Like most fans, I enjoy a spirited Spring Training competition. Non-roster invitees, young upstarts, and the previous year’s hangers-on engage in friendly warfare for what usually figure to be 2 or three “TBD” slots on a team’s bench, bullpen, or the back of the starting rotation. For this year’s defending National League champs, there could conceivably be only one (or none) as-yet-spoken-for job to win in Florida this spring, and one of those on the outside looking in figures to be a player who appeared in all but 19 games for the Cards in 2013.

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