Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Alec Burleson's Silver Slugger Award PROVES St. Louis Cardinals Have A Building Block Worth KEEPING

Starting point is 00:00:00 The St. Louis Cardinals already got gold this offseason, and now they've added some silver. Thanks to Alec Berlinson. You are Locked-on Cardinals, your daily St. Louis Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hello there, Cardinals fans. I'm J.D. Hafford, a former national radio sports anchor, born and raised in St. Louis, on a Lifetime Cardinals fan, and I'm your host for Lockdown Cardinals, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network covering your team every day. Big shout out to the everydayers for being here with us throughout the season and now into the off season.

Starting point is 00:00:38 For those of you who are new to the show, welcome in. We hope you enjoy the Cardinals content. This is a show serving Cardinal Nation and giving you all the info about the birds on the bat. Today's episode brought to by Fandall. Right now new customers can bet just $5. And if you bet when, you'll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. So download the app today. Today's episode, we finally got some roster news to go through a couple of

Starting point is 00:01:03 of guys got claimed by teams. Some guys have been sent away and will no longer be a part of this organization. And we also had an addition to the 40-man roster. But we started with the big news from Thursday night, Alec Berlson, aka Biscuits, is officially a Silver Slugger Award winner. Congratulations to biscuits, as we love to call him. We went through his stats after he got the nomination and barring some sort of catastrophic voting errors. It was almost certain that Alec was going to walk away with this award over fellow nominees in Britta Donovan, who also had a strong season for the Cardinals and the Padres. Jake Croninworth, Burley dominated them in almost every major statistical category and

Starting point is 00:01:50 scored himself some hardware, acknowledging him as one of the best hitters in the National League in 2025. That's what these awards are about. Burleson led the group in batting average, slugging, percentage OPS, OPS plus, that a 125 mark there. The dude was good. He was better than good. He was awesome.

Starting point is 00:02:09 The Silver Slugger Awards, in case you're not aware of, voted on by the MLB managers and coaches. It's not like, you know, the fans are putting votes in for this one. And it goes to the top offensive players at each position in both E&L and A.L. American League Silver Slugger Award winners will be announced tonight. But it goes to the three outfielder. You get the utility player, which is what Burley got. then there's an offensive team of the year in each league. In the NL, it was the Iraqis, Hunter Goodman and Catcher,

Starting point is 00:02:38 the Mets, Pete Alonzo at first, D-Backs, Cattel Marte at second base, Padres, Manny Machado at third. The D-Backs, Geraldo Pardomo at shortstop in the outfield. You had the Mets Juan Soto, the debacks Corbyn Carroll, and the Cubs, Cal Tucker. Then in a stunning upset, a D.H., the Dodgers show, Hey, O'Neck, takes home the award. Who saw that one coming? team winner went to the Dodgers. No shocker there either. And then you had Burley. Then you had Burley in the utility spot. Fourth year that the utility Silver Slugger has been awarded. And Burleson is the fourth different winner in the National League following Brandon Drury, who won with the Reds. But then we've turned it to the Padres of memory serves. Cody Bellinger, mooky bets. Pretty good games there. Burley had a great season, right? Stat wise hit 290, 18 dinger, 69 RBI.I.

Starting point is 00:03:28 nice and an 801 OPS. Cardinals first Silver Slugger award winner since Paul Goldschman and Nolan Aronado did it in 2022. Speaking of Goldie and Nato, I thought it was really cool that the Cardinals were able to get both of them on board. And they put together this congratulations video package for Burley that included both of them. Adam Wainwright did the intro and did most of the speaking. And then it was Ryan Ludwig at the very end to welcome Burley into the Silver Slugger. club as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals. I re-tweeted that video out last night. So you can check that on on YouTube if you haven't watched it already. Now, the first thing I noticed, if we can go back to the grouping of the winners here in the National League, the first thing I noticed about it, including Burley, is that a lot of these guys played on teams that didn't make the playoffs. Did you notice that? You had three Diamondbacks players, three of them. You had Alonzo and Soto for the You had Goodman for the Rockies and then Burley with the Cardinals. None of them were in the playoffs this year.

Starting point is 00:04:34 All that firepower for Arizona and in New York. And yet they were all at home on the couch, just like the Cardinals when the postseason began. I just kind of thought that was interesting. It just kind of shows you how important having both sides of the equation, both the hitting and the pitching is to being a playoff team. So for those of you out there that are like, Cardinals just need to get some headers.

