video.  As she beckoned me to join her, I noticed a crude batting cage in the distance with tiny angels floating around singing "We Are The Champions." Inside that cage was you, AP, hitting dingers into the lagoon approximately 600 feet away.  Swing after perfect swing, you were bashing it off that island and into the ocean where dolphins had gathered to celebrate your greatness. Long story short: I told Brooklyn I'd be over watching you, and if she could see about getting me a cold Budweiser it would be terrific.  I also mentioned that Roddick looks like a real D-bag, which I'm sure we can both agree on. Anyway, best dream ever.

Please don't leave.  I don't think my heart can take it.
If man-crushing you is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

No Homo,

Fresh (WC)

After lighting the internet on fire with our "Albert Week" kickoff and man-love letter yesterday, surely there had to be some reports of John Mozeliak putting the finishing touches on his PowerPoint presentation, or maybe even a small protest outside of Busch Stadium.

Let's see how we did:


WHAT?! Who's in charge over there at Google?? I think that means we just got served.

Actually, we knew our little campaign wouldn't be talked about much right away. It is, after all Albert Week, not Albert Day, so let's see how it looks come Friday afternoon (if you're wondering, I've yet to come up with an excuse for next Monday, when we're still at zero Google results.)

But there were a couple interesting articles about Albert posted within the last couple days:

-This one from the Wall St Journal is written by former Baseball Commish Fay Vincent, about the possibility of Pujols (or any other marquee free agent in sports) asking for a piece of team ownership as part of their contract. [This looks like a subscriber piece. Go through Google News, I was able to read the whole thing.]

-And here's an article in the USA Today, penned by someone also named Albert Pujols. Wait, he's writing for the USA Today? Not only is he slightly better than me in baseball, but he's taking our blogging jobs now? Bastard! (I don't mean that, he's welcome to write for the CD any time he wants, preferably about Sofia Vergara)

Welcome to Albert Week!

Now that Thanksgiving is over and done with, it's time for the Cardinals to get going on this Pujols contract. We all think that Albert wants to play here. And we all think that DeWitt and Co want to field a winning ballclub for another five to ten years.

So what's holding up the negotiations? We know the scrap-yard "Duncan special" signing won't come until February. Same goes for the light-hitting infielder who can play 2B/SS/3B (and OF on Sundays, and pitch). Do you really expect much to happen over the next two months? (Say it with me: please no Rasmus trade, please no Rasmus trade...)

As one of the most honest and upfront Cardinal blogs, we feel it's necessary to harp on the Cardinals about this, because we all know that if Albert isn't signed, not much else is going to happen. I don't think anyone is expecting Cliff Lee, but upgrades can easily be made on the 2011 Cardinals right now.

We're not looking to get you worried, but if no one else is going to call out the Cardinals for hurrying the hell up, we feel that "Albert Week" is necessary to let our voices be heard.

Oh, and you might have read that we're the second most funniest Cardinal blog throughout ALLLL the internet. So we'll try to make our two voters happy and take a humorous approach. To kick off our week-long parade of Albert, here is an exclusive bar graph of how awesome Albert's been over the past ten seasons. We stole this from Dan Lozano's negotiating binder (care to offer us a job, Wikileaks?). I think this is the kind of stuff they have on fangraphs.com, but I'm not sure.



We've got more coming all week. Stay tuned!

Did you have a big Thanksgiving? Somebody's cousin brought their buddy from school to our little turkey day celebration. He was from China and had only lived in America for a couple of months (1st semester of college). I couldn't tell if he was more amused or appalled at what was going on.

If you think that stopped me from shoveling my facehole with as much food as possible, you’d be wrong. However judged I was. Hell, my mug is probably getting laughed at by his buddies at home right now.

“Look at the stupid gluttonous American. Stuffing his face like a crazed dog. These people will be easier to overthrow than we imagined!”

READ my profile of Mardy Gilyard for SB Nation LINK HERE (With video!)

Oh well.

I also played poker and got a full house beat by a straight flush to lose a nice little payday. Looks like the Mad Librarian isn’t getting paid this month. Sorry kid, those are the breaks when you work with people that have crippling gambling additcions.

What else?

Lot of fantasy football talk. I’m not sure how your guys’ things went yesterday, but even people that aren’t playing fantasy football now understand what’s going on and how it effects how we’re watching these otherwise under-interesting football games.

