I'm not going to even try to imagine why, at this point, but with the MLB Winter Meetings just a weekend away it's clear that Cardinals fans will be spending most of the meetings waiting for the show with Brendan Ryan underneath it to drop, now that Ryan Theriot's installed at shortstop. If the Cardinals come out of the meetings having traded Brendan Ryan without upgrading at second base John Mozeliak will, in all likelihood, have managed to downgrade the team. If they trade Brendan Ryan while upgrading at second base I'll feel worse about being angry, but I still will be.
↵Right now the Cardinals are unequivocally misusing their middle infield resources, however meager those might be. Since Ryan appears, somehow, to have burned some bridges, the only way around that is going to be finding a player who's as much of an upgrade at second base as moving Theriot to second and keeping Ryan at short would have been.
↵That's job one for Mozeliak at the Winter Meetings. It shouldn't be as difficult as it might end up—of course, it shouldn't be as difficult as it is now.
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