Welcome Brett Wallace & His Lower Body to St. Louis

-Brett Wallace signed before tonight's game, then spent a half inning with Danny Mac in the booth. You can see how thrilled he is to be talking to the Vianney Hall of Famer. Congrats Brett, and we can't wait to see your lower half in the Majors.

-In this week's insideSTL article, I give a big recap of our Kansas City takeover, plus mention the Pellegrino Curse. Last week it was the James Madison Gang, now a Pellegrino Curse reference? I'll try to come up with a more obscure inside joke next week.

-Over on Mizzourah, Big Head reveals the Bandwagoner's Guide to Mizzou Gear for any of you who haven't hopped on board. Yeah, you...waiting for Jimmy Clausen to shut up about his new haircut and start throwing TD's. My best suggestion: Steve & Barry's super closeout sale. They were on to us earlier. Hope all is well at S&B Corporate.

The Live-Blog Begins!

Hey it's draft day! Hazelwood's Most Wanted and The Good Face (left) are with you to cover the 2008 Major League Baseball Draft. Believe it or not, we actually took a half day from work to talk about this crap. We're getting fat eating some food right now, and the Rays are on the clock...

12:13 Big Head sends a text saying "If the Royals don't pick Crow i'm going on a hunger strike until Trey Hillman rectifies the situation by growing his goatee back. I better stuff my face with Ramen stat."

1:01 HMW arrives at Casa de Good Face. It's on!

1:05 Don Zimmer is working the phones. Pizza Huts in Orlando are on code red today.

1:12 Another Big Head text: "Tim Murphy (P UCLA) will be the steal of the draft. I don't like when I t9 his name it comes up "Tin Murphy" Not a good omen.

1:16 Rays take Beckham. Rays fan Good Face claims to not be a Rays fan anymore! That is breaking news, folks.

1:17 Good Face says the Cards need to trade for Reid Brignac

1:19 GF clarifies: I am not allowed to be a Rays fan due to the Cards-Rays series outcome, but I wish them well. Also, Keith Law was talking about Beckham's "wrist quickness." If that's what it takes to play in the majors, sign me up! -- TGF

1:20 The first thing Tim Beckham needs to buy: a new cellphone. That's the kind of sound quality we hear on 590. -- TGF

1:21 Bud definitely appears to be reading the names off a teleprompter. Pedro to the Bucs! He'll be coming to Busch around 10 times/season. -- TGF

1:23 HMW says Jim Callis has a face for print. BertFlex: Making friends and influencing people. -- TGF

1:28 Hosmer to the Royals. Open up the checkbook KC. Also, sorry Big Head, looks like you'll be dropping some LB's soon.

1:29 Sir's analysis on Beckham via text: "I don't like the Beckham pick. too much could go wrong there. Upside is soriano, but i could see him never hitting for enough avg."

1:30 HMW's reaction to Sir's text: Let the record show that Tim Beckham will go on to be the greatest player of all time.

1:32 Seriously, people. The O's take Brian Matusz and the crowd goes ... to the bathroom. It's just so quiet in there. Couldn't they have paid some extras to cheer? How about some pre-recorded applause? Bud seems to be tired of this charade already. -- TGF

1:39 Bud says the Giants take Geraldine Posey? That's what it sounded like. Luckily they took the right Posey...it's Buster.

1:40 Sir text: "Love the Hosmer and Matusz picks, but i wish they would have gone to more interesting teams."

1:40 Let's try Busta Posey on the phone. He has no friends in the background. Maybe he's in the third row of the crowd. Or maybe we'll hear the toilet flush.

1:42 Talking to Jim Callis again. What a dork, stay on the internets Jim. Good Face says to not badmouth him in case we try to do an interview with him down the road. My instant reaction: "Fuck Jim Callis"

1:44 The catcher run is on. Kyle Skipworth to the Marleens.

1:46 Sir says: Bold prediction -- Skipworth will never, EEEEEVVEEER play a full season in Florida. -- TGF

1:47 I just changed my attribution from "GF" to "TGF." I don't want any smartasses calling me girlfriend. Also, it should be pointed out that the MLB draft does not "feature" Chris Berman. Baseball rules.

1:48 TGF bold prediction: Crow to the Reds.

1:49 Damn it. They took Yonder Alonso. I guess I could maybe go back and edit that post ... BREAKING NEWS: Peter Gammons just said Alonso is light in the loafers. Oh wait, no, light on his feet. Same thing?

1:50 HMW drops some knowledge on your stupid ass: The Alonso pick = LaPorta in '07 because the Reds already have Votto, blocking Alonso. Not five seconds later, Steve Phillips said the same thing. Creepy.

