The trade deadline is only a couple days away.  I know many of you out there have worked hard perfecting your last-minute trade proposals, plotting out new and creative ways to turn the Cardinals into your “Stick ‘n’ Ballz” Yahoo! fantasy team.

But for the rest of you who aren’t paying attention, here is a step-by-step guide on how to unleash your can’t-fail Cardinal trades upon the rest of us:


-Be Vocal About Your Trade Proposal.  Call in to as many talk shows as you can, send text messages to the Cardinal post-game shows, post it on as many St. Louis and MLB message boards as humanly possible, and please, please send each and every one of your trade proposals to the Post-Dispatch’s Sound Off.  They love hearing what you’ve got to say.


-Be sure to include all of our hurt players.  The key to swindling any team’s GM is to trade them guys who are already hurt.  That way it won’t bite you in the ass.  Clement?  Send him back to the Cubs for some minor leaguers.  Mulder?  He’d be good if he weren’t hurt so much.  Plus he’s still rated as a 92 on MVP 2005, so he’s got some value.  Deal him to the Giants for Lincecum, and he can party with Zito again. 

-Or be sure to include players we don’t have anymore.  J-Rod would look good in pinstripes; he’s from New York, isn’t he?  I bet they’d send us Robinson Cano for a nice left-handed bat like John Rodriguez.  Hell, throw in Bo Hart too.  Joe Torre and the Yankee fans will love him.  The window of opportunity to trade Brian Barber closed a few years ago, but I’ll use any excuse to post that card of him.


-“Hell, throw him in there too” = Money.  That quote usually follows something like, “Let’s send Adam Kennedy and Chris Duncan to the Devil Rays for Carl Crawford and BJ Upton.  And if they want Jason LaRue, hell, throw him in there too.  What do you mean the Devil Rays changed their name?”


-Assume other teams will just surrender their best players if we threaten to beat them up.  Pretend like the Cardinals are sixth graders, and the Pirates, Marlins, and Rays are little fourth graders just begging to get their lunch money stolen.  Who cares if the Marlins are a game or two out of first, they don’t want to pay Hanley Ramirez any money, ever!  Let’s capitalize on that and send them some young pitching (Brad Thompson or Tyler Johnson – ohh, especially cuz he’s hurt!).  Just do your best here to really screw over the other team.  They’re cheap bastards; that’s what they get.


-Use the same guys over and over.  Anthony Reyes was perfect for these kinds of rumors, so we’ll have to look elsewhere.  Chris Duncan seemingly moves into the No. 1 bad trade rumor rankings.  Adam Kennedy is a close second.  Don’t worry about the $4 million he’s owed next year; that’ll be someone else’s problem.  Let’s just hope no one else notices.  Also, make sure you don’t try to trade anyone actually good.


-Don’t be afraid to be the “trade Pujols guy” of your group.  “I know we’ve got Bert locked up for a couple more years, but NOW is the time to deal him.  He gets hurt all the time and he never runs to first base fast enough for me.”  Sadly it seems like 1 in 10 people see the logic in this.  That one person is way too many.  I’m as big of a prospect dork as anyone, but I beg you – if you hear anyone say that we should trade one of the best players in baseball and the face of the Cardinal franchise, please nutpunch them for me.  I may tolerate this when he’s in his walk year, but not when he’s got years and options left on his contract.

Be sure to follow this guide over the next couple days and your friends will wonder why you still have that job at Jiffy Lube; you ought to be sitting in a comfy office at Busch Stadium just wheelin’ and dealin’. For now, let’s hope that John Mozeliak quits bein’ an idiot and listens to us!


For more HMW and his brilliant baseball advice, check out BertFlex.com