Correct on Ankiel's being out of options, and how the question is moot for the moment since he was signed to a minor-league contract. Also correct that to call him up, we'd have to purchase his contract and put him on the 40-man roster - and to send him down again, he would indeed have to clear waivers. What this means is that if he gets called up, it'll be his final shot - because we won't be able to send him down without losing him, although you would think that if he was doing bad enough to be sent back down, nobody would put in a waiver claim on him.
Next winter, though, could be interesting - even being signed to a minor-league contract, he had 3.152 years of ML service time (time on the DL counts) and was actually arb-eligible; he'll still be arb-eligible this winter and I don't think - if he does well at Memphis this year and gets a September callup - that Boras will let him sign another minor-league contract. We'll see.
Taguchi, BTW, now has 3.079 years of ML service time (having spent most of 2002 and 2003 in the minors). He is arb-eligible (which is why the Cards non-tendered him and then re-signed him) and is also out of options. Which is too bad, since he doesn't have sufficient service time (you need 4 full years) to refuse an assignment to the minors; if he still had options left, they could send *him* down if they wanted to.