Ron Shandler of Baseball HQ has been hired by the St. Louis Cardinals. While details remain murky, Ron has confirmed this on a story on his home page. Shandler follows Keith Law, Bill James, and one other from the pages of baseball writing to the front office. Ron will be the first "pure fantasy" guy to make it and with some of the St. Louis press (Jeff Gordon comes to mind), I doubt this will come off well at first. "A roto geek running our scouting department?" or something will kick in and of course, be wholly wrong.

I hope Ron's successful and wish him the best of luck. He's among the leaders in the field (even if he's not a big fan of mine) and he deserves the shot.