“Who would you get to replace him?”  I’d always get crickets when I said that.

I’ve heard former Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan talk about how this is one of the best game-callers he’s ever coached.  That’s the kind of stuff that can’t be replaced.  Yadier Molina blocked more pitches successfully in 2011 than any other catch in Major League Baseball.  That’s the kind of stuff that can’t be replaced.

Still not feeling better?  Well, let me try this.  This contract is being “tacked” on to the current contract.  How is that important?  Well, it means that if the numbers of the new contract are accurate, the Cardinals have Yadier Molina under contract for the next six years at an average annual value of $13.6 million.  Is that all that bad?  I don’t think so.  Hell, I didn’t think so before I did that math, let alone after.

Still not feeling better?  Alright, one more try.  This is the benefit of not being able to re-sign Albert Pujols!  You are able to pay to keep the nucleus of your team intact for a good amount of time.  I would expect some money to be thrown at one of the best defensive catchers in the game who, by the way, had his best year offensively as well (.305 BA, .814 OPS, 14 HR).  I would also expect, barring any setbacks, for some money to be thrown at Adam Wainwright, too.  If you think they’re overpaid, guess what, it was either that or overpay Pujols.

Pick your poison.

Just think, if you signed Albert Pujols, there were multiple people that weren’t going to be able to stick around.  People that you love.

Blues beat the Oilers 5-2, play for first in NHL tonight.

For the record, the Blues are now 11-7-3 on the road under Ken Hitchcock after the 5-2 win at Edmonton Wednesday night. I was labeled as a “juice box drinker” by more than a few critics for not jumping in their boat when the Blues were just 10-13-3 on the road overall before this six-game road swing began. Why? Because even though they weren’t scoring at a great clip away from Scottrade Center, their goaltending was still good and they were still finding a way to average at least a point in each road game during the “bad stretch.”

These days, I’m not hearing much from those critics after their fourth consecutive win on the road.

Granted, it’s not always pretty. Here’s a tip: it doesn’t have to be.

The tougher part for the Blues? Tonight’s opponent is Vancouver, the NHL’s leader in points. But this is easily the most excitement before a Blues game I’ve had all season. A win puts the Blues in first place in all of the NHL.

So much for the Blues needing to make a trade before the deadline.

With a win tonight, the Blues would be 1st overall in NHL at this point in season for first time since Mar. 4, 2000.  That team featured Chris Pronger, Pavol Demitra, Scott Young, Al MacInnis and Pierre Turgeon to name a few and would go on to win the President’s Trophy with a 114 point season.

 The Canucks are the highest-scoring team in the League with (204) goals, but it hasn’t seemed to matter.  Brian Elliott  has started all three meetings between the teams this season and has allowed five goals while winning twice.; they Blues are the stingiest defensive team, allowing 1.9 goals per game.  Jaroslav Halak and Brian Elliott both have 20 wins for the Blues, the first time in franchise history St. Louis has had more than one 20-game winner in goal.

Even cooler was head coach Rick Majerus in the postgame press conference.  He was moved to tears (and a runny nose) when talking with pride about how both of his seniors were graduating with honors, with one (Conklin) being an Academic All-American.  That gave Majerus more pride than I have ever heard him talk about when it came to an actual game.

The other thing was when he talked about Cassity specifically.  Cassity had been a starting the entire year up until the last eight games.  Majerus gave him the opportunity to start again last night, on Senior Night, and Cassity refused.  Majerus told us that Cassity had told him “I want to come off the bench.  I don’t want to mess anything up.”  This was a guy who went from being a regular starter, to being relegated to five minutes last night.

And it’s all good to him.

Like Bryan Burwell wrote in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch today, this was the kind of night that everybody at St. Louis University, administrators and donors alike, imagined when they broke ground on The Jewel of Midtown.

It made me a bigger fan of the Billikens than I already was, which means you’re going to have to sift through the current homerism, because I’m still going to set you straight, this team’s got a shot to make a run in the NCAA Tournament.

Mizzou takes on Iowa State tonight at Mizzou Arena in their own Senior Night.  Poor Iowa State.  They are picking a bad time to play the Tigers.  Missouri is in the middle of their first “losing streak” (if you call two games a losing streak). 

The last time Frank Haith’s ballclub played Iowa State, the Tigers were also coming off of a loss (their first of two to Kansas State).  Mizzou bounced back by going to Ames, Iowa and beating a very formidable Cyclones team by seven.  Now, the Tigers have lost two in a row, Iowa State now comes to Mizzou Arena and it’s Senior Night.  That’s not a good combination. 

I’d be stunned if this senior-laden team did anything but win by double digits tonight.

The Blues are rolling on the road, and they’re back at it tonight.  I’ve been defending the Blues more than they need to be defended about their play on the road.  They don’t need me to defend them, because they’ve been doing just fine. 

