ST. LOUIS -- Having achieved two glamorous career goals in 2008, Yadier Molina has set his sights on a more prosaic one for 2009.

Molina, who won his first Gold Glove Award and hit .300 for the first time in 2008, just wants to stay healthy for the upcoming season. In each of the past two years, he's been limited at the end of the season by injuries. He shut it down due to knee surgery at the end of the '07 season, and recorded just one at-bat after Sept. 14, 2008, because of a thigh injury he sustained in a collision.

The latter was one of those occupational hazards, the kind of injury that just happens to catchers sometimes. But the 2007 injury might -- repeat, might -- have been preventable. So Molina has taken a step that he hopes will help him avoid things like knee injuries in '09. He lost weight this offseason -- about 10 or 15 pounds, he estimated at the recent Cardinals Care Winter Warm-Up.

"I've been working hard with my body, with my knees," he said. "I just want to play a full season healthy. I've been working with my trainer in Puerto Rico, Felix Molina. I'm just trying to be healthy this year, trying to finish the season. The full season."

Health was about the only area where Molina stumbled in 2008. He posted his best offensive season, batting .304 with a .349 on-base percentage and .392 slugging percentage. He walked more times than he struck out and drove in 56 runs. Defensively, some of his numbers fell off, but his reputation finally caught up to his brilliance as he secured his first Gold Glove Award.

When Molina got his first look at the award at the annual St. Louis Baseball Writers' Dinner, he beamed about as brightly as anyone in the room had ever seen. The Gold Glove Award has long been a goal of Molina's, and he probably deserved at least one before 2008.

"Finally," he said. "It feels good. It's been a long time. Finally, this year, I got it. I feel good. I feel so good."

If he's able to stay healthy and simply stay in the lineup, he has a good chance to pick up another one in 2009. Hence the weight loss. Molina expects to report to camp in fine shape, especially since he intends to don the catching equipment for the Puerto Rican team in the World Baseball Classic.

It will be a long year, so he'll need to be ready.

"Everything is 100 percent," he said. "I feel so good. I feel in better shape. I've been working hard with my trainer. Hopefully, this season I can be healthy. That's my goal, to be healthy all year."