READ thoughts on Jeter / Pujols contract negotiations for ISTL LINK HERE

I can’t imagine that when the dorks who invented FF were sitting around, they ever envisioned a day where a 70-year old uncle could know that Chris Ivory scoring multiple times against the Cowboys meant profound failure for his nephew.

And just for the hell of it- because I love looking back at crap and laughing about it later -- Alabama over Auburn 31-24.

Now, the Friday Links...

Do you know what's up with your Captains? LINK HERE (HT: JRH)
Have you seen this guy? LINK HERE
EPIC crow and cat fight. You have to see this. LINK HERE
Transform your iPhone into a stun gun. LINK HERE (HT: JRH)
The MOST awesome toliet ever? LINK HERE

Have a great weekend people. Hopefully you're not trampled by shopping manaics today and will be able to overcome this long weekend by Monday.

Thanksgiving.

Happy to everyone.

It's a holiday tradition to mail it in around the holidays and Cards Diaspora is not above boosting hack ideas that have been around forever in a cheap grab at page views. Therefore, here we have a look back the worst of the 2010 Cardinals and aim to determine who exactly was the biggest turkey for the franchise.

Your nominees...

1) Bradly Penny


Hit a grand slam, then shut 'er down for the season.

Took 8+ million dollars he got for sitting on a wood plank and bought a 95K engagement ring.

Took the picture above.

2) Kyle Lohse


Somehow got a medical condition that is only known to happen to dirt bike riders.

Had an ERA after the 5th inning that was (probably) incalculable by anyone not working at NASA.

Prompted Brian Feldman of ESPN 101 to video blog the heat. Sort of.

3) David Freese


Almost breaking his ankle rounding third base and getting DL'd.

Almost coming back off the DL, but dropped a weight on his foot instead.

Posing for this cover and making your woman love him.

4) Brendan Ryan


Finally securing the starting SS role and then promptly hitting .223.

Adding more stress to Johnny Mo's job.

Putting on video a terrible Robert DeNiro impression.

5) Flip Lopez


Flip came to the Cards cheap beacuse everyone else was sick of his attitude.

He was repeatedly late and generally canercous to the clubhouse.

He was cut.

That's it.

That's the list.

Who'd we miss? Some have suggested that Aaron Miles should be added. Or that Nick Stavinoah looks like a turkey. But I'm not ready to elevate them to vaunted 'Turkey Of The Year' status quite yet.

For more turkey related reading, check out this column from InsideSTL from WAY back in the day. And a special thanks to @jadotson for reminding us of Flip's absense.

As some of you may find out tonight - good stuff happens when you get drunk.

The other night, a group of friends got hammered and did what any group of dudes would do on the weekend - went to sporcle.com. It's pretty much a porn site for trivia nerds.

Seriously go on there, especially today since you're just sitting there at work with nothing to do, and I'll see you in 83 hours.

So deep into the night, Lube Rock was born. What is Lube Rock, you ask? I'd like to explain, but I'm not sure what to say, other than I'll let these pics speak for themselves:




Click "Read More" for the rest of this award-winning post!

When I think about November, I think about AWARDS. I mean, just hours ago, Joey Votto was crying over his MVP award and was man enough to admit it. (Side: you have to love Canada.)

I especially enjoy the vaunted 'Cardinal Blogger Awards' presented by the United Cardinal Bloggers (UCB). The envelope please...

I mean, Trumbsy hasn't been bringing the heat, I agree... but what about the rest of us? We're working our asses off here.

Actually, that's not true. We're barely working at all. Maybe we're not 'best'... but how about funny? Are we funny?
DAMN YOU SEBEK. You and that hair. Gets the voters every effing time.

I love a couple things about this graph. First off, the passive aggressive shot at this category in general, claiming that humor isn't an 'overriding theme for most blogs'. In other words, JSF and us are pretty much hacks.

Also, the abstentions are killing me.

Really? Not one thing we posted in a year was even slightly amusing? The MS Paints? Anything?

This aggression will not stand. Who the hell is voting for these things?


I'm calling out the three people I think abstained from the humor vote. Why these three? Because we're going to smoke these fencepost riders out one at a time and get them to vote for the CD. If they did cast a vote, they will come forward and then we'll know it wasn't them. If they stay silent... well, then we have our winners.

Winners of a broken digit or two until they put something on that ballot. Then we will have won this award 7-6 over Joe Sports Fan.

And Bill- Bill sure as hell better have voted for this site. If he didn't...

Well, they're will be problems. BIG problems.

In all seriousness, It was nice to even get somebody to come to this site more than once. So thanks for including us.