Starting point is 00:04:59 They need to slug their way into the playoffs. Doesn't always work that way. Some more stats on Burley, courtesy of Daniel Guerrero, friend of the show from SCL Today.com, post-dispatch. In his third full season in the majors, after arriving in St. Louis has a late-season call-up from Class AAA Memphis in 2022, Burleson Batatitude 90, 3.43 on base percentage,

Starting point is 00:05:21 459 slugging percentage in 139 games, 18-Omer's doubled 26 times, produced 69 RBIs while playing first base, the corner outfield positions and serving as the D.H. Set career highs and batting average on base percentage, slugging percentage, doubles, held the 708 on base plus slugging percentage, the OPS against lefties after finishing 2024 with a 515 mark against them, which obviously is a big jump.

Starting point is 00:05:48 And that was one of the things coming into 2025 was can, can Alec Berlinson be in the lineup against lefties because he was so bad against them in 24 where as much as you wanted to put him in there is like, dude, he can't freaking hit him. Proved everybody wrong, including myself in 2025 that, yeah, give me some time, dude, I got this. I can hit the lefties. Ended up ranking in the top 15% of major league hitters for whiff rate and in the top 14% strikeout rate and top 18% for average exit below.

Starting point is 00:06:23 velocity per stat cast in a 91 game stretch from the start of June through the end of the regular season. He slashed 295, 351, and 483, really shining those final 67 at bats, hitting 313, slugging 507. And I said this when the season was ending, that Burley's strong season, it kind of snuck up on me, because he did get hot over, as you know, Guerrero pointed out over the last, what, 91 games of the season and was very hot in the final month. You had a lot of disappointment from the Cardinals in 2025. You know, there was the trade deadline when basically waving the white flag. You're trading pieces away.

Starting point is 00:07:07 You're like, we're done. That's a bummer. You had the inconsistent play of the team all around where for a few games, you're like, here we go. They're going to go on a run here. And then they would fall flat and lose the teams like the pirates and the rocket. and you're just like, what, what happened here? So you had the attendance plummeting.

Starting point is 00:07:28 Obviously, that was a big storyline because you would see Bush Stadium and it's just endless amounts of open seats, nobody coming out to the game. So you can see why, you know, maybe it was a little difficult to notice Burley's silver sparkle, if you will, through all the negativity in 2025. But he did it. He stayed true, was consistent and really came on. in the second half. So kudos to Alec Berlinson. So now you've got a gold glove winner and Mason win.

Starting point is 00:07:58 You've got the Silver Slugger in Burleson. Wins 23, Burley 26. Those are two nice pieces if you're a team that's rebuilding, right? You want to build around these guys, don't you think? And I know there's been discussion surrounding the possibility of trading away Alec Berluson. But if you're Hein Bloom, and if you believe this is not some flash in the pan season, and if you go look at Burley's history,

Starting point is 00:08:27 he has shown nothing but offensive success during his career. Batting title in the minor leagues was a good hitter in college, is now a very good hitter, a Silver Slug Award winning hitter in the major leagues. Shouldn't we be building around him? Unless you feel that this isn't real and that this is just the top it's going to get, it's never going to get better and you want to trade them now, which I don't understand why that would be the thing. Like, I want to keep these kind of guys around.

Starting point is 00:09:00 I want to keep the productive guys around. I had somebody in the comment section say, you wanted to trade him. I don't remember ever wanting to trade him. But if I did say that, then I'm wrong. I don't want to trade him. I want to build around him. I want Mason win and I want Burleson to go along with this current core that you

Starting point is 00:09:21 want to move forward with. Izzal Akevon Herrera and Victor Scott the second and J.J. Weatherholt. Hopefully, a resurgent Jordan Walker and Nolan Gorman. Pitching wise, Matthew Libertor, McGreevy, Calle, Liam Doyle, Matt Svonson, some of these other arms that are coming up. Like, this is your core moving forward. I don't know if trading burly is the answer here at his age and just at age 26 doing what he's doing. So it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me unless somebody's going to come at you with some mega package that you just can't turn down. But can you see anybody really doing that? Like I wouldn't think so.

Starting point is 00:10:01 So anyway, I would love to see him on the scene moving forward. I don't want to move him. If I ever said that in the past, I apologize. Cardinals did make some more roster moves on Thursday as well. Lost a couple of players on waivers that we need to talk about. One of them near and dear to my heart. we're going to go through those guys next coming up on Locked on Cardinals. This episode is brought to you by prize picks.