1:54 Allllbert PU-Jolz home run in front of 16 fans in Warshington. Very nice. Al and Dan were having a lover's quarrel during the at-bat.

1:55 The Bad Beckham goes to the White Sox.

1:56 When you announce these names and there are crickets, it's not a good way to get people excited about these picks. they need some heat, they need a pop - TGF, channeling his WWE mentality.

1:57 We're upset that none of these picks are actually there. Bad planning from MLB and ESPN. Plus they are broadcasting from "The Milk House." Huh?

1:58 text from Sir: "At least Votto is athletic enough to play left as well as Dunn does right now. When Alonso is ready they'll move votto to left." How dare he question my hard-hitting analysis that Steve Phillips...yes STEVE Phillips agrees with.

1:59 Aaron Crow to the Nationals!

2:00 Good Face's take on AC: "He's gonna dominate wherever he pitches. I wish they were still in RFK, but bitches are gonna be in trouble."

2:02 Keith Law with some good words to say about Crow. Peter Gammons just stumbled through an explanation of the Cape Cod League. Thanks Pete.

2:05 Astros take Jason Castro, ranked 29th according to Kevin Goldstein. Nicely done 'Stros.

2:06 Why did the Astros do that, they have Brad Ausmus!! -TGF

2:08 They show the A's draft HQ. "Looks like 100 dorks playing solitaire on their laptops" -TGF. The way the A's have drafted lately, he's probably right.

2:11 Rangers take Smoak. Dammit. That would have been nice.

2:13 Ravech interviews Alonso via satellite. His first question: What's it been like for you over the past 24 hours? My instant response: "Bangin' chicks...allllright. Giggity giggity."

2:16 The A's take Channel Four News Team farmhand Jemile Weeks. TGF changes shorts. - TGF

2:20 It is official: Next year, BertFlex will be live-blogging from the Milk House or the Butter Condo -- wherever they hold it -- to make some effing noise during the draft. - TGF

2:21 The Cards take Brett Wallace. HMW does somersaults. And then he in your face's me. You can't face the Good Face, beeyatch. Per Sir, we're going to call Brett Wallace a "3B"/1B. - TGF

2:22 Material for later debate: Uglier stupidface: Jim Callis or John Clayton? - TGF

2:23 Keith Law looooves Brett Wallace, so I guess I do too. The footage of him running was not inspiring, but as Sir points out, if you rake well enough, you don't have to run. - TGF

2:26 The Twins take Aaron Hicks, who -- for some unknown reason -- is actually in da Milk House. As far as we can tell, he's the only draftee in attendance. He gets to do the stagewalk, shake Bud's hand, picture, the works. I guess that's worth sitting around like a dumbass for 90 minutes. - TGF

2:35 Jesus H. Alou! Gordon Beckham's hair is ridiculous. It's three sizes too big for his head. He actually looks a lot like Scott Christian from "The Simpsons." - TGF

2:38 Bud stopped messing with the teleprompters. He's got the picks on paper now. He was much more confident with the Brett Lawrie pick (Brewers). - TGF

2:50 One guy in the crowd (possibly Ric Flair) keeps yelling out "wooo" in the background. It literally looks like the place is cleared out, like some fat guys should be rolling trash cans around, double checking that there aren't any half-eaten hamburgers laying around.

2:57 Ravie's second question to Brett Wallace is about his versatility and the "lower half" of his body. Are you fond of his lower half Karl? Somebody's gotta pick up the slack, with no Harold Reynolds around.

3:01 Big Head calls Brett Wallace "Prince Fielder with size" via phone call.

3:05 Ryan Perry, as seen on thedirty.com, has been selected by the Tigers. Pack up your Smirnoff Ryan, you're going to Motown.

3:10 Breaking news - the Mad Librarian was at Gordon Beckham's 10th birthday party. We're confirming our sources and will bring you more info as it develops.

3:11 Peter Gammons has amazing man-love for Russell Martin. Seriously, he's mentioned Martin's name 10 times today.

3:22 The Phillies looked like they had a cake in the middle of their draft room. Why didn't we think of that? They end up taking a kid from Salisbury High School, where he majored in making "football plays" on the "football field" and yelling at John Clayton.

3:27 Friedrich finally off the board to the Rockies. Still no HS pitchers taken.

3:28 The Librarian expands on her encounter with Gordon Beckham: His parents are friends with my parents. I don't really know how -- I don't actually know him well or anything, and I haven't seen his family since then. We were in Atlanta on vacation, spent some time with his family. His birthday party was at his parents' house. Baseball, pinata, barbecue in the backyard, cake. It's not like there were strippers and famous baseball players or anything. I was 15. Thought the entire thing was lame.

