Pujols to Cards - Give Manny a call

According to an AP report on Thursday, Cardinals 1B Albert Pujols says he'd like his club to bring Manny Ramirez to St. Louis.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/cardinals/story/F380F9628A1A931D8625754E00020A4B?OpenDocument

That would be one hell of 3-4 punch now wouldn't it?

Pujols even suggests Manny might offer up a discount to play for the Cardinals...

Yeah, right.

One problem - Cards GM John Mozeliak shot the idea down Thursday night...

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090129&content_id=3784024&vkey=hotstove2008&fext=.jsp

There are two reasons Manny still hasn't signed with anyone:

1. He's asking for too much money for too many years
2. He's a head case

Even though the Cardinals aren't going to make a move like this, there is a way the Cardinals could pull it off on a 1-year contract without breaking the bank, though it would take a little creativity and a lot of guts.

They'd have to find teams that would be willing to trade for Ryan Ludwick and Rick Ankiel, which shouldn't be all that difficult despite the fact that both are currently facing arbitration hearings. They're not that expensive, even if they win, and there are several teams looking for some pop in the outfield (Atlanta, San Francisco, Seattle just to name a few) who might be willing to give up decent, cheap young talent for those guys.

Those moves would save the Cards about $7 million and they're already on pace to be about $7 million below their 2008 payroll of $99 million, so that would mean they'd only need to raise payroll by about $6 million over '08 to add Manny at $20 million for one year.

Now, I realize it's not my money and I'm not suggesting the Cardinals should do it, I'm just saying they could do it without demolishing the team's short term financial goals. Plus, in this rough economic climate the Cards do have the advantage of hosting the All-Star Game this season.

Even if they were to move Ludwick & Ankiel to fit Manny into the OF they'd still have Skip Schumaker, Chris Duncan, Joe Mather and Colby Rasmus to fill the other two spots with Jon Jay not far from being ready to jump into the mix.

Even if bringing Manny in would be a cost-neutral move, which it would not be, there are other issues to resolve as well. Ramirez doesn't exactly fit Tony LaRussa's "Hard Nine" mentality.

Keep in mind, however, that LaRussa said he'd welcome Barry Bonds in a Cardinals uniform in the past, so maybe he'd be willing to overlook some of Manny-being-Manny to have that Hall of Fame bat backing up Albert.

It's not gonna happen but it sure is fun to think about the possibilities....

KW