Albert Pujols will not win the 2010 NL MVP award when it's announced formally today @ 1p St. Louis time. Instead, the award will go to Cincinnati's first baseman Joey Votto.

And if you don't believe me, perhaps you'll be more kind to famous TV broadcaster Tim McCarver? Because he Tweeted the news last night.

Hell, Bob Nightengale of USA Today has a vote and he didn't even give Pujols his second place vote, instead casting a ballot for Carlos Gonzalez of the Colorado Rockies.

The official CD stance on all individual awards has been pretty steadfast: two shits are given. World Series MVP? We care. NL MVP- I guess it's nice to have some validation that Albert Pujols will be remembered by future generations as a gigantic talent... but since every single pitch of the MLB season is now in a video database somewhere- I'm thinking that if he's a 5 time MVP or 10 time MVP when it's all said and done, the 'kids' will be well aware of Albert's beastly game.

Obviously, the voters have fatigued of Pujols. He leads the league in HR's and RBI's? Well... those aren't the REALLY important stats, they'll say.

Whatever baseball dorks. He's right there in .OPS and VORP and any other metric you want to throw out there. But because a vote for Pujols doesn't validate how smart the voter is for 'thinking outside the box', Joey Votto wins.

The guy isn't not a deserving candidate. He had a hell of year. His team won the NL Central. I don't think we're going to riot at Cardinals Clubhouse store later tonight. But if I have to comment on this whole matter I say this:

The 2010 Cardinals were a crap-tastic team. Some might even say they sucked. They ruined many of our collective nights with performances that could have been mistaken for flat-line readings on an EKG.

They finished the season 10 games over .500. Seriously, they did.

Without Albert Pujols, this team wouldn't have been over .500. I'd hasten to say they'd have been more than 10 games under .500. So I'm pretty confident that if I had to bet a dollar on this never going to happen scenario, that Albert Pujols was worth over 20 wins to the Cardinals in 2010.

Joey Votto gets hurt on opening day?

I don't know. Maybe they lose the divsion? I tend to think probably not. Might have been closer than what it was, but I'm thinking that the 2010 Reds were a really good collection of players that were either having A) career years B) breakout years) or C) both. Joey Votto is included in that group. Had a great year and I have no idea if he'll ever come close to repeating it.

However, we do know that Pujols will be right there in this discussion in 2011. That's the reason Votto won the NL MVP.

So congratulations, Joey. Well done.

Just know that every single person that didn't cast Pujols in first place would rather have him on their team, you know, if their lives depended on it. But that's not the definition of 'most valuable' anymore.

So this is interesting... Looks like the Cardinals are rolling out dynamic ticket pricing for next season. Per the St. Louis Business  Journal:

"Using a computer program linked to its new ticketing system the team will provide more price options and adjust ticket prices upward or downward on a daily basis based on changing factors, such as team performance, pitching match-ups and the weather.

The goal is to get more fans in the seats.

The Cardinals new system will allow seats in sections that do not include season ticket holders to go as low as $5 for games which have excess inventory for sale.

We want to provide our fans with the best values possible and bring more fans out to Busch Stadium, said Bill DeWitt III, president of the Cardinals. This new structure gives us greater day-to-day ticket pricing flexibility that reflects real-time market conditions.

The new system also aims to broaden the ticket-buying fan base, reward fans for buying earlier in the season and protecting season ticket holder value, the team said.

The new structure only affects the sale of tickets to individual games and does not affect the sale of season tickets.

The Cardinals drew 3,301,218 to Busch Stadium (fourth in Major League Baseball) during the 2010 season the 14th time in franchise history and seventh-straight season the team topped the 3 million mark."

So... they're using Craigslist?

On the surface this seems like a pretty good deal for the fans. If your on a budget, you might be able to see a Lohse start against the Pirates on a Tuesday night for as little as 5 bucks, making a family outing to see the Cardinals a very reasonable value. You know, if you don't eat or drink anything. And take the MetroLink to the game. And leave without a souvenir.

But still. VALUE!

Trouble is, this works the other way. You want that first Cards/Cubs game of '11? How much are you willing to pay, junior? Think a divisional game against the Reds might be an option? Not unless you're willing to feel the pain.

So the Cardinals have a pretty solid win/win situation. Put asses in the seats during games like the last week of 2010 when interest was non-existent and get higher premiums for games that have perceived value in the minds of Cardinal Nation.