3:29 Her follow-up: Well, OK, there were strippers. I thought so...I thought so.

3:31 Daniel Schlereth (Mark's son) is taken from the University of FOOTBALL. He'll be one of the top 5 players in Major League Baseball. FOOTBALL FOOTBALL FOOTBALL!!

3:38 Jim Callis is giving baseball nerds a bad name. Hit the gym and wear some contacts. -TGF. It's safe to say he won't be interviewing with bertflex.com.

3:45 Interview with Mark Schlereth talking about Major League Baseball and the University of Arizona (of the National Collegiate Athletic Association) on the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network.

3:56 Somebody wake up Josh Fields. He's on national TV and just got drafted. He was cogent enough to give props to the Jesus, though. - TGF

3:58 Big Head says Gammo got wood from the Red Sox pick (Casey Kelly). Word is that Casey Kelly might be the next Russell Martin. That word comes from Gammo. - TGF

3:59 I must admit: I'm surprised that the best non-college prospect in Missouri is still available. - TGF

4:05 I hereby call shenanigans on the Mad Librarian-G-Bex story. And not just because she later texted and said that she went on a blind date with Jim Callis, who turned out to be a "v. bad kisser." - TGF

4:06 HMW has officially christened this the Bad Hair Draft.

4:12 Little-known fact, according to Wikipedia (your most trusted source for facts): Enthusiasts who stay through the end of day 2 of the NFL Draft receive VIP passes to skip the lines and get preferred seating to the following year's draft. I can't imagine that lines were much of a problem for the MLB draft. ... Picks in the comp round: Twins take Shooter! Hunt, Jake Odorizzi to the Brewers.

4:16 Had to break out the power chord (which also happens to be one of my many nicknames) because we've got more juice than this computer. - TGF

4:17 Picks are fast and furious. Brad Holt to ... the Mets, maybe? Zach Collier to the Phillies. The mic was busted for the third one. Unrelated: Do you think I could get into the Compton Academy? The Phillies are loading up on black players. Shockingly Sir doesn't say anything offensive while on the phone w/ HMW. He has lost a step in his racist remarks. -TGF

4:18 Mike Montgomery to the Royals. Tim Melville just might fall to the Cards. - TGF

4:19 Giants take Conor Gillaspie of Wichita State. The Astros take someone. Cards take Lance Lynn. Maybe Timmy's decided he's going to school? - TGF

4:23 More about Lance Lynn courtesy of Kevin Goldstein: "What he is: A massive right-hander. What he's not: Massively overpowering." Sweet. The Cards are loading up on fatties. - TGF

4:26 We've entered the phase where ESPN-ers have no effing clue who these people are. They scramble for their media guides after every pick. Kind of like us, but on TV. - TGF

4:28 The sammich picks ended with Tim Melville still on the board. The second round starts at 5:15, but you can't watch it on TV. I assume you can "watch" it on the Internets somewhere. But you'll miss out on our expert analysis. - TGF

4:40 HMW back in the saddle. Casual observation from TGF: Chris Rose is like the Ryan Seacrest of FOX sports.

4:42 I'm pretty pissed about passing up Melville. Even if he's terrible, you have to take him as the local pick. And if he flames out, oh well. But at least let him flame out on your watch. Lance Lynn was #2 on Keith Law's board after Melville, so it's not like they made a huge reach like some of the sandwich picks, but still. I was really pumped about the Wallace pick but this sucks. Horrible horrible horrible.

4:51 We just realized no one from the Jack Cust Baseball Academy was drafted!! Unreal, so much untapped potential there!

5:00 Time to wrap it up and get back to normal life. Round two starts at 5:15, and maybe Melville keeps slipping, but you have to figure he's going to UNC now unless somebody throws a huge bag of money at him.

I am glad espn devoted 4 hours to the draft, but they (and MLB) need to make improvements. I realize it's year two of televising this thing, but they should know how to put on a good production. Step one: note cards for Bud Selig. Or maybe dump Selig, one of the two.

To wrap it up, TGF says "it was a great experience and we'll be in Florida next year. I look forward to buying my Pedro Alvarez Pirates jersey. I learned a lot about myself today."

Thanks for joining us today, and even bigger thank you if you took the time out to read all this. You, and most importantly, we need a life.

'08 Draft Xtravaganza Hardcore Gangsta Pre-Game Show

Couple quick notes before talking about Eric Hosmer:

-Check out The Good Face and I for the second ever live-blogged event on bertflex.com! Here is the only picture of us that I could find together, from just a couple years ago. We'll be on for at least a couple hours, bringing you live draft coverage. It's not too often that guys like us refuse to be seen with dozens of hot, beautiful women for a prolonged period of time, but we'll be focusing all energy on the baseball draft later today.

