Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Cardinals Offense Still Isn't Clicking

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

- What's Up With The Offense? - Miles Mikolas - Tekoah Roby - Opening Day Roster Projections Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms… 🎧 https://link.chtbl.com/LOSTLCardinals?sid=YouTube Locked On MLB League-Wide: Every Team, Prospects & More 🎧 https://linktr.ee/LockedOnMLB Follow on Twitter/X: @JDSPORTSRADIO Follow the show on Twitter/X: @LO_Cardinals Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Wonderful Pistachios Looking for a snack that’s both delicious and nutritious? Get snackin’ and get crackin’ with the snack that packs a protein punch. Visit WonderfulPistachios.com to learn more. FanDuel Right now, new FanDuel customers can get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in Bonus Bets if your first FIVE DOLLAR bet wins!Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) #ForTheLou #stlcards #mlb #lockedoncardinals Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The St. Louis Cardinals' bats go silent again as they fall to the bats. Plus, what are the latest opening day roster projections looking like? This is Locked on Cardinals. You are Locked on Cardinals. Your daily St. Louis Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey there, Cardinals. I'm J.D. Hapton and I'm your host for Locktown Cardinals.

Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network covering your team every day. You can follow me on X at JD Sports Radio as well. is the podcast at L.O. underscore Cardinals. We're on YouTube. Be sure to like, subscribe, and comment and hit that notification button so you know when new episodes and shorts are posted. And also available on TikTok and Instagram at Locked on Cardinals. This is a show serving Cardinal Nation and giving the best fans in baseball all of the info about the birds on the bat. Now, stop me if you've heard this before. The Cardinals offense, P.U. stinks because it did today. And I know that these games don't necessarily count.

17 and 7. They won the Great Fruit League in 2023. Then went on to finish in last place in the division. I know that. But isn't it more fun to win, no matter when it happens? And isn't it more fun to actually hit the baseball and score runs, no matter when it happens? And on Wednesday, we got neither of those things from the Cardinals' offense.

The Met said, Paul Blackburn on the mountain, a season veteran, a guy that I've been a big fan of for a number of years. For a couple of years now, I've said, if the Cardinals can get a guy that, you know, is a veteran guy that, you know, a very cardinal type of move, go get a guy who's a little bit older, but still has a lot to offer. This was a guy that I always wanted them to go out and get when he was with the Oakland A's. great arsenal of pitches, a lot of movement. And when he's on, he's really freaking good. He really is Wednesday. He was really freaking good.

He was tossing four perfect endings before they finally pulled him. I shouldn't say finally pulled him, but when they pulled him, struck out too in the process. The game was not televised. So I can't tell you exactly what was happening with each at bat. But the cardals were definitely being aggressive, as I was listening to the broadcast. They were swinging early in counts for whatever reason.

Blackburn's pitch total through four innings, 37 pitches, 37 pitches, 26 of them were to strikes. The Cardinals made outs on the first pitch three times against him, which if you're in every day, you already know, drives me up a freaking wall. Now being that at spring training, Maybe, just maybe. It's something that they were working on to see if they could, you know, jump on a first pitch from Blackburn.

But most of these guys that the Cardinals have in today's lineup are not good enough to be trying to ambush pitchers, much less a guy like Blackburn who throws six different pitches. I don't know if he threw them all today, But normally he throws six different pitches that are darting in and out and going down. And like, that's why I love him. That's why I love him. And when he's healthy, he's so good.

Now, if you want to try to ambush, say, a closer or a reliever, one of those guys that throws two, maybe three pitches, I can understand that. I really can. But I'll never understand it against a guy, specifically starters. that they face that has a lot of pitches, has a lot of variety. Because the odds are you're going to guess wrong of what the hell he's going to throw to you. Now, if he does throw a meatball right over the middle, yeah, swing. I get it.

I understand that. Don't take a batting practice fastball for a strike just because it's the first pitch. They'll tell you, too, like the first pitch might be the best pitch you get. Sure, it could be. But Mason wins first step. bat, fastball, outer half, he flies out. Similar pitch for Pedro Pahez, who lined out to center field. Now granted, Pedro, Petey, 1-02.3 off the bat, so no cheapie. He lined out to center field, smacked a pretty darn good. Then there was a cutter on the hands of Brennan Donovan.