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Starting point is 00:11:51 MLB to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code Locked on MLB for $50 in lineups after your first $5 lineup. Price picks, it's good to be right. Thanks for making Locked on Cardinals for first listen every day. If you enjoy daily Cardinals content, you can follow the podcast on X at L-O-1-Dercardinals. We're on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram as well at Locked on Cardinals. Plenty of roster moves across Major League Baseball on Thursday, and the Cardinals had their fair share of moves.

Starting point is 00:12:24 but not many of them really affected the major league roster as much as they affected what's going on with the 40-man roster. Now, per John Denton at MLB.com, the cardals were looking to clear some space so they can protect some of their top minor league prospects from the Rule 5 draft, which is going to happen next month. Now, those who are unfamiliar, not everybody knows everything about these things. So the Rule 5 draft real quick allows clubs who don't have a full 40-man roster to select certain non-40-man players. from other clubs. Clubs draft in reverse order of the standings from the previous season. Not everybody selects anybody. You don't have to do that.

Starting point is 00:13:04 Players sign at age 18 or younger need to be added to their clubs, 40-man roster within five seasons or they become eligible for this draft. Players who signed at 19 or older need to be protected within four seasons. So that's why you see some of these guys who, you know, may have been signed in 18 and, you know, they're maybe in their fourth season now. and they haven't been, you know, added to the 40 men. Now you're seeing other clubs,

Starting point is 00:13:27 they're starting to make moves off their 40 man, moving people so that they can add these guys. Denton points out that the car goes, they got a lot of work to do, to be honest with you. They got until 5 p.m. Central Time on November 18th, create spaces for some of these guys. We've mentioned some of the dudes that they're going to be protecting for sure. Leonardo Bernal, their catcher, number four prospect,

Starting point is 00:13:48 according to MLB pipeline. He's a guy that's got to be added. Outfielder Joshua. who just had that huge breakout season with Springfield. He's got to be added. A pitcher Bryson Mott's, number 21 in the pipeline, got to be added as well. So those are three that are for sure going to be put on there. He also brings up guys like Pete Hanson.

Starting point is 00:14:07 He's a pitcher, third round pick back in 2022. Max Ratchik, a former minor league pitcher of the year for the Cardinals in their system. Those guys are the guys that he thinks both will get protected as well. He also points out that you've got to protect injured guys too. got to make some difficult choices. Takaa Robi, obviously, it was in line to be a huge piece of the puzzle. He got hurt last year. Tink Hint always seems to be hurt.

Starting point is 00:14:33 Cooper Jerpy coming back from an injury. That's your number 8, number 12, and number 13 guys in the pipeline. Sim Robbersa, number 28, another dude, injured. These are pitchers who suffered significant arm and shoulder injuries that could spill into the 2026 season. A lot of big prospect names right there that need. protection. So if you had to choose from those last, what, four, where it's Roby, Hence, Jerpy, Robesah, I think Robes says the odd man out, right? That's the one I'd cut bait with if I had to, but the rest of them, I am surely not ready to move on, even the off injured teen cancel.

Starting point is 00:15:11 I'm not ready to move on yet. Figure it out, but they're going to have to do something with these guys. Now, people did they move off the 40 man already, two names that were most familiar out of yesterday's movement was former first round pick, Zach Thompson, and then center fielder Michael Siani. That's right. Every dayers know about my love for one Michael Siani. My guy who once upon a time in 2024 had this gold glove caliber defensive season. I became enamored with the guy. I just loved his game in the outfield, played 124 games that season, made some incredible plays in center field. I, you. You loved it.

Starting point is 00:15:52 You loved the grit, the effort, the speed was all over the place. Part of the, he was part of the gold glove chatter for a while before he ended up getting hurt, if you remember. In fact, Denton pointed out that he ranked fifth in MLB in outs above average at 16 that season. The dude was really fun to watch in the field. At the plate, he was terrible. Dude couldn't hit a lick.

Starting point is 00:16:15 He batted just 228. Then last year, Victor Scott wins the job in spring training and rightfully so. and Siani was stuck in Memphis for most of the year. Now, being that Siani is a former Red, my wife is from Cincinnati Roots for the Reds. I rescued a legit game-used Michael Ciani jersey from when he was with the Reds. It was their city connect,

Starting point is 00:16:42 the black ones that they wear. I bought one of those from the Reds team store back in 2024. I was like, nobody is going to buy this. He's a Cardinal now. Cardle fan should have this jersey. So I still have that. And now he's gone. So now I don't know what the hell to do with it.

