So, in case you haven't heard, Erik Bedard is officially on the trading block.

I feel that the Cardinals should actively pursue him. Even though he's having a bit of an off year,  his numbers are still very, very good.

Now, what to give up for him. I feel that Chris Duncan would be a good fit for the Mariners; they desperately need power; they're tenth of the fourteen AL teams in homers. Obviously, it's not a straight-up Duncan-for-Bedard trade; who else should we package in?

So, less than a day remains to the deadline of  non-waiver trading, and the Cardinals have done nothing. Not even a "here's our 26-year-old A baller, let's trade for your 24-year-old A baller" trade. (The last transaction involving the Cards and another team was the Maroth deal a month ago.)

Now, in this suckfest of a division, the Cardinals still have a 3% chance of the playoffs. (Hell, a 5-game losing streak by the Cubs could give us a great chance.) They could go for broke and try to milk one last playoff run with Pujols/Edmonds/Rolen.

They could call this season done and trade off the old guys for prospects. Unfortunately, other than Reyes (whose trade value is 0), Izzy (who wants to stay a Cardinal), Juan Enc. (Crappy OFer! Getcha crappy OFer here!) or maybe Looper, we have nothing. We might get a fringe Top 100 prospect like Ubaldo Jimenez or Dellin Betances, if we're lucky.

What to do?

Poll

Like it says above, what to do?

28%

Become buyers! This division sucks enough to go for it!

19 votes

51%

Become sellers! Our team is a bunch of old fogeys; time to rebuild!

34 votes

10%

Stand pat! We're fine!

7 votes

9%

ALBERT PUJOLS, COLBY RASMUS, ANTHONY REYES AND CARP FOR FELIX HERNANDEZ, ADAM JONES, ICHIRO AND CLEMENT LOL

6 votes

66 votes | Poll has closed

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-all-stars-pujolsupset&prov=ap&type=lgns

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Albert Pujols was angry about being left on the All-Star bench and the St. Louis slugger took aim at the National League manager -- who just happened to be Tony La Russa of his own Cardinals.

"It's the All-Star game. He can do what he wants," Pujols said Tuesday night. "He does whatever he wants. If I wasn't expecting to play, I wouldn't have come up here."

Pujols, the NL MVP in 2005 and key to the Cardinals' win in the World Series last year, said La Russa didn't talk to him the entire game.

Today, Rick Ankiel is 3/4 with a double, 2 HRs, and 5 RBI.

Overall, he's hitting .262/.297/.517 with 11 HRs. His crappy April is really pulling him down; in May so far, he's .280.

Yeah, he's not a superstar, but wouldn't you rather have him as the second-to-last or last guy off the bench when your choices are him, Ryan Ludwick, or So Taguchi?

So, Rickey Henderson wants to come back for "one final season" and play in in the majors one last time.

Since our outfield is playing horribly, why not Rickey?

-He'd give us all a reason to keep watching. (Think about it: at one point in the season, our OFs could consist of a 48-year-old HOFer and a converted pitcher.)
-He was average with the glove in '03 and he seems to have kept himself in shape since then
-At this point, a 48-year old with a 70 OPS+ in '03 probably would be our best RFer.
-Think about it; we'd have Rickey Freaking Henderson on our team. That would be cool.

Poll

Rickey?

42%

Yes.

35 votes

57%

No.

48 votes

83 votes | Poll has closed

So, my college has a great lefty by the name of Nick Schmidt. Right now, he's 8-1, with a 2.56 ERA and a 77/34 K/BB ratio. In his career, he's got a 311/123 K/BB ratio. Watching him, he's got a plus fastball and a plus slider (which is really his best pitch).

I don't subscribe to much of anything; can someone tell me where he is expected to go?

Right now, Albert is hitting  .190/.299/.431  with 4 homers and 6 XBH overall. Now, we're all scared out our damn minds right now, but I think I've found his problem:

Luck.

At this point, everything is running against him; according to BPro, the pitchers he's faced have allowed batters to a  .229/.313/.354 line, hitting in general is down all around, as so far this year, the NL is hitting .253/.329/.390, as opposed to last year   when the NL hit .265/.334/.427, so far, he's hit a quarter of his flies as infield popups, and worst of all, his BABIP is in the "sweet mother of god that's terrible" territory of .152. (.290's average.)

He'll be fine.

It's beginning to become very obvious that AP has won more games for us than we can count; there have been many a game where if not for Pujols's heroics, we would have lost.

According to fangraphs.com, Pujols has added an astounding 693% of win percentage.

Now, throwing out the other stats; where would this team be minus Albert?

Nick Schmidt, the University of Arkansas's ace pitcher:

http://www.davevanhorn.com/roster_NickSchmidt.htm

Had a no-hit streak of about 17 or 18 straight innings earlier this year; does anyone see him top 10 in the draft whatever year he's drafted, or it overhyping a college pitcher?

Schmidt finished his freshman campaign with an 8-2 record and a 2.80 ERA in 99.2 innings of work ... the true freshman became one of the most impressive rookie hurlers in the country ... a freshman All-American by Louisville Slugger ... named the SEBaseball.com's Newcomer of the Year in the SEC and a second-team All-SEC performer