Cutter, inside. Grounds out the first base. Why are we swinging at that? Why is that the pitch? I guess you got fooled. I don't know. But it didn't really matter. To be honest with you, I'm just nitpicking here because these are spring training games and we got to talk about something. And those are things that bother me. But it didn't really matter because the guys, when they did swing today, first pitch, fourth pit, whatever it was, it didn't really matter because they weren't finding holes anyway. It was one of those days. So I guess my question is, when is it too early to start? worrying about some of these guys. You know, I don't want to jump the gun or anything. I know it's

March 12th. We're not even the St. Paddy's Day yet. Can we be freaking out yet? I don't think so. But real games are starting in two weeks. And some of these guys have found very little success. I just want to see some sort of positivity for some of these guys that have been struggling. You know, we're seeing it out of Nolan Gorman now, which it makes me happy. I like to see that he's taking better at bats. We're not seeing, you know, the power numbers or anything blow up yet. He's only got one thus far. But we're seeing the strikeouts drop, which is great news.

Mason Wend goes over three today. His batting average is now under 100. He's batting 94 this spring. And he's walked only three times, but he struck out 10 in 30. two at bats. That's 31% of the time. If we're going to make fun of Nolan Gorman and bitch and moan about his strikeout rate, you got to look at what Mason Wynn has done this spring and go, uh, yo, aren't you our lead off hitter? You can't be doing that. I mean, these are not exactly lead off hitter type of stats, are they? And I've seen people discussing whether or not he should be

batting lead off. Maybe he shouldn't. He also has no extra base. hits and no RBI's. It's just been a really, really, really tough start for Mason win. Now, it doesn't seem like his confidence is lacking or anything like that. He believes in himself and thinks he'll get things going, but I got to point it out. Brennan Donovan, O for three. He's down to 130. Has one RBI this spring, has only walked twice, has zero home runs. One of the more dependable guys in your lineup last year. Uh-oh. No one are an auto. O'Fer, three. He's down to a buck 33. Hasn't had a hit in his last five games, over 13 at bats.

We keep talking about, you know, he looks in shape and everything and seems like he's fine. I don't know. We're not getting the results so far. Out of like, you know, other than like two games, we haven't really seen that much from Nolan or Arnado at the plate. Michael Siani, 0 for 3, two more strikeouts today. is now hitting 36 with 10 strikeouts in 28 at bats. No stolen bases. And I get it.

It's hard to steal when you can't even get on first base, but that's part of his game. That's part of the positives about having a Michael Ciani around is he is a stolen base threat. Not getting on base, not putting the ball in play. Pedro Pahas had the double to break up the perfect game today. he's hitting a buck 90 one rbi and i know his game is based on the defensive skills that's that's his strong points but as i've said before i mean you can't have guys like siani and pahez who are both very strong defensively and that's what they're supposed to be good at but you can't have these

guys give you almost nothing at the plate you just can't have that again like you did last year. They can't be everyday starters if they can't hit. You just can't do it. Bench guys, sure. They cannot be starters. And again, I know it's spring training and we aren't supposed to freak out about these things. And I'm not. I just, I get frustrated about it because I want them to do well. I want everybody to hit 500 and be great. I know it's impossible. but I can be a little worried when we're two weeks out. And, you know, some of these guys are the main guys of your lineup. And they're not doing anything.

Like the Mason win, Aronado, and Brennan Donovan. Those are important pieces that you haven't seen hardly anything out of yet this spring. Now, in the next two weeks, they could get hot as lava and go on a tear and be amazing starting opening day. Cool. But they haven't done it yet. that's why we bring it up. And then you've got some guys, like I mentioned, Siani Pahas, who weren't very good last year with the bat

and are struggling to get. And it's hard not to have a little PTSD about it all. You know, I'm glad Gorman is progressing, but we aren't seeing anything great out of him yet. Jordan Walker's been hurt, so it's hard to get upset with anything he's doing. But, you know, these are all these, the question marks coming into the season are still the question marks. There's nothing we've seen from the offense of guys yet that, you know, we're not good last year and we're hoping we'll bounce

back this year. So far, none of them have really bounced back yet. So it makes me a little nervous. Makes me a little nervous. I again, not freaking out. Just saying. A guy who didn't do too shabby today, though, Miles Michaelis. We're going to talk about him and the pitching performance today because those guys pretty good. We'll get into that next on Locked on Cardinals. Looking for a snack that's both delicious and nutritious. I'll stop you right there because we got one for you. Crack into a good source of protein with wonderful pistachios.

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and get cracking. With the snack, the packs of protein punch, visit wonderful pistachios.com to learn more. Thank you again for making it locked on Carlos your first list every day. Leave your comments on YouTube as well as on X anytime you want your feedback is always welcome and encourage. We've got a couple of poll questions up on X as well as on YouTube. I'm starting to utilize that a little bit, getting some pretty good feedback from people on the YouTube voting process. So if you haven't seen those posts yet, talking about the offense and how worried you are. We're using this whole DEFCON thing. DefCon 5 is where you're not worried so much.

