Glaus to miss three months

St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Troy Glaus is expected to miss the next three months after getting arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder.

This will cause Glaus to miss opening day, which begs the question: Why the hell did he wait until the middle of January to get surgery?

Glaus' backup is unclear at this point, but it's expected to be a four horse race at this point between Brett Wallace, David Freese, Brendan Ryan and Joe Mather.

First off, if Brendan Ryan is an opening day starter for the Cardinals, I'm going to blow a fuse. Last season, he hit .244 in 197 at-bats with 30 runs, 10 rbis and ZERO home runs. That's unacceptable for a starting MLB third baseman.

I'm not real high on the Mather bandwagon as well. In 133 at-bats last season, he hit .241 with eight home runs and 18 rbis, but did that while playing in the outfield. Would he be a defensive reliability at third base? His numbers a slightly better than Ryan's, but still not starting quality.

David Freese is a bit more intreaguing. The 26-year-old, who came to St. Louis from San Diego in the Jim Edmonds deal, hit .306 with 26 home runs and 91 rbis in 464 at-bats last season in Triple-A Memphis. I think Freese will be a very good MLB third basemen, but he's not quite my pick.

That brings me to Brett Wallace. The 2008 first round draft pick of the Cardinals hit a combined .337 between Class A and Double-A with eight home runs and 36 rbis in 202 at-bats. While his defense can be suspect, this is going to be just the 22-year-old's third year playing third base, Wallace is the Cardinals third baseman of the future and they need to get him some MLB experience at the position since this is the last year of Glaus' contract.