-Future friend of the site Kevin Goldstein puts up a mock draft with plenty of inside info. He says the Cardinals will take Christian Friedrich LHP out of Eastern Kentucky. Hey that's what I said!! I is as smart as kavvin goldsteens. Side note: Hack, can you give us some analysis on Eastern KY? The Cardinals select 13th overall, then 39th as part of the Supplemental (known around here as Sandwich) round.

-Another Aaron Crow post over at Mizzourah.net. It's too bad Crow has been getting all the attention lately. Can you believe it's been, what...a month since a Mizzou athlete has gotten in trouble with the law? Don't tell me people have been busy studying. I know better than that.

-As our own Good Face pointed out a while back, today's Post-Dispatch article mentions that this is the highest the Cardinals have picked since taking Shaun Boyd 13th overall in 2000. Some guy named Chase Utley went to the Phillies at #15. By writing for this blog, Mizzourah, and InsideSTL, I have become more successful at life than Shaun Boyd. How 'bout a round of applause for me? Back to the article: Jeff Luhnow doesn't tip his hand much, and at least he doesn't say "we're looking to make a big splash" again. I was pumped up last year when that was quoted, followed by the Cardinals passing on Rick Porcello because of the price tag. (RP's been knocked around pretty good the past three games, nooo!)

I could go into a more detailed, hateful rant on the Cardinals' 2007 first round, but that's in the past. We get to live with Poopy Pete Kozma for the immediate future. Let's talk about this year's big prep hitter, and a guy I love (in baseball terms only...I think) Eric Hosmer:

A wise man once said "Hosmer is Polish for MASH." You'll find out why in a second. Here is another worthless MLB.com draft video. The first 20 seconds are of Hosmer adjusting his hat, then digging into the batters box twice. How can you not love the way this kid stands in the batters box?? Sign him up! They wrap it up by showing him field a soft grounder and tossing to the pitcher. Nice research guys.

On to the good stuff at youtube. Mmm, this one is mashy. Even better, one of the comments said Hosmer's school has the most arrogant fans in baseball. Awesome. Here is another bomb, where he appears to be reaching and hits it out, opposite field. I don't like the stroke as much there, though it looks like he was just waiting on the pitch and muscled it out. The third video is my favorite. That's how you rake, children.

I've seen reports (including the MLB.com video) saying that Hosmer is comparable to Casey Kotchman. I'm not buying it because Kotchman has clubbed a whopping 25 homers in nearly 1,000 career AB's, and is on a scorching 20 HR pace this year. They are very similar in height, weight, and left-handedness. And they both come from Florida High Schools. I haven't seen a ton of Casey Kotchman at-bats or clips over the years, but overall I like Hosmer's swing and feel there is way more power potential there than Kotchman.

As far as scouting goes, I suppose it's easy to throw a Kotchman comp out there now, and not act like a jackass proclaiming him to be a left-handed Derrek Lee or pre-07 Travis Hafner at the plate. But come on - his name begs us to call him "Hoss." We need to expect the world out of this guy and the time starts now!

Interestingly enough, Kotchman went 13th overall to the Angels back on '01, so hopefully some history repeats itself. Oops, there I go again, trying to imagine the dream-world where the Cardinals go over slot for a kid. Back to reality, college pitcher it is. I'm sticking to my guns; the Redbirds will take Friedrich.

See you later today.

'08 Draft Tidbits

-The Cardinals' Jeff Luhnow talked to Bernie and Randy on Team 1380 earlier today. You can listen to the interview here.

-Some jerk did a Cardinals draft preview on insidestl.com that no one read (except the writer and editor, allegedly).

-The CrowTracker 5000 is up on mizzourah.net. Internet Superstar HMW agrees with (almost) everyone else: Reds at #7 overall.

-Let's take a look at Eric Hosmer tomorrow (w/ lots of mashy video clips!).

2008 MLB Draft Xtravaganza!

For the past couple months, I've been wanting to boost our site's popularity, and here is a surefire way to kill that dream: talk about the Major League Baseball draft.

Truth is, a decent number of people out there actually do care about baseball's draft, but its popularity pales in comparison to the NBA Draft, let alone the NFL Draft, which is treated like a theoretical Olympic games with the Presidential election thrown in during the opening ceremonies, with hyped-up Star Wars trailers showing for commercials. That stuff is for serious journalism (tm) only, so I'll step aside and continue to talk MLB draft.