But here’s where it gets a little tougher.  You’re not only playing on the road (where you’re 13-13-3 on the road this season), but this begins a back-to-back for the Blues. St. Louis will try for its first four-game road winning streak since the 2008-09 season when it faces Edmonton tonight.  The Blues have used the first three games to pull into the Central Division lead. Edmonton is last in the Northwest Division (4-5-1 in their last ten games), but that could be deceiving as the Oilers have won three of four against playoff-quality opposition (Calgary: three points out of the playoffs, Philadelphia: firmly in playoffs and two points out of first place in the Atlantic Division, and Winnipeg: four points out of first place in the Southeast Division).

It’d be ideal to get a win over a team you should (keyword) beat.  Especially because tomorrow night’s game is at Vancouver.  The Canucks game, obviously, will not be easy.  Vancouver leads the NHL in points. 

But here’s the cool part about this: with wins the next two nights, the Blues will have the most points in all of the NHL.

Thanks for reading.

It’s not very often a team in the spot of the Rams can “play it for real,” without any smokescreens.  But in this particular instance, the Rams leaking to Adam Schefter and others that they are going to trade the second pick in this year’s NFL Draft as a beautiful public relations move.

Why play games?  In many other instances over the years, teams have screwed around with these types of situations.  Other teams in a similar situation would say “well, we may keep the pick.  We don’t know what we’ll do,” when many times I think a lot of us could see right through it.  It makes the team look silly, and it’s stupid for a team’s image.

In this case, at least to me, it’s obvious and it’s been obvious for awhile that the Rams are trading the pick.  Why screw around?  Especially after the show that Robert Griffin III put on at the NFL Scouting Combine.  The stock of RG3, the Baylor quarterback who will be selected second in this year’s NFL Draft by _____________ (fill-in-the-blank), won’t be any higher than what it was after his fantastic workout in Indianapolis.

The Rams, arguably, hold the most leverage in an NFL Draft that anyone has in a long time.  Everyone knows it, so let it be known.  If you are Kevin Demoff, make this a national story.  Drum up some good PR. Now, good PR isn’t worth a ton, because what really matters is how many wins you are going to accrue this year. 

But, it’s good for the fans, it’s more publicity for your franchise locally and nationally, and the sooner you’ve started the sweepstakes publicly, the more it’s possible that the price for that pick goes up.

Let the sweepstakes begin.

Do your research, find some value and give it a shot.  And now, I’m making Super Bowl future wagers.

So I came up with a formula using statistics garnered during the regular season and make my pick(s) before the playoffs begin.

For me, it’s ridiculous to just look at all 12 teams that are still alive and try to pick a team or two out of that bunch.  Instead, it’s a “process of elimination” for me, and I pick from the pool of teams that’s left at the end.

Here are the four statistical measurements:

1. Bad turnover margin.
In the last 20 years, only one team has won the Super Bowl with more giveaways than takeaways.  That team was the 2007 Giants with a remarkable -9 turnover margin.  The next lowest turnover margin to win the Super Bowl +2 (’95 Cowboys).
ELIMINATE ALL TEAMS WITH A TURNOVER MARGIN OF 0 OR LESS:
Bengals: 0
Saints: -3
Broncos: -11
Steelers: -13

2. Mediocre (or worse) quarterbacks.
In the last 20 years, only four QBs with a rating less than 90 have won a Super Bowl.  And in this pass-happy era of the NFL, a good QB becomes even that much more important.
ELIMINATE ALL TEAMS WITH A STARTING QB WHOSE RATING IS LESS THAN 90:
Broncos (Tebow): 72.9
Bengals (Dalton): 80.4
Ravens (Flacco): 80.9

(NOTE: if you see teams with a strikethrough, it means that even though they fit the criteria, they were eliminated in a previous category)

3. Bad Red Zone defenses.
Defense isn’t quite the prerequisite for a Lombardi Trophy like it used to be (the latest example is the 2009 New Orleans Saints who won the Super Bowl with a defense ranked 28th).  However, it’s very tough to win a championship if you can’t at least hold your opponent to a field goal or less on occasion when they get inside your 20-yard line.  In the last ten years, only two teams have won a Super Bowl while ranked in the bottom 25% in Red Zone defense.
ELIMINATE ALL TEAMS RANKED IN THE BOTTOM 25% IN RED ZONE DEFENSE:
Bengals: 25th
Saints: 28th

That didn’t eliminate any teams not already eliminated in previous categories, so that leaves us with one final eliminator.

4. Bad Red Zone offenses.
Much like No. 3, the “offense first” league that this has become almost mandates that you have to punch it into the end zone.  No, you don’t have to do it all of the time.  You can get away with settling for a field goal every now and again.  But, you can’t settle too often.  In fact, only one team in the last decade has won a Super Bowl while ranked in the bottom half of the league in Red Zone offense.
ELIMINATE ALL TEAMS RANKED IN THE BOTTOM HALF IN RED ZONE OFFENSE:
Ravens: 17th
Steelers: 18th
Broncos: 23rd
Texans: 25th
Bengals: 26th
49ers: 30th

So, that eliminates seven teams and leaves us with five.  Here are those five with their pre-playoff odds to win the Super Bowl:
Packers: 9/5
Patriots: 4/1
Giants: 18/1
Falcons: 35/1
Lions: 40/1

You’re obviously not going to get much value out of the AFC and NFC favorites, so I scratch them off of my list immediately.

