NonProfitCow

What does that mean, exctly? Basically, the judge hears from both sides and decides whether the prosecution has enough evidence to take the case to trial.

As far as Luke Scott goes, I'd much rather not have a crazy gun-wielding racist birther on the Cubs. I'm sure Castro likes plantains.

Alonso is 25 and sports a career .837 MiLB OPS. Leake is nowhere close to front line starter and will hit arbitration next year. Heisey is a 4th OF. There's no reason for the Cubs to make this deal.

Is Mo Williams going somewhere? Based on his comments I doubt Billups wants to come off the bench, and Williams probably feels the same way. Plus they have a young promising backup in Bledsoe, who is currently injured. He is a UFA next year so someone will probably be willing to trade for him for cap space. My guess is he backs up Billups until Bledsoe comes back and then is either traded or waived. Assuming Billups even shows up...

Sandusky waived his right to a preliminary hearing this morning.

Only if we miss out on Skip Schumaker. No way the Cards let him go. Slow, no bat OF who can be propped up around 2b don't just grow on trees. He'll get 2 years 5 mil.

Most important part of that article... Braun's known of this for over a month. Becoming more and more obvious that this whole thing was finally "leaked" by Braun's people to try and get out front and sway the public opinion and muddy the waters because now they know he's going to be suspended.

If you guys get lucky Ryan Theriot could be available.

Except it has come out that it is not roid related at all. Keep up. Only Braun's side is saying it isn't PEDs. MLB is allowing the process to complete. Frankly, I commend Braun's people for working to slant the narrative but I don't believe it one bit. Words like "never intentionally" and "chain of command" are meant to both cause doubt in the court of public opinion and, more importantly, to be a window into his defense. An initial positive sample that later shows synthetic testosterone through WADA's unparalleled testing standards can not be questioned. As Victor Conte said today, a second negative result is useless to the validity of the first result; depending on the method of use (oral or intravenous) the substance can leave the body anywhere from a matter of hours to days. Edit: It's already been mentioned but it can't be repeated enough, ignorance is not a defense. His counsel would have to prove negligent handling of the initial sample. On another note, I have my own conspiracy theory: Braun's people leaked this story to ESPN knowing of the slim chances to win an appeal. Their real goal now is to shape the story so that fans believe, at worst, he's guilty of taking a non performance enhancing drug or, at best, a victim of a faulty process in which he's forced to wrongly serve a suspension. THIS

The Colts are a special kind of terrible

I just cracked the case http://i.imgur.com/hb301.png

Yeah, there's synthetic testosterone in all kinds of stuff.

BRef badly needs MiLB splits.

I don't know if he was fired or not. It was after the regular season, so all there was were postgame shows on FSN, but he wasn't there.

The complete denial is amazing.

hey buck up there, rafael furcal resigned for two more years. not only is he a decent player but he also may pick up the DUI slack left by larussa's departure. I figured Freese and Dan Mclaughlin could cover it.

This is excellent Pujols therapy. BWAHAHA

The plot thickens...

There's some gold over at Brewerfan http://www.millerparkdrunk.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/braun.jpg And no ELCABALLO, they don't have to take away ARod, Bonds or Pudge's MVP too. Those guys weren't caught using PED's with testing in place in the same season they won the MVP. It's pretty simple logic.

He traded a 10 mil market guy for Jarrod Parker. Cowgill is meh. He maxes out as DeJesus. Odds are he won the trade by trading an already league average pitcher for a league average pitcher with a couple years before arb. Not like he fleeced them though.

never never never trade with Billy Beane. well, maybe not NEVER, but no, actually, never. It's not 2004

Ok? Wainwright and Carp are only signed through 2013. Molina and Berkman only through 2012. Freese is 29 and has all of 1 season's worth of PA in his career, and has been pretty much league average. They have no 2b or SS and a 2 win max CF skating by on a high BABIP. Miller is the real deal and Cox is a huge question mark. He's a 3rd baseman who OPS'd .787 in Springfield, which is a straight up launching pad. It was a highly flawed team with Pujols and will be without him. You keep throwing out the Ryan Theriot contract number for some reason, which makes no sense. It would have taken a 10 mil/year raise to match the Angels offer, which would get higher in later years since it would be backloaded. The Cardinals payroll has been right around 100 mil for the last few years. That represents at least 25% of their total roster. That's huge. Pujols was a 5 win player this year. He had a damn good season too. That's how hard it is to be a 5 win guy. I personally think he would come close to matching the value of the contract overall, but it would be by being worth a couple wins more than the AAV the first few years. And you're taking a huge risk with his nagging injuries etc. The rest of the stuff you wrote is pretty much BS. He doesn't have "value to the city" or [expletive] like that. He would put butts in the seats for short spurts when he gets really close to 5-6-700 HR and 3,000 hits, but a winning team in STL is going to draw more overall. If you think you can let him walk and field a more competitive team it's worth it from a fiscal perspective. The Cards revenue stream is pretty much maxed. They pull in 3 mil at the gate every year, but can't a huge TV deal because the market simply isn't there. And again, the 3.4 mil number is nonsense. QUIT IT WITH THE 3.4 MIL NONSENSE I'm not sure you'll find a single Cardinal fan who doesn't care. It's really just like 3 groups. 1. I hate that greedy [expletive] he's declining blah blah blah (denial) 2. Ownership should have given him whatever he wants he's teh best raise payroll 3 million fans every year intangibles Holliday isn't worth his contract I love Jon Jay (lunatics) 3. This sucks. This is a good and bad move for both parties and neither can be blamed. Likely a good bottom line baseball move long term, but [expletive] we just lost one of the best baseball players of all time. It hurts like hell. (realists) Personally, it's going to be straight up devastating to see him in an Angels uniform or realizing he's not there when we're down one with 2-3-4 due up in the 9th or a chopper gets through the hole to RF. Pujols has been a Cardinal since I was a SR in HS and he's always been there in my baseball nerdness. I hate everything right now. All my FB friends are going nuts one way or the other and have wondered why I'm not. But, I think being a message board baseball nerd is helping me out. We all walk the line of fan and pretend GM. I hate it as a fan but understand it as a pretend GM. I have no ill will against him, he's still my favorite player and will probably the greatest player of my lifetime (non Bonds division.) I'm just glad he happened to play for my favorite team in his absolute prime and thanks to current technology is got to watch him literally thousands of times. But this sucks balls.

That's not how it works.