On Saturday John Sickels posted his Top Twenty Cardinals Prospects. I guess there's nothing earth-shattering here; I wish Anthony Reyes was a little higher, but of course Sickels historically has been stringent with his A's and A-'s, giving out 25 or so each year. My deep thoughts are that I like the Cody Haerther grade, as I'm holding out hope he can man one of the corner outfield spots in 2007, and I don't like the Tyler Johnson grade, as it fits my suspicion that TJ's step forward in 2005 was similar to Carmen Cali's step forward in 2004. What's really interesting to me is that guys like Chris Duncan, Shaun Boyd, Brendan Ryan, Skip Schumaker and naturally John Gall have been pushed aside in this listing. The new blood is still a couple years away, so these older guys still have opportunities they might not have elsewhere. They better get on their horses though.

Speaking of making the most of their big shot, it doesn't sound so good for Juan Mateo. Also sprach Dave Duncan, courtesy of Matthew Leach:

I can't say this for sure, but it appears to me that the only one who might have come in here without really doing a lot of work before he got down here is Mateo.

This whole Rule 5 thing is weird. Imagine your employer's main competitor calling you up one December morning, announcing that you must work for them now. Then they might decide they're not as enamored with you as they had hoped and they're mulling the option to send you back to your old employer. There must be some conflicting motivations here.

On the other end of the Cardinals roster, Bernie Miklasz lays down the numbers for Jim Edmonds. Edmonds had, by all accounts, an off season in 2005 and yet he was still pretty good. That's the way it works when you're a superstar. As fate would have it, I've been playing around with a Win Shares spreadsheet from Baseball Graphs, trying to get a little better grasp on Edmonds's Hall of Fame chances. I've been going about it a bit differently from normal, as rather than comparing Edmonds to Earl Averill or Duke Snider, I'm trying to establish what non-Hall of Famers stand between Edmonds and Cooperstown. There are a few ways to do this using Win Shares, none of them perfect, even if you assume Win Shares is the end-all and be-all, which it isn't. I'll get my hands a little dirty though.

First, here are Jim Edmonds's season-by-season Win Shares in descending order:

36, 30, 29, 29, 28, 24, 22, 21, 19, 18, 7, 5, 1

Uh-oh, before I get going, I should note that these aren't the Bill James Official Win Shares. I don't know what the differences are, and considering James keeps tinkering with the formulas, I'm not sure anyone else knows all of the differences either. As long as the calculations are relatively consistent for other ballplayers, I think it's safe to pursue this course though. Anyway that's 269 career Win Shares there. Unless he has some post-season heroics, Edmonds probably will need another 20-WS season to make the Hall, which would put him at 9 such seasons. Here's a list of eligible non-HoFers who can claim 9 20-WS seasons (career WS in parentheses), excluding the pre-1920 guys:

Dick Allen (342), Sal Bando (283), Bert Blyleven (339), Bobby Bonds (302), Brett Butler (295), Jack Clark (316), Wilbur Cooper (266), Willie Davis (322), Andre Dawson (340), Darrell Evans (363), Tony Fernandez (280), Mark Grace (294), Bobby Grich (329), Stan Hack (316), Keith Hernandez (311), Gil Hodges (263), Frank Howard (297), Minnie Minoso (283), Al Oliver (305), Vada Pinson (321), Willie Randolph (312), Ted Simmons (315), Reggie Smith (325), Lou Whitaker (351).

If you follow Hall of Fame arguments, there are plenty of familiar names here, with a fair number of fence-sitters and a fair number of Inner Circle Almost Hall of Famers. I made a 5% adjustment for pre-1961 seasons, but this list is dominated by recent ballplayers (don't ask me how Wilbur Cooper sneaked in there), perhaps because the Hall hasn't expanded as rapidly as MLB has expanded.

Some of these aren't my idea of Hall of Famers, and in particular they don't have the big seasons that I think are necessary. Tony Fernandez, for example, topped out at 25 Win Shares. Willie Davis and Al Oliver maxed out at 26. In other words, let's consider peak seasons. Again, I'm drawing a line around Edmonds, so let's look at guys with 2 30-WS seasons and 2 additional 25-WS seasons. Again, I'm going to chop out some old-timers like Sherry Magee and Larry Doyle, who probably belong in the Hall, and Noodles Hahn, who probably doesn't:

Dick Allen (342), Bobby Bonds (302), Cesar Cedeno (296), Jack Clark (316), Will Clark (331), Rocky Colavito (273), Wes Ferrell (233), Bill Freehan (267), Bobby Grich (329), Heinie Groh (272), Stan Hack (316), Frank Howard (297), Don Mattingly (263), Carl Mays (256), Minnie Minoso (283), Bobby Murcer (277), Dale Murphy (294), Tony Oliva (245), Dave Parker (327), Vada Pinson (321), Ron Santo (324), Urban Shocker (225), Ken Singleton (302), Rusty Staub (358), Vern Stephens (265), Bucky Walters (258), Jimmy Wynn (305).

Sooo combine the two and here's the list of guys I've found firmly between Jim Edmonds and Cooperstown as of today:

Dick Allen -- Bill James's favorite jerk.
Bobby Bonds -- Basically done at age 33.
Jack Clark -- If only he had stayed healthy.
Bobby Grich -- The statheads' favorite.
Stan Hack -- Had little power, but good for 300 / 400 / 400 every year.
Frank Howard -- Could he have made it if he'd played a little longer (only 6,488 at-bats)?
Minnie Minoso -- Race and age make this a complicated case.
Vada Pinson -- Great start (he was two years older than B-R says), but last ten years were blah.

That ain't much. Pinson had 9,645 at-bats to accumulate his 321 Win Shares; if Edmonds needs 4,000 more at-bats to get that far, he's not making the Hall of Fame. My recollection was that Bonds was underrated due to all the strikeouts and the lower batting average. Hack was a good player, but he's not a good comp, in spite of what Win Shares says. Dick Allen could almost be put in the Pete Rose-Joe Jackson-Benny Kauff pile. Again, there's not much history between Edmonds and the Hall. Actually Edmonds may face greater challenges distinguishing himself against the more recent players. Here's the list of the not-yet-eligibles who meet both criteria:

Roberto Alomar (376), Jeff Bagwell (388), Craig Biggio (414), Barry Bonds (666 -- no, I'm not that making that up), Junior Griffey (361), Rickey Henderson (535), Chipper Jones (282), Jeff Kent (299), Mark McGwire (343), Rafael Palmeiro (395), Mike Piazza (310), Manny Ramirez (310), Cal Ripken (427), Frank Thomas (362).

That doesn't include The Great Pujols, Vlad (who doesn't have a 30-WS season yet), Andruw Jones (who inexplicably was credited with only 23 WS in 2005) or the small army of recent HoF-caliber pitchers (David Gassko's right about WS underrating great pitchers). What just happened to Will Clark is a discouraging sign for supporters of Edmonds, Larkin and Raines. Some pretty good ballplayers are going to get buried.