Several teams have expressed interest in soon-to-be 35 year-old Cardinals closer Jason Isringhausen. However, as a 10-and-5 player, Izzy has earned the right to veto any trade. He’s prepared to exercise that right.
According to Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Isringhausen told the Cardinals he would not waive his no-trade clause and wants to finish his career in St. Louis. He said as much publicly, too. 300 career saves might be a goal; he’s at 269 now.
Isringhausen’s career was nearly left for dead in September of ’06, when he elected to have surgery for his degenerative hip condition. He’s silenced that talk with a 1.45 ERA and 20 saves so far this year. It would be absurd if the Cardinals didn’t exercise his $8MM option for ’08. I could even see them renegotiating and extending as they did with Jim Edmonds (if they haven’t learned their lesson).