Got opinions? Go share them in this week's Fan Opinion Poll. Got half an hour or so to kill and want a quick recap of stuff from around the web? Grab your Frosty Mug.

BDD Recaps
BP Postseason Odds: 84.1 wins and a 20.2% shot at winning the NL Central.

With Ben Sheets returning to the mound and Mike Cameron making his Brewer debut, in Chicago against the Cubs, Tom H. wants to make sure you know today is kind of a big deal.

Thanks to reader Michael M who pointed out that The New York Times did a story on Prince's new eating habits. It's a New York Times story, so it displays all Wisconsinites as raw meat eating savages, but aside from that it's a good read.

The JS Blog notes that Prince hits more than his share of home runs at Wrigley, so this could be a good week for him.

Is Prince the best first baseman in the NL Central? The Cub Reporter wants to know. They're also asking about second basemen.

On injuries:

Hank Blalock has a torn hamstring and is out 3-4 weeks.
Troy Glaus is trying out some clear sunglasses to help him see the ball at night in St. Louis.
Alex Rodriguez has reinjured his quad and is out of the lineup for at least a few more days.
Grady Sizemore has been out since Saturday with a sprained ankle.
John Smoltz will miss his next start and may have to go on the DL with shoulder trouble.

Dusty Baker is drawn to grittiness, but apparently every now and then he incorrectly hears it: He reportedly thought Ryan Freel told him he didn't want to play everyday. That's like saying no to ice cream. Who does that?

As noted below in the minor league report, Nashville lost again last night to drop to 5-18. How long do we give them before we start worrying about the fact that our top minor league affiliate is terrible?

Baseball Happenings has posted the results from this week's Blogpoll for NL MVP. Chase Utley won overwhelmingly, as he probably should.

Baseball Musings asks if the Reds wasted money on Francisco Cordero. He's 4-for-4 in save opportunities, but the Reds have only managed to get him 4 opportunities in 25 games. Speaking of wasted money, the Giants are sending Barry Zito to the bullpen.

Carlos Quentin of the White Sox has been hit by a pitch with the bases loaded 3 times in April. That ties the MLB single season record.

Some days the stars align and everyone's talking about the same thing: Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, attended a game over the weekend and didn't enjoy the experience. Stephen Dubner, the author of Freakonomics, blogged yesterday about ways to make the game more interesting. Sabernomics picked up on that and added a few suggestions of their own, including one that should've been adopted years ago: eliminate arguing. Confrontational umpires are one of my biggest pet peeves in baseball, so I'd welcome some kind of movement to remind them that no one paid to see them yell back at a manager/player. Baseball is the only sport I'm aware of that tolerates it.

I don't typically read Cardboard Gods, but I'm glad I followed a link there yesterday to catch this post, which is as profound as anything I've read in a long time.

That's all for today. Drink up.

Quick notes from around the web before I leave for another day on the road and the Sounds/Royals game in Omaha tomorrow. They wouldn't postpone a Sunday game because it's cold, would they? They did it last night.

Win Expectancy Graph
BR Box Score
BDD Recaps
BP Posteason Odds: 84.1 wins and 21.7%.

Quick rant to get us started: I hate the retro uniforms. Two reasons:

1) I think reliving the Ball-and-Glove Era has been ridiculously overdone in an effort to distract fans from what has frequently been a below-average on field product in the last decade. That's not necessary anymore.
2) It feels like we lose EVERY TIME we have a Retro Day. Does anyone have the stats on this?

Marlins P Scott Olsen was apparently displeased by the quality of the mound last night. Considering Gagne had to stop mid-inning to scrape crap out of his cleats, I'm guessing there's something to it.

But, on the positive side, statheads are calling the Kendall experience a success. It's still April, of course.

Speaking of statheads, TangoTiger has done the math and determined that an NL pitcher's value is based 86% on his pitching and 14% on his hitting. If those numbers are accurate, they put Ben Sheets' complete inability to hit (and nonchalance about it) in a slightly different perspective, at least for me.

Baseball Digest Daily thinks the Brewers could make a "franchise defining trade" by reaching out to the Indians re: C.C. Sabathia. It seems unlikely on pretty much every level. I think Two Fisted Slopper would suggest including Tony Gwynn in such a trade, though.

The Brewers are up in Minor League Ball's mock draft, and you can go vote on who they should take.

Brief Alphabetical Morning Injury Reports:

Jermaine Dye was held out of last night's game with a strained groin.
Troy Glaus left last night's Cardinals game. He's having difficulty seeing at night.
Orioles P Adam Loewen is on the DL with elbow soreness.
Gary Sheffield's shoulder problems reportedly have him considering retirement.

That's all I've got for today. Jeff will be filling in with the Plastic Cup tomorrow so I can get some sleep before the game/drive home. If you have something to include in a future Mug, drop it in the comments.

Drink up.

The Brewers begin a three-game set (the first of five this season) against the Cardinals tonight.  I don't think anybody expected that we'd be in second place behind St. Louis, but that team has a lot going on that the pundits didn't anticipate. 

I enlisted the help of Larry Borowsky (lboros) to get us up to speed.  Larry runs Viva El Birdos, one of the best team-specific blogs out there.

We're two weeks into the season, and much to my surprise, the Cardinals are sitting atop the division. What's been the key to St. Louis's success so far?

Starting pitching, mostly. The rotation has a 3.42 ERA, and their peripherals are pretty solid -- 55-19 k/bb ratio (nearly 3 to 1), 3.82 FIP, .303 BABIP. Of course, as I noted at VEB on Monday, the Cardinal rotation pitched just as well in the early going last year, and it was merely a blip; they fell apart in May. The same thing might happen this year --- but the 2008 peripherals look a lot better, so maybe the crash won’t be as steep. It’s very hard to predict anything, because there are so many guys coming back from injuries that the Cardinal rotation is almost destined to be a hash all year long. Joel Pineiro returned to duty Sunday and looked awful; Mark Mulder is due back in a couple of weeks, and he’ll probably be worse than whoever he bumps aside.

