Preview/Prediction

The St. Louis Cardinals' front office has many questions that need to be answered this year.  Building for a successful 2010 season is not the only goal.  The moves made this offseason will likely dictate much of the franchise's success over the next decade.

Young shortstops are getting a lot of focus these days, but the names generally mentioned are Alcides Escobar and Elvis Andrus.  There’s a third speedster who belongs to be included in that group, the Padres’ Everth Cabrera.

Before we get into too much detail, let’s take a look at his line from last season:

377 At Bats
.255 Batting Average (96 Hits)
2 Home Runs
31 RBI
59 Runs
25 Stolen Bases
.342 On Base Percentage
.361 Slugging Percentage
.328 Batting Average on Balls in Play

This is a puzzle, so I will probably be wrong on nearly all of these, but let's do it just for fun.

1. Matt Holliday—Red Sox

The Red Sox have lots of money just like the Yankees, and they won't hesitate to offer Holliday a seven- or eight-year deal worth $100-150 million. The Yankees already have both Matsui and Damon and will re-sign one of them for sure, so they won't sign Holliday.

2. Jason Bay—Mets

Tim Raines
Left Fielder
First Year of Eligibility: 2008
Career Highlights: Seven-time All-Star; three-time World Series champion; one Silver Slugger award.

Our #2 contender for the 2010 class, Andre Dawson, owes no small debt of gratitude to Rock for the strength of his candidacy.

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Okay, let's live outside the box and in the realm of great possibility.

Josh Johnson is an emerging ace. In his first true full season, Johnson dominated the competition with a 3.23 earned run average and a 15-5 record. He has two full years before he hits free agency, and then he could demand A.J. Burnett type money.

Yes, he truly is that good.

Take what you just read and add these five words: Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter. Think about the true dominance of a pitching staff led by those three pitchers.

Whether you've heard of him or not, Jason Heyward is good. Really good.

I suppose those of you who are still uninformed need an explanation.

Heyward, age 21, was born in McDonough, Georgia, also the hometown of outfielder Matt Murton. As the crow flies, The Geranium City, as McDonough is known, is just 27 miles away from Atlanta, home of the Braves.

The holiday season may be coming early for Red Sox Nation.

Or maybe, I should be saying: the Halladay season is coming early. The reports came out Tuesday from the New York Daily News that the Boston Red Sox were in strong pursuit of Toronto Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay. The Daliy News stated that the Sox were "in a full court press" to get a deal done by the start of the winter meetings of baseball's general managers, which is set to begin on December 7th.

As much as I love baseball and miss the game this time of year, I get by fine this time of year thanks to hot stove mania. I'm always all over the web, checking out rumors, getting a grasp of what's going on.

I'm big on predictions too, seeing where everyone thinks free agents will end up. So I'll make some predictions of my own. Yes, I do realize that if I make 50 predictions, I'll be lucky if ten of them are correct.

Also, before you make any criticisms, keep in mind how difficult this is. Piecing this together, figuring out which players are compatible with which teams is no easy task.

For years we have been hearing about the promise of Billy Butler, though he had never quite lived up to the hype.

Well, at least until 2009, when he got his first full season in the Major Leagues and posted the following line:

608 At-Bats
.301 Batting Average (183 Hits)
21 Home Runs
93 RBI
78 Runs
1 Stolen Base
.362 On-Base Percentage
.492 Slugging Percentage
.335 Batting Average on Balls in Play