Another one of Ed Wade's relief pitcher resurrection projects. Wade actually is pretty successful at this. It's one of the things he does pretty well: identifying and taking relief pitchers off the reject pile and getting something out of them. Thompson was used a lot by Tony LaRussa over the years, mostly as a long reliever and spot starter. He is a 28 year old groundball pitcher who has been mediocre to bad over his career. My recollection is that some of the Cardinals' fans at vivaelbirdos.com nicknamed him "puppy-kicker." I guess that tells you how some of them felt after he had a bad performance.