The other major thing the Cardinals have done well in the early going is show some decent secondary offensive skills. They’re second in the league in walks, second in OBP, and they have some extra-base pop (first in doubles and triples, middle-of-pack in homers) ---- again, it’s too early to draw any conclusions from these figures, but the short-term returns are pleasantly surprising to Cardinal fans.

You've got an outfield full of names--Ludwick, Ankiel, Barton, Schumaker, Duncan--that many fans haven't even heard of. What kind of production are you expecting from the group, and without a true center fielder in the bunch, how well do you expect them to fare with the glove?

Ankiel has been a revelation with the glove in center. He consistently gets good jumps and has made a couple of highlight-reel catches; he’s a big upgrade over last year’s slow-motion version of Jim Edmonds. He’s been good enough that some have whispered Colby Rasmus might slide over to right field whenever he is called up.

As far as production, these no-names might surprise us. Through 13 games (a ridiculously small sample, but it’s all we’ve got) the Cardinal outfielders have an aggregate OPS of .986 --- best in the National League. I wouldn’t expect them to rank 1st all year, but I think they can finish in the top half --- high enough that they won’t put a drag on the lineup, as they did for much of last year. Duncan, Ankiel, and Ludwick are all probably capable of .800+ OPS over a full season, and Schumaker is a much-improved hitter who can probably hit at about a league-average level. Barton, a Rule 5 pick who spent most of last year in A ball, is super-fast and fun to watch; he hasn’t looked overmatched so far. At some point they’ll add Rasmus to the mix; I think they’ll be able to get sufficient production out of this group.

After 37 starts in the last two years, Anthony Reyes is now a member of the bullpen. What's going on with this guy? Is he going to have to be wearing a different uniform to be successful?

Hah. There is no more passionately debated subject at VEB than Anthony Reyes. It’s been going on for two years and shows no signs of slowing down. There’s a large contingent of fans (including me) that thinks La Russa and Duncan screwed the kid up by trying to cram their pitch-to-contact philosophy down his throat. But there’s another large contingent that thinks Reyes was overhyped as a prospect and was never as good as advertised. Here is one fact that’s beyond dispute: The Cardinals changed Reyes’ mechanics in 2006 in an attempt to get him to pitch to the lower half of the strike zone and induce more groundballs. During those two years, Reyes lost a few mph and considerable movement off his 4-seam fastball, which had been his primary weapon. Did the change in mechanics cause the loss of life on the 4-seamer? It seems obvious to me -- but some people think I’m just making excuses for the kid, or that I can’t admit I was wrong about him.

Reyes is even a hotly debated subject within the Cards’ decision-making corps. He didn’t make the starting rotation despite a very good spring, and La Russa and Duncan didn’t want him on the team at all, but the front office intervened and pretty much ordered them to keep Reyes on the club as a relief pitcher. The team’s hope is that Reyes can re-establish enough trade value to be dealt on acceptable terms --- that’s the exit strategy. He’s pitched well in relief so far ---- back to throwing the 4-seamer in the mid-90s and missing bats. There’s almost no chance he’ll start for the Cardinals as long as Tony and Dave are calling the shots on the field.

What are your early impressions of the Glaus-for-Rolen deal?

I always liked the deal from a payroll standpoint, and Rolen’s spring-training injury (admittedly a freakish one) reinforced my feelings on that score. I’m really glad we don’t have to worry about Rolen as a declining, injury-prone ex-star in his mid-30s making $15 million a year all the way through 2010. Glaus ain’t no Rolen in the field, and he still hasn’t homered and isn’t hitting for average, but he’s drawing some walks and showing a smidgen of extra-base power (5 doubles); he’ll come around. I’ve seen no evidence so far that last year’s foot injury is still haunting him. He earned lotsa points among the Cardinal fan base last weekend by plowing into J.R. Towles on a 2-out, 9th-inning play at the plate --- the ball bounced free and Glaus scored the tying run.

Many prospect-watchers don't have nice things to say about the Cardinals system, especially beyond Colby Rasmus. Aside from Rasmus, who I'd imagine we'll see long before September, is there anyone else on the farm who might make an impact in 2008?

The system’s reputation is improving ---- Baseball America ranked the St. Louis farm system 13th out of 30, and Kevin Goldstein had it 15th. Rasmus has a lot to do with that, of course. Two other guys to keep an eye on are AAA relief pitchers --- Chris Perez, a first-round supp pick in 2006 who struck out 13 guys per 9 in AA/AAA last year and was the closer on Team USA last fall; and Jason Motte, a recently converted catcher who throws 97 and struck out 12 per 9 last year (at double A). Another Memphis pitcher who will get a look at some point --- maybe this year, you never know --- is Mitchell Boggs, a starting pitcher who turned some heads in the AZ Fall League last year. And the farm system already has produced a potentially important member of this year’s bullpen, Kyle McClellan --- La Russa’s using him in late-game situations against meat-of-order hitters, and so far the kid has survived. He clearly has big-league stuff, but it’s a long season --- we’ll have to see how well he holds up.

As for everyday players, aside from Rasmus there isn’t anybody at Triple A who I would expect to make an impact this year. Joe Mather his 30 homers last year in the high minors and almost made the club out of spring training; he could see some time in St. Louis this summer, but if so he’ll be strictly a bench player.

Thanks Larry!