It has been less than 2 weeks since the end of the Cardinals postseason appearance, and has been a fairly crazy offseason already. They haven’t even handed out the post season awards yet, and it feels like the Cards have more drama than an episode of MTV’s show The Hills. I have already started to prepare myself for the worst. 
The Cardinals confirmed yesterday that Albert Pujols will have surgery today to remove bone spurs from the elbow that bothered him all season long. They assure us that he will be ready for spring training next year. Does this make anyone besides me nervous considering the Cardinals medical staff is usually so accurate with their return from injury timetables? If I’m not mistaken, I believe that Troy Glaus was slated to return before the end of spring training this past year. He finally surfaced in September to a very limited role. That is only the most recent example. Let‘s not forget all the timetable issues with Mark Mulder. There are also unconfirmed rumors floating on the internet that Pujols is going to need Tommy John surgery and will miss most of next year. I’ll just stick with what we know is fact. Pujols is going under the knife today, and will need time to heal. How much time? Who knows? The Cards are supposed to update us after the surgery today. Then take whatever time they tell you, multiply it by two, and that should give you a closer estimate of the time Pujols will actually be out.
Matt Holliday will not be a Cardinal next year. I believe if the Cardinals could offer the same amount of money that other teams will offer Matt Holliday would stay here. I think we all know by now that the Cards just don’t have the kind of money that teams on the east coast spend on free agents. By all accounts Holliday will be the most sought after position player on the market. His agent, Scott Boras, is comparing him to Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira. Teixeira is also a client of Boras. Teixeira signed a 180 million dollar contract with the Yankees last year. I believe the Cards best chance of re-signing Holliday would be if they could work something out before he hit free agency. I don’t see this happening, since Holliday has said that he wants to test the open market. I’m already considering him gone. That way if he signs somewhere else, I will be prepared. If he re-signs here I’ll consider it a bonus.
One of the other current problems is that Tony LaRussa has not said he’s coming back next year. I believe 
that he will come back because of the way the ’09 season ended. I don’t see TLR walking away on a bad note. I do get the feeling that Tony is waiting to see where Matt Holliday ends up. The same could be said about Albert Pujols. I have this gut feeling that if Holliday re-signs here, TLR will come back and Pujols will start negotiating his new contract. The other side of that coin is that if the Cards don’t re-sign Holliday, I believe Pujols’ desire to negotiate an extension will be low.
I didn’t even get to DeRosa, Ankiel, Pinero, or Smoltz. This is going to be one hell of an offseason.