{"id":1797,"date":"2009-12-15T12:34:31","date_gmt":"2009-12-15T19:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/15\/holliday-season\/"},"modified":"2009-12-15T12:34:31","modified_gmt":"2009-12-15T19:34:31","slug":"holliday-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/15\/holliday-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Holliday Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, will it be the most wonderful time of the year or will St. Louis have a blue Christmas?<\/p>\n

The news around Matt Holliday heated up last night, with Joe Strauss of the Post-Dispatch<\/em> reporting that there was “positive movement” in that regard.\u00c2\u00a0 (Strauss seems to have started a habit of getting people excited about late stories, indicating they may come upon a midnight clear.\u00c2\u00a0 The first was David Freese’s arrest, then this tweet about Holliday.)<\/p>\n

Strauss developed on that tweet in a story out this morning<\/a>, indicating that the club has offered an eight-year deal averaging about $16 million a season.\u00c2\u00a0 Thoughts of no-trades and opt-outs are also being bandied about.\u00c2\u00a0 After a weekend of silent nights, it was good to finally have some indication that things were being talked about and some stirring of the stove.<\/p>\n

While all Cardinal fans would like to see a present under the tree this week, what kind of cost<\/a> is going to be involved?\u00c2\u00a0 It’s an awfully expensive contract, especially when you factor in a no-trade clause.\u00c2\u00a0 I know without a doubt that the Cards have made provisions for Albert Pujols when making this deal, but that’s going to be a lot of payroll tied up between two players.<\/p>\n

Still, getting Holliday back would make people think that Santa Claus was coming to town.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean, you’d have this lineup for 2010:<\/p>\n

Skip Schumaker
\nBrendan Ryan
\nAlbert Pujols
\nMatt Holliday
\nRyan Ludwick
\nColby Rasmus
\nYadier Molina
\nDavid Freese<\/p>\n

Add that to a strong rotation and solid bullpen, and even with the Phillies’ acquisition of Roy Halladay, I think the Cardinals might be the slight favorites to represent the NL in the next World Series.<\/p>\n

That might be similar to dreaming of a white Christmas, but I think it’s realistically possible, especially if Brad Penny is more than a lump of coal in the Cardinals’ stocking.<\/p>\n

There’s still a long way to go, but since the Grinch–I mean, the agent Scott Boras–hasn’t made a lot of public proclamations, I think there’s a strong chance that, if all you want for Christmas is Matt, you may have plenty of joy in your world this week.<\/p>\n

UCB Radio Hour<\/a> is tomorrow night.\u00c2\u00a0 I promise no singing of Christmas carols.\u00c2\u00a0 At least on my end–never know when Mike might get a wild hair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, will it be the most wonderful time of the year or will St. Louis have a blue Christmas?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":347,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/347"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}