The St. Louis Cardinals traded Tyler Greene Thursday, ending his undistinguished Cardinals career a day after his error opened the floodgates in a blowout loss to the San Francisco Giants. You may feel okay about that now, even happy, but allow me to warn you: This could mean the return of Pete Kozma. And there are a lot of things I don't know, but I do know this: Tyler Greene is a better baseball player than Pete Kozma.

Kozma, the Cardinals' first-rounder in 2007, has earned a lot of ire for reasons beyond his control; he didn't ask to be drafted in the first round, or before Rick Porcello. But in 223 games at AAA Memphis he's a career .223/.286/.324 hitter. For reference, Tyler Greene is a .218/.295/.329 hitter in 227 games in the major leagues, where he was just booed out of Busch Stadium.

The other option is Ryan Jackson, the Cardinals' top shortstop prospect, whose defense is supposed to be outstanding, if not quite Brendan-Ryan-like. He'd be a better option than Kozma, and possibly a better option than Greene (he's not much of a hitter), but I'm not sure it makes sense for him to rot on the bench quite like it did for Greene, especially when he'd be mostly playing second base.

Of course, if Rafael Furcal's health problems continue their intermittent flare-ups, he could get more playing time than anybody bargained for.