Again, this is exactly like Craigslist. With a 'handling charge'. So I don't think it's anything to get overly antsy about. But still, if you think that this is altruistic on the part of the Cardinals- you're a bit naive. Because you WILL be paying more for individual tickets in 2011.

Why?

Well see that 3.3+ million up above? That's a HUGE number for a team that was pretty much doing everything short of crapping on your pillow at night. But the Cards yanked it in, even with the aforementioned 'lame duck' games at the end of the schedule.

Meaning that there weren't all that many un-sold tickets when the ledger was balanced at the end of the season. So this is a revenue generating option that is brilliant. Spin it as fan-friendly... make more money... everybody wins!

Except your wallet, of course.

Now, since we whiffed on the Friday Links last week, let's get right to the good stuff:

• I'm dead serious when I say that Fresh WC and I invented this in HS. LINK HERE (HT: JRH)
• 'Damn You Auto Correct' may be the hardest I've laughed this month. LINK HERE (HT: Tuey)
• Page 3 'Old Spice Guy' spoof. LINK HERE (NSFW-ish)
• The Wire's 100 greatest quotes. LINK HERE (NSFW language) (HT: FWC)
• Just you and your Johnson. LINK HERE (HT: Hippy)
• The debut of 'Beyond the Cardboard'. LINK HERE
• Can the Rams ever win on the road? LINK HERE

Yes, that was a shameless plug. It's what we do best here. So on that note, scroll down and vote in the poll if you haven't already. And then do us all a huge favor and have a big weekend.

Today could be very hazardous to my health.

And not just because I'm typing this on a special Nuclear-powered, green-glowing computer (I almost didn't buy your product this time, Apple. Allllmost.) Today, I fear for what could happen to the internet if CC Sabathia wins the AL Cy Young.

The big three names in the running are CC, David Price and Felix Hernandez. You can decide for yourself who's the most deserving...but if you need a hint, it's King Felix.

Hernandez (or F-Her - I hope some newspaper slips that into a headline) doesn't have the pretty won/loss record that your dads would be impressed with, and therein lies the problem. We're still a good 15-20 years until the old school way of thinking is completely out the window. I wouldn't be shocked if any of the three guys mentioned above wins the award. Obviously they were all really good this year, but once you get over looking at the Win column first, Felix is the clear choice. Disaster was averted last year when Lincecum and Greinke won the Cy Young, beating out other pitchers who had more wins. And despite a good amount of outrage from Cardinal fans, the voters got it right.

But that doesn't mean we've moved past the thought of high RBI totals or Pitcher Wins=greatness. ESPN hasn't moved onto showing any kind of individual VORP or pitchers' game scores when zipping through highlights. They still show W: _____ and L: _____. Not to mention, it's a common fantasy baseball stat. Humans still have voting power, and they can vote however they'd like. Don't get me wrong, CC had a hell of a year. But to put that much stock into W/L record is pretty lazy. Front offices, including the Cardinals', don't do it. Why should we?

Normal, logical people would tell me not to worry about awards too much, since we're not the agent or player who gets to cash in on the achievement. Okay, yes, they are correct...but we need something to kill time while we're at work, dammit! And for our efforts, we get called "Stat Geeks" - written off like we're not allowed to talk baseball. Don't hold it against me just because I wasn't there to see Pedro Guerrero's determination (and other intangibles), as he stumbled into the clubhouse at 6:15 pm after an all-night coke/hookers celebration.

Also, some people would encourage us to act like adults, and not resort to childish name-calling. We'll gladly talk like know-it-all smart-asses. But call us geeks? It's time for some typewritten wrath, motherfuckers! So as a precautionary measure, I'd like to have an official nickname readily available when writers start pouring in stories today titled either A) "The Stat Geeks Win; Ruin Baseball" or B) "Stat Geeks Got Siz-erved! And My Boner Just Knocked Over Some Typewriter Ink, Who Cares!"

Here are a few ideas I had, along with a quick explanation. If you've got one, feel free to share.

Leathery Old Balls - LOB's in the house!

Flat Earth Crew - Don't go to the left of Hawaii, you'll die. (/unintentional Asian joke)

Werthers Originals - Jesus used to give these things out to kids around Jerusalem.

Morgans - Named after simple stat hero Joe Morgan.

High-Pantsed Bastards - Speaks for itself.

Betty Whites - It does a real disservice to Betty, but "Angela Lansburys" is a mouthful.

Retirement Homies - Because they're old writers, but cool enough to be on the internet.

Shart Captains - Uh, sharts are funny.


BONUS - Take the Poll and let us know what we should use!