This year's draft can once again be seen on ESPN2, Thursday at 1pm. They will carry the first round on television, including sandwich picks (...mmm sandwich picks). The rest will be covered on mlb.com. The Good Face and I will be live-blogging this event, with instant analysis from Big Head, Sir, and maybe others if we're having a hard time coming up with something funny to say. This will be the second live-blogged event on bertflex; while the first one was quite memorable, technically it was "pre-recorded" as we did not enter our thoughts in real-time. On Thursday, we'll be off work, getting fat, and talking baseball here on the ol' bertflex.com.

Today is the first installment of our Draft Xtravaganza, and let's start by looking at who the Tampa Bay Rays will take with the first pick. Scanning the internet, it looks like it is down to three players: High School SS Tim Beckham, Florida St. C Buster "Busta" Posey, and Vanderbilt 3B/Good Face mancrush Pedro Alvarez. I've only seen a handful of clips of each guy, so let's defer to the actual "experts" and see what they say in their mock drafts:

Baseball America's Jim Callis (5/16): Beckham
ESPN's Keith Law (5/31): Posey
MLB.com's Jonathan Mayo (5/21): Beckham (but had Posey the week before)

Alvarez is a sleeper because he's considered "best player available," but by a slim margin. Even calling him that is debatable in some circles. I would join in that debate, but not when The Good Face is around, he'd slice me open if I said anything bad about Pete Alvarez. Reports say that Tampa is considering 5 players for the #1 pick: the three above, along with San Deeyago P Brian Matusz and high school C Kyle Skipworth. They are both long shots compared to the other three.

And your fun fact of the day, courtesy of FL newspaper The Ledger: The Rays will be the eighth team in the 44-year history of the draft to have a winning record while making the first pick.

For my bold prediction, I'm going to do a little extra mo' research on the fly. Here's Beckham's video on mlb.com. Everyone talks about how athletic he is, and that's great. But I don't like his swing in this clip. I think the one of him in the cage is alright, as he shifts his weight nicely. But the game videos don't look good, he's way out in front of both balls. Not a poopy swing by any means, it just looks a little wild to me.

Posey's video is horrible and purely worthless, unless you love foul balls. So let's try youtube. This is what I'm talking about. The crowd reaction is great. Also, here is a little interview CBS did with Busta after he played all nine positions in a game a few weeks ago.

And finally, Pedro Alvarez. I love his swing in the first clip, even though it looks like he missed it. Here is a youtube clip that is awesome on many levels. First, you have Vandy wearing the yellow on yellow uniforms (feat. pinstripes), then there's some jackass in the crowd doing the one-man "O-VER-RA-TED!" chant (it wasn't me guys, honest), he proceeds to hit the first pitch 10,000 feet, does a sweet mini bat flip, and stomps the shit out of home plate. I'm sold on Alvarez. (CBS also has an interview with Pedro here.)

My pick: Pedro Alvarez.

Tampa could use a position-scarce guy like Beckham or Posey, but you're an AL team in the East: go with the big bat. I am safe from the wrath of The Good Face for another day.

Other topics to discuss this week will include:
-The Aaron Crow watch (on mizzourah.net)
-How will the Cardinals piss off HMW this year?
-Why I love Eric Hosmer

When Making a List, Be Sure to Check It Twice

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, bless its heart, is trying to court readers like Hazelwood's Most Wanted and myself with some MLB draft coverage. I haven't seen alphabetization like this since Lurleen Lumpkin's appearance on "Ya-Hoo!"

FIVE FOR CARDS (listed alphabetically)

1. Aaron Hicks, OF/RHP, Wilson H.S., Long Beach, Calif.
BA says he's "the finest prep OF/P prospect in greater (LA) since Darryl Strawberry." Switch-hitter has speed on the bases and 94 mph on mound.

2. Jason Castro, C, Stanford
Lefthanded hitter improved at catcher, also played outfield and first base in summer ball. Big, athletic build and swing hints that power will improve.

3. Zach Collier, OF, Chino Hills (Calif.) H.S.
Young high-upside pick at 17, the lefthanded hitter has great speed and the kind of raw athleticism and tools that, as some say, "you can dream on."

4. Ethan Martin, RHP/3B, Stephens County H.S., Toccoa, Ga.
Pegged as a gritty, power-hitting infielder, Martin has also emerged as top-tier pitcher with mid-90s mph arm. One pick could get two-way talent.

5. Tim Melville, RHP, Holt H.S., Wentzville
Local standout is the top prep pitcher available in the draft with radar gun-grabbing velocity, plus curve, and bankable body type, at 6-5, 210 pounds.