The Watch List: Local sports stories to keep an eye on in the coming week

Cardinals Rumor mill

The baseball scuttlebutt website, mlbtraderumors.com, reported that the St. Louis Cardinals are in talks with the Tampa Bay Rays over a starting pitcher. The site further speculated that pitcher could be Highland native Jake Odorizzi. There was no speculation, however, as to who exactly the Cardinals would offer up in trade. Odorizzi was a first-round pick of the Milwaukee Brewers straight out of Highland High School, where he pitched the Bulldogs to a state baseball championship. He was traded to Kansas City in 2010 as part of a package deal that helped the Brewers land Zack Greinke. Almost two years do the day later, Odorizzi was flipped to Tampa Bay as part of another multi-player deal that brought James Shields to the Royals. Since making is big league debut in 2012, Odorizzi, 25, is 20-24 with a 3.77 ERA. He was 9-9 with a 3.35 ERA last season while striking out 150 batters in 169.1 innings. He would be a good fit to replace innings-eater Lance Lynn, who will miss all of the 2016 season with Tommy John surgery. The Dodgers also are rumored to be in the bidding for Odorizzi’s services. Are the rumors true and what will it cost the Cardinals?

Next Stadium Steps

The effort to build a new stadium for NFL football and MLS soccer an the St. Louis north riverfront cleared another major hurdle Friday when the board of alderman passed the city's share of the financing. Observers proclaim themselves in the dark as to which way the NFL is going to swing, however, in addressing its desire to locate a team in Los Angeles, the country's second largest market. The stadium task established by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and headed up by David Peacock, has until Dec. 30 to submitt its formal proposal on behalf of St. Louis to the NFL owners. Owners are exptected to make its decision between the new stadium, Rams' owner Stan Kroenke's proposed stadium in Inglewood, Calif., or a joint venture between the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders for a stadium in the LA suburb of Carson. The next three weeks will bring developments and clues as to what may happen. Stay tuned.

The Mute Before the Madness

Any high school basketball played between Thanksgiving and the Christmas break is a mere teaser to the madness of holiday hoops tournaments. Call this week the calm before the storm. Meto-east teams will be playing at Breese, Carlinville, Centralia, Collinsville, Columbia, Decatur, Freeburg, Lebanon, Sesser, Vandalia and Wesclin. Most teams will take the week off, but there are still some games to be played. Monday and Tuesday includes a full slate of small school boys and girls games.

Cougars in So. Cal.

A tough non-conference schedule continues for the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville men's basketball team when the Cougars travel west for their first-ever game with Pac-10 power, University of Southern California. The game will tip off at 10 p.m. central time Monday. The Cougars are 3-7, but have won consecutive games since upsetting their sister-school Salukis in Carbondale. That was followed up with a come-from-behind win over Portland State, Dec. 12. SIUE is in the midst of their longest break of the season, a nine-day respite for finals. Five players from USC, 9-2, average in double figures.

This story was originally published December 20, 2015 at 7:08 PM with the headline "The Watch List: Local sports stories to keep an eye on in the coming week."