It's Sunday, and you know what that means: Cardinals spring training round-ups on the local news channels. Everyone's got someone in Jupiter, so this should be interesting. Here are my impressions of said news broadcasts, thus far:

• With Bonds flaky at best this year, Albert "Juuu-noh" Pujols should be the clear-cut favorite to win the MVP for the next few years. Duh. In other news, the world continues to turn, my roommate still clogs the toilet and Comedy Central's Drawn Together is not funny.
  
• I just saw the Hee-Seop Choi/Scott Rolen collision video replayed on TV. I was at that game. I cringed when I saw it the first time, I cringe again. To this day, I find it absolutely mind-boggling that Rolen was rushed back. Looking at him swing was like watching the Winter Olympics: you want to watch, but it's painful to see.
  
• Oh, wow. Rolen loves So Taguchi. No shit. Taguchi said that, and I quote, "Rolen loves catsup*." Rolen on Taguchi - "He's a great guy. The language barrier is tough, but he's got a great comprehension of English." They eat dinner quite a bit.
  The consensus: Rolen is the only person from Indiana who can say that they have a Japanese Friend. How special!
  
• Ponson is fat. Plus, he has a girl's name. I think that we should make fun of him. [begin]
  
• J-Rod is J-Rod's biggest fan. I'm paraphrasing here, but you should be able to get the gist - "It's like going from being a no-name soda to being a Pepsi or a Coke." John, you are still diet Shasta Orange. Shut your word-hole.
• Can we please stop the Rick Ankiel experiment? It's getting rather old. Or, to mess up a quote by Peter Griffin, "I find Rick Ankiel to be rather shallow and pedantic." I'll gladly eat a heaping plate of crow if he turns out to be the next big thing, but I seriously doubt he will. Ankiel's longevity with the team leads me to believe that he has pictures of Walt, on his knees, blowing Billy Beane.
  

Finally, a random observation. It's fantasy baseball time and I've been buying a bunch of roto mags to formulate my draft strategy in the umpteen leagues that I'm in. Most magazines have a prospect guide for people in keeper leagues -- lo and behold, Daric Barton is one of the biggest prospects in the entire prospect pool universe. I find it hilarious that one roto mag said that Beane "stole" Barton in the Mulder trade.

Is it just me, or was Barton never this hyped when he was in the Cardinals system? It's maddening, really.

The Mulder trade was, in my opinion, a good one. Sure, some people will argue that Haren was just as good as Mulder, and we lost Calero and Barton in the process to take on more salary -- and these people are partly correct. However, the Mulder trade was more than taking on more salary, blonde highlights and losing the apparent number 1 overall prospect in the Milky Way galaxy. We managed to trade from an apparent strength (RH pitching) and change the complexion of the rotation by adding the LH arm. We also traded a prospect and a "green" pitcher for a known commodity. Did Walter overpay? Possibly. But that remains to be seen.

The jury is out on the trade until we find out what happens with Mulder. If he re-ups with the Birds and has a reasonable contract, then it's a success. If we lose him at the end of this year (thanks mainly in part to the big-money being tossed around for mediocrity in Toronto), time will tell, and a lot of it will hinge on what happens with barton and Haren.

* or is it Ketchup? Damn you, translators!