Albert Pujols
Rumors

Matt Holliday is locked up for sevens years in a $120 million deal with the Cardinals, according to MLB.com. Now on to Albert Pujols.

Name: Matt Holliday
Age: 29
Position: OF
Current Team: St. Louis Cardinals
Current Contract: 08:$9.5M, 09:$13M

Performance: Since being traded to St. Louis from the As in the middle of the 2009 season, Holliday has been a major component of the Cardinals offense. With St. Louis Holliday hit 359/419/604 (BA/OBP/SLG) with 13HRs, and 55RBI in just 63 games. Holliday is mostly known for his tremendous performance in Colorado from 2004-2008 before he was traded to the As.  However, while with Oakland, Holliday struggled hitting 286/378/454 with 11HR and 54RBI in 93 games.  Which Holliday will his new team be getting?

Outlook: Two years younger than the other premiere outfielder available, Jason Bay, Holliday is likely the #1 free agent available this off season.  His contract is likely to impact that of Bay and possibly players like Bobby Abreu, Vladimir Guerrero and even John Lackey.  The big question is how to evaluate his difficult 93 games in the American League vs. the extremely productive 63 games in the National League.  Hitting behind Albert Pujols certainly helps, but is the issue more of an AL vs. NL thing.  Will AL teams be scared off by Holliday's AL stats?  Either way, Holliday figures to get a multi-year contract averaging $18M to $20M per year.

Suitors: Cardinals, Giants, Mets, Braves, Angles, Red Sox, Yankees.

Prediction: Definitely an NL team, look for the Giants to make a surprise signing.

Free agent slugger Matt Holliday

Plenty of analysis of the Matt Holliday trade.

• Keith Law of espn.com thinks that both the Cardinals and As benefited from the trade.
• Tim Brown of Yahoo! Sports like the protection that Holliday provides for Albert Pujols.

So far we've seen comparisons of the 1994 and 1995 drafts and the 1996 draft and the 1997 draft. Today, let's take a look at the 1998 draft vs. the 1999 draft.

1998 Draft

No 1 Pick: Pat Burrell hit 251 HRs over eleven healthy season for the Phillies. Very respectable.

Best Pick, 1st Round: CC Sabathia, #20 Cleveland Indians

Value Pick, Any Round: Matt Holliday, seventh round, #210 overall Colorado Rockies.

Notable Pick: Mark Teixeira was a ninth round pick by the Red Sox in 1998, but went to college and instead was selected #5 overall in 2001.

Best Team: In addition to Burrell, the Phillies drafted Jason Michaels and Ryan Madson. The As got Mark Mulder, Gerald Laird and Eric Byrnes. Houston snagged Brad Lidge and Morgan Ensberg while the Reds drafted BJ Ryan, Adam Dunn and Austin Kearns. Based on production alone, I think the As win.

Worst Pick, First Round: Ryan Mills, #6 Minnesota Twins. Mills was the only player in the Top 10 of this draft to fail to make the major leagues.

1999 Draft

No 1 Pick: Josh Hamilton has turned things around in Texas, but was a disaster for the club that actually drafted him, Tampa Bay.

Best Pick, 1st Round: Brian Roberts, #50 Orioles. Interesting that the best pick of the first round occurred with the 50th pick.

Value Pick, Any Round: Albert Pujols, 13th round, #402 overall, St. Louis Cardinals. This is arguably the best draft pick of all time considering the Hall of Fame numbers Pujols has put up so far. Jason Churchill puts it best: "Is there any chance that the 401 players ahead of him carry as much value into any given day of games -- combined?"

Notable Pick(s): Carl Crawford, second round, #52 overall, Tampa Bay

Best Team: The Rays had a phenomenal draft...by the simple standard of major league players: Hamilton, Crawford, Mike Fontenot and Seth McClung, though Hamilton and Fontenot didn't make the majors with the Rays. The Rangers also had an impressive draft with Aaron Harang, Hank Blalock, Kevin Mench and Noah Lowry, but, similarly, many of these players are no longer with the club.

Worst Pick, First Round: Josh Girdley, #6 Montreal Expos. Girdley never got beyond AA ball.

Let's take a look at the latest article from Fox Sports Ken Rosenthal:

• Yankees general manager Brian Cashman is not interested in acquiring any of the available relievers despite the early struggles of the bullpen. The plan is to let the relievers continue to pitch and means Joba Chamberlain will stay in the rotation.
• Nationals manager Manny Acta might not finish the season, but is unlikely to be fired anytime soon.
• David Ortiz had an interesting comment about free agent pitcher Pedro Martinez: "When I saw him pitch, I had hot flashes of when he was here."
• Rosenthal comments on how Albert Pujols' seven year, $100M contract. "The seven-year, $100 million contract that Pujols signed in Feb. 2004 pays him an average of $15.75 million in what would have been his first four free-agent years. The Cardinals hold a $16 million option for 2011, after which he can hit the open market. If Alex Rodriguez is worth $27.5 million per season ... you get the picture."

Plenty of news and notes in this article by Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

• Chris Carpenter's injury is holding the Cardinals back from making any decisions about their rotation for 2009.  Certainly whether Carpenter can pitch or not will drastically impact the birds rotation.
• Albert Pujols is signed through 2010, but has a $16M option for 2011 that the Cardinals hope he never gets to that decision.  They'll look to lock up the slugger beyond 2011 before then.
• The Cardinals are expecting a payroll between $106-108M for 2009.  This gives them approximately $18-20M to play with.
• The team feels that they have a plethora of relievers, outfielders, corner infielders and minor league pitching that they hope they can turn into some help for the middle of their infield.
• Along those same lines, the Cardinals haven't addressed the free agency of Cesar Izturis and Felipe Lopez.  Strauss suggests that perhaps the Cardinals will let these guys go and go after middle infielders such as Rafael Furcal and Khalil Greene.
• The Cardinals are unlikely to make a run at Jake Peavy.