It’s a challenge to write a blog buzz about the Cardinals. Many of the tried-and-true Card blogs folded up after the World Series win. I can also assume that the writers have ascended to a higher plane of existence.

Viva El Birdos is still around, though, where Houston Cardinal is talking about Albert Pujols’ year last year. While impressive in a vacuum, it wasn’t exactly the height of his career, and Houston Cardinal considers the wisdom of trading the big guy before his value drops.

Consider the following:

* Albert’s OPS of .997 was the 2nd lowest of his career and his lowest since 2002
* his .336 EQA was his lowest since 2002, 3rd lowest of his career
* his VORP of 72.1 was the 2nd lowest of his career and his lowest since 2002
* his isolated power of .241 was the lowest of his career
* his RC/27 was the 2nd lowest of his career
* his 27 GIDP was the highest of his career
* his PA’s were the 2nd lowest of his career
* he hit the fewest homers, had the fewest RBI and runs scored of his career
…
If he demands a trade before the 2010 season b/c the team has been horrible in 2008 and 2009, the team will have to seriously consider granting it in order to get maximum value in return. Right now, the Cards can’t get from another team what Pujols is worth but that may not be true in 2 years and this may be an option the team has to consider if the next 2 years are as bad as they might be.

I also dug around a little to find Mike on the Cards, a newish blog that started after the post-World Series delirium. Mike is wrapping games. Yesterday, the Cardinals lost to the Marlins 3-2 and Tyler Johnson didn’t get to pitch after he reported tightness in his shoulder. Prior to that, the Cardinals had won three straight.

My big deadline at work has come and gone, and I finally have the time to get caught up on the important things in life: baseball. So let’s together take a little tour of the NLC blogs, starting with our beer-making friends in the north, the Milwaukee Brewers.

Al at Al’s Ramblings put up 15 posts yesterday, many of them about the nonbaseball topics that make up so much blog content, blogsphere-wide: politics and weight loss. Still, there’s a tidbit about Derrick Turnbow having only one breaking ball, though Bill James’ book contains pitch counts for sliders and curves.

KLSnow at Brew Crew Ball is also doing a little round-up in the form of a frosty mug of baseball news goodness. It covers everything from an injury report to a tool to to change corporate stadium names to their non corporate counterparts on the web pages you read. Customize your world, baby.

Brewers Bar, Milwaukee’s MVN presence, does a real-live recap of the Brewers’ game on Friday against the A’s. Not to spoil the surprise, but they lost 4-11. On Thursday they won their game the day before 7-1. Yesterday they lost to the Rockies, 3-6. Now you’ve learned something you didn’t know before!

I hit the Cubs official site tonight and saw that you can get Cubs.com in Spanish now. A quick tour of the other NLC official sites showed that you can also get Astros.com in Spanish.

Totally awesome, in my opinion. I’m very much in favor of making baseball more accessible. And I’m also in favor of getting Scott Spezio eye replacement–if that’s what he needs–as apparently mentioned in this headline on the Cardinals official site that I saw when looking for more sites in Spanish. I had no idea team doctors were making such impressive strides.

Pat, the mighty fine writer of the Pirates’ blog Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? and contributor to the Fanhouse at AOL brings us a video preview of “The Horrific NL Central.” Man, it’s great. I especially liked the parts about Dusty Baker.

While the Reds were busy giving Gary Majewski a very long rope, the other teams in the Central division were busy playing their own fake games. Only there games were even more fake than Cincinnati’s.

• The Pirates got down and dirty by killing a Manatee. Not only politically incorrect and illegal, but it sounds like a great euphemism, too! But Pittsburgh started off the Spring right by beating up on a local community college. This Bud’s for you, Buccos!
• The Brewers played with themselves not once, but twice.
• Lastly, the Cardinals played St. Louis University and managed to squeak out a win even with the absence of Scott Spiezio (hat tip: BubbaFan). I have to say that I’ll miss that Kool-Aid facial hair a little bit this year.

It looks like tomorrow brings a whole slew of Grapefruit and Cactus League action. I know more importance is placed in the games than they deserve, but it’s still awesome to be able to listen to baseball again. And during the Spring, there’s never a shortage of games to stream during the workday.