That leaves me with the New York Giants as the next best bet, of the teams that met my criteria, to win the Super Bowl according to Vegas.

Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I ride that bet all the way to the Super Bowl.  If they pull off a couple of wins in the playoffs, then I’ll start to hedge the bet so I can cover myself against any loss and hopefully make some sort of profit (UPDATE: with the Giants’ win at the Packers in the NFC Divisional Round, the time to hedge has arrived).

Let me know what you think about the idea and good luck!

Here’s some good stuff from RJ Bell of Pregame.com (@RJinVegas).

Patriots 14-point favorites hosting Broncos
Biggest NFL playoff line since the Patriots were 14.5-point favorites over Chargers in 2007.

First Broncos vs. Patriots meeting was the biggest bet game of the NFL regular season,
with OVER ONE BILLION DOLLARS of worldwide action estimated on that game
(5-times the typical NFL regular season match-up)

1998 was the last time a team OTHER THAN the Patriots
were favored by two touchdowns or more in the NFL playoffs
(Vikings -16.5 vs. Cardinals in 1998 playoffs)

14-point or greater playoff underdogs have won only 1 of 9 games (since 1978)
Patriots +14 defeated St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI

Tim Tebow props:
Rushing yards: over/under 55
Completions: over/under 11.5
Passing yards: over/under 190 yards
25 to 1 against having the most passing yards of all QBs this weekend ($100 wins $2,500)

Saints 4-point favorites at 49ers
Only SECOND road favorite in Divisional Round of playoffs since 1982
(Other: Cowboys -3.5 at Carolina in 1996)

Baltimore 7.5-point favorites hosting Texans

Packers 7.5-point favorites hosting Giants

Updated Super Bowl odds:
$100 on team wins . . .
Packers: +$180 (31% chance)
Patriots: +$300 (22% chance)
Saints: +$400 (17% chance)
Ravens: +$700 (11% chance)
49ers +$1200 (7% chance)
Giants +$1200 (7% chance)
Texans +$2500 (3.5% chance)
Broncos +$6500 (1.5% chance)

That being said, I’m giving you a list of the apps I love (and use) the most KNOWING that it will be outdated before I can press “publish” on this post.

1. Twitter - Every morning when I get up, I roll over in bed and grab my phone and immediately scroll through Twitter. I “favorite” tweets that have links to stories that I want to read once I get to the office and respond to people who sent me tweets after I fell asleep.  It’s my morning newspaper, it’s my avenue to people who share the same interests as me.  It’s my connection to… well… everything.

2. Facebook - It’s a DISTANT 2nd.  If I use Twitter more for sports and professional stuff (and I do), then Facebook is more my personal social outlet.  I like it to keep up with friends… especially now that I moved away from a place I called home for over 20 years.

3. TuneIn/Instacast - I put these together because they basically serve the same purpose, at least for me.  TuneIn is an app that will connect you to a live stream of basically any radio station in the country that has a live stream.  Instacast keeps track of the podcasts I like to listen to and I can have them streamed without having to download them from iTunes.  I’ve got a phone charger in my car that also doubles as an FM transmitter.  If I’m in my car, I’ve usually got one of these apps on if I’m not listening to the station I work for (101 ESPN in St. Louis… shameless plug).  These apps are also in use while I’m at the gym, walking my dog, or anywhere else where I have my headphones on.

4. ESPN (webapp) – To me, the ESPN ScoreTracker app pales in comparison to the mobile version of ESPN.com.  So much so that I created a shortcut to the site on my phone so that it looks like a regular app.

5. Words With Friends/Hanging With Friends - Yep, I like scrabble, and that’s what Words With Friends is. I like playing it on my phone.  Don’t judge me.  Hanging With Friends is a version of Hangman.

6. Evernote - Anytime a thought pops into my head (usually work-related), I jump on my Evernote app and type it in.  I’m kind of anal about interviewing on the radio and I want to be good at it, so any time I think of a cool outside-the-box-but-still-relevant question, I know I’ll forget it if I don’t put it somewhere.  Evernote is that spot.  It’s got it’s own “cloud”, too.  So I can type a note on my phone and go grab it (and print) from my desktop, laptop, whatever.

7. Spotify - I pay $9.99/month for basically every song ever made.  Any mood I’m in, it gets fixed with Spotify.  No need to pay $.99 for each song I prefer.  And with Pandora or Slacker, I don’t get the exact song I want each time and I can never skip.  This is the best $10 I spend each month.

Honorable Mention: Flipboard (iPhone and iPad), Mint, Flick Field Goal, Flick Golf, Kindle, Dropbox.

You’ve probably got something that I’m missing.  Let me know what you got!

I NEED TO KNOW… SERIOUSLY.  Feed my addiction.