Cards Step Up Pursuit of Matt Holliday

With the Cubs imploding and the Brewers still in desperate need of pitching, the road to a playoff return for the St. Louis Cardinals is looking more and more wide open. The Cardinals see this opportunity themselves.

As such, they have begun keeping tabs on A's slugger Matt Holliday should Oakland decide to move him before the trade deadline, a major league source told FanHouse's Jeff Fletcher. St. Louis is cautious because of the size of Holliday's paycheck -- $13.5 million this year -- and his sagging performance in his first season away from Coors Field, but the team is interested in getting perennial MVP candidate Albert Pujols some help in the middle of the order.

Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch also reported that the team is stepping up its efforts to bring Holliday back to the National League for a stretch run.

The Cards were interested in Holliday when the Rockies were shopping him in the winter, but couldn't agree on an appropriate multi-player package for Holliday. Now, Strauss says the Cards are looking to offer the A's Ryan Ludwick, a young reliever (Jason Motte, Chris Perez, or Kyle McClellan) and an unnamed prospect to make a deal they could've made back before 2008 ended.

Ostensibly, the deal would be to get a bat to protect Albert Pujols in the Cards' lineup. Holliday is disappointing people in Oakland right now, but his .274/.372/.433 line in Oakland is better than Ludwick's .226/.300/.421 line, and he's hitting in the tougher league.

I'm not sure this package will be enough for Oakland to make the deal, though. Holliday will be a free agent at the end of the seasons and he's made it clear that he's not happy in Oakland, so if the A's don't get the offer they want for Holliday, they'd probably be plenty happy with offering him arbitration at the end of the season and taking the first-round draft picks that would come with his departure, since he'll likely be a Type-A free agent.

Ludwick is 30 already and he's only hit well for a total of about a season and a half of his career. McClellan and Perez are pretty good young relievers, but they're just relievers. I suppose this deal may hinge on the prospect the Cardinals offer, though the Cards don't have a lot to offer other than Perez and Brett Wallace, who I'd assume would be untouchable. Holliday may head to St. Louis eventually, but I'm not sure that Billy Beane is going to be in any sort of rush to send him there.