Starting point is 00:16:58 But the Atlanta Braves claimed him if you were wondering. So goodbye to you, Mr. Ciani. We will miss you. Thank you for the memories. Now as moving as that moment was with Ciani. This next one actually is a really sad tale of how injuries can derail a prospect's career. The Cardinals have outrighted pitcher Zach Thompson, the left-hander, who was the number 19 overall pick back

Starting point is 00:17:21 in 2019. Did not pitch it all last season, spent most of the year on the 60-day IL, twice shut down from throwing with pain in his left shoulder. I'm sure many of you remember the roller coaster that was his career where they take him out of Kentucky after he finished his junior year. He was six and one. He was a stud. 2.40 ERA and 14 starts. He struck out 130 hitters over 90 innings that year in college. So it was a big time prospect. came up to the big leagues and the Cardinals could not figure out what they wanted to do with them. Remember, they kept, they were like, you're going to be a starter. You're going to be a reliever.

Starting point is 00:17:59 And they just kept going back and forth, back and forth. And whether they want to admit it or not, I think that screwed him up mentally. I really did. They didn't know what they wanted to do. And then they started doing the same crap with Matthew Livertor. And I'm like, stop it. You guys just pick a lane for these guys and let him be. But he had that strong 2020 season where,

Starting point is 00:18:19 he was used as a reliever, right? And then they did the yo-yo thing with him in 2023. Numbers weren't as good. Injury started. And that was that. 52 career MLB games, 12 of them starts, 6 and 10, 4.50 ERA. And because I don't know whether I love the pain of it or just, you know, I like doing the research side of stuff, when any draft pick doesn't pan out, I like to go back and see who else is out there in the draft. that the birds could have had instead of Thompson. Next pick was the Seattle Mariners. They took George Kirby.

Starting point is 00:18:58 Yeah, that's a pretty good one. Anthony Volpe went to the Yankees at number 30. Michael Bush, who just hit nine home runs off the Cardinals last season with the Cubs, went number 31 to the Dodgers. Gunner Henderson was the first pick of the second round to the Baltimore Orioles at number 42. Ryan Nelson went to Arizona at number 56. He's been pretty good for them. Hunter Brown. How about Hunter Brown? Superstar with the Astros right now. He fell all the way to the fifth round. So it's not like the just Cardinals missed out on him. Everybody did. But could have what a should have, right? Could have would have should have. So you can do this every year with every team and every sport. But I love looking at drafts and all of the sports and reflecting on how many choices that the scouts and the decision makers who are these no-it-alls, how many of them they get wrong. It truly is a crapshoot.

Starting point is 00:19:50 in almost every draft and every sport. And when you hit, yay. When you don't, you're an idiot, right? So just injuries are a part of every sport. It's a shame when something like this happens, you know, like with Thompson, who clearly had talent and is cut down in his prime. He's only 28 years old.

Starting point is 00:20:09 And maybe somebody will take a chance on him, but that shoulder has just been a mess for a while now. More moves by the Cardinals. That ain't all. We got more. Another pitcher was claimed by a division rival, no less. We'll talk about that and wrap things up coming up next on Locked on Cardons. The NBA is back and there's no better place to get in on the action than Fandall, the official sports betting partner of the NBA, even if you miss the start of the game,

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Starting point is 00:21:48 Your first listen every day for your second listen. You can find Lockton MLB hosted by Sully, who brings you a daily blend of humor in baseball throughout this offseason. and I'm sure we'll have some crossovers with Sully at some point in the offseason. He can tell me all of the terrible things that the Cardinals have done over the past few years that we are regretting, right? You can find Locked on MLB on YouTube or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast.

Starting point is 00:22:10 So the next name that fans might recognize from this past year, pitcher Roderie Munoz, who was with the team after they claimed them off the Marlins. I think it was in November of last year, actually. He ended up getting claimed by the Cincinnati Reds who just love them. Some St. Louis left. every single year. They come dipping into the Cardinals pool. Like, ooh, who can we take?

Starting point is 00:22:32 Rarely doesn't work out for them. Sometimes it does. And his career, Munoz has thrown 93 and two-thirds innings between the Marlins and the Cardinals. 6.73 earned run average, 19.5% strikeout rate, but an 11.9% walk rate, 32.9% ground ball rate. Some of that's good. Some of that's not so good.

Starting point is 00:22:54 Solid arm. That was the one thing that is very, attractive about Roderie Munoz. He's got a great arm. But we were warned from our friends, Jeremiah and company over at Locked-on Marlins, that the dude has got control issues. And if he could ever figure out the control issues, then you might have something. Normally, he'd been a starter. The Cardinals tried him as a reliever instead because they didn't really need a starter last year because everybody was healthy. I know they weren't very good. Tossed 57 and two-thirds innings over 38 AAA appearances with a 3.28 ERA, 12.1% walk rate. Yeah, that's high.

Starting point is 00:23:28 Did punch out 30.8% of the batter's face. Ground balls on 47.8% of balls in play. Those last two stats are why the Cardinals were intrigued by him and we're like, okay, maybe we got something here. But he would get up to the big leagues and nothing would work. 8.18 ERA and 11 innings. And now he's out of option. So the Cardinals are like, well, time to move on, buddy, sorry. The club has also outright and left-hander Anthony Veniziano, making him a free agent as well. He appeared in two games for the Cardinals last year, made 10 appearances for Memphis, 4.38 ERA and 12 and the third class AAA innings.

Starting point is 00:24:07 Other moves included, this was an addition, infield or outfielder, Brian Torres, has been added to the 40-man roster, 28 years old, led the Cardinals Farm System and batting average this past year, 328. actually eight best in all of minor league baseball, led all minor league players with a 441 on base percentage. Yes, thank you. Can I have more? 9.05 OPS and 104 games for Memphis. He entered the offseason as a Rule 5 draft eligible if he had not been protected. So Cardinals obviously are like, no, no, no, we like what we got here. Join the Cardinals in 2024, spent two seasons in independent ball. And according to Daniel Guerrero was away from affiliated baseball.

Starting point is 00:24:50 before inking that minor league deal. Left-handed hitter has bet at 3.30 and posted a 428 on-base percentage in 224 games across AA and AAA. All he does is hit. The bulk of his innings defensively, according to Guerrero's second base, 973 fielding percentage. But all he does is hit. All he does is hit. So does he have a future?

Starting point is 00:25:15 Is he one of those late bloomer guys at age 28? I mean, who cares, right? If he can hit, he can hit. See what he's got. We'll see him in spring training. In other prospect news from the Arizona Falling, the Cardinals Chinway Lynn, Darlin Saladin, and Miguel Iguito, Ugueto, was named to the NL roster for the annual Fall Stars game in the Arizona Fall League. Chinway Lynn, obviously is somebody that is hard to miss, 6'7, 23 years old, not a great ERA, kind of ghastly. 8.68 and 9 in the third innings this fall he does have 14 strikeouts though according to guerrero he's going to be inactive for this game anyway so it does matter but he's somebody that you know the cardinals are hoping to make something out of out of Taiwan uh saladin 22 0.90 er a was 16 k's and 10 innings hello

Starting point is 00:26:05 would you like to come to our bullpen um uh uguito 23 years old owns a 33 batting average 3 73 on base percentage through 15 games uh The game is going to be on Sunday night in case you want to tune in for that. Other news, the Cardinals announced that they will be playing an exhibition game against the Class AA Springfield Cardinals on March 23rd at Hammonds Field in Springfield, Missouri, which will be their first visit since 2017. So Cardinal fans in Southern Missouri or in the area, maybe Arkansas, Oklahoma, whatever, you want to come up to see them, you can do that. So that'll take place on March 23rd.

Starting point is 00:26:45 I wonder, she's thinking out loud, does Liam Doyle get the nod in that game? Because I would guess he starts at Springfield this year. I would guess. But maybe he gets the nod against the Cardinals. And we can see what he's got against Major League hitters. We'll see. Thanks for making a lockdown cardinals your first listen every day. If you haven't already, please give us a follow on X at L.O underscore Cardinals.

Starting point is 00:27:09 And at JD Sports Radio, we're on TikTok and Instagram at Lockdown Cardinals. Please like, subscribe on YouTube. haven't already. We're now past the 13,000 subscriber threshold. Thank you very much. Gonna make our push. Now we gotta go to 14. Now we go to go to 15. Can we get the 15 before opening day? That's a hell of a goal. If we can do that, I'm taking you all out for steak dinners or Emo's pizza, whatever you guys want. We'll go, we'll go do it together. You guys are the best fans in baseball for a reason, and I'll see you next time on Locktown Cardinals.

Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Alec Burleson's Silver Slugger Award PROVES St. Louis Cardinals Have A Building Block Worth KEEPING

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