DefCon 3, you're feeling it a little bit. And then DefCon 1 where you're freaking out. So let me know your votes by going on to our X or YouTube pages and get your voice heard. Miles Michaelis has not been very good over the past two seasons. All right. I am one of those people who has torn him to shreds on this podcast. because just look at the numbers. They just haven't been good.

Miles will be the first one to tell you he hasn't been good. He's a very hitable pitcher who is around the zone so much that it hurts him. It's to his detriment because his stuff isn't elite stuff and doesn't move enough to miss bats. And if they don't hit it hard, that's the problem is that like they don't miss the bat altogether. even if they don't hit it hard, it seems to find grass. Like he has some bad luck, it seems to me, just eyeballing. And I don't have stats on like soft contact hits, but miles always, every outing, it seems like he gets shredded by little bloopers and dinkers that like if the shift is on,

it'll go just to that portion of the grass where nobody can get to it. Or it just floats over the out, the infield. Like it's just little things like that. And then one big bomb later, and it's three, four, nothing, and then you're in trouble. Even when he makes good pitches. Like, it just seems like they drop in somewhere. So, again, sometimes could be just bad luck. A lot of times, really it would be his fault.

He would catch too much of the plate. His location would be off and he'd get burned by it. He's always going to give up hits. Like he's not a no-hitter type of guy because he doesn't strike enough people out. But I still will say, when he's right, And if you catch Miles Michaelis on a day where he's feeling really, really good, the location is where it needs to be. He's one of the more fun pitchers to watch on this staff because he is a pitcher.

He's not a thrower. He can't gun it past hitters at 99 and 100. He doesn't have a wipeout slider. He doesn't have like a vanishing splitter or some amazing changeup. He just has to hit his spots to be successful. And he knows that. And Wednesday was a good day for miles. He was hitting his spots for the most part.

Five innings, five hits. Like he's, the whip is always going to be a little high because of the hits. It doesn't walk a lot of people. He did walk one today. Three strikeouts gives up the one run. And he did it against a lot of the Mets top guys. You know, their main dudes were in the lineup today. Lindor, Soto, Alonzo, Bento, Marte, Winker.

By the way, is Jesse Winker a sneaky? fantasy guy this year. I don't know if you've noticed, but I've seen them batting clean up a few times already this spring where they kind of, where they go Lindor, Switchitter, Soto, Lefty, Alonzo Ritey, back to Winker, a lefty. And I'm sure that's going to be against right-hand starters. I doubt it would be against the lefties. But sneaky guy sitting behind the big three in the Mets order. So just kind of putting that out there for my fantasy people. But I want to give credit to Miles Michaelis today. Had a good day. Had a good day for Miles, and you love to see it.

You know, I love the positivity that we can get, especially after the absolute poop show that we got from the last three starters. And Palante Gray and Fetty, who probably all woke up the next day after they pitched with stiff necks from having to turn around and watch their pitches get laced all over the yard, the last three games. It's been really, really rough for those three guys. So Michael is coming in, throwing strikes, getting people out.

Good for you. Good for you. A big shout out to Tukoa Roby, who came in relief today. Goes two winnings. He strikes out four. Granted, he only faced Alonzo out of kind of like the big hitters that were still in the game at the time. But got him to ground out. But impressive numbers.

Impressive numbers after a rough outting for him, his last time out. Roby this spring is now at nine innings. Three earned runs on six hits. One of those was a home run, which was in the last outing. Has hit a guy, two walks, but he's tied for the team-leaded strikeouts with Jojo Romero. at 10. But if you thought he was going to have an outside shot at making this team, you would be wrong because after the game today, the Cardinals did option him to AAA Memphis. Or do they go double A spring? It said AAA Springfield, I think, but it's supposed to be Memphis.

I'm pretty sure it's Memphis. Anyway, I know some fans want to or wanted to see him as perhaps a reliever with the big club this year, but I've always. been for keeping him on his path as a starter. If he can stay healthy, which has really been the problem for Tocoa Robi. It's, again, it's not that he doesn't have good stuff. It's trying to keep him on the field. But if you keep him healthy and he comes in with the stuff, you've seen him with this spring.

Like how good of a combination, if you keep him as a starter, would it be if you could roll out in two years, Quinn Matthews, Ticoa Robey, Tink Hens, along with Palante, McGreevy, maybe Matthew Libertor at the time. I mean, that's a lot of really good young arms that could make up the Cardinal starting rotation. But we'll see. We'll see. John King also had a shutout inning today other than his one rough outing against the Marlins. King has been steady.

A piece of that Rangers, the Montgomery trade with Chris Stratton coming back that, you know, not a lot of people thought much about. And he's been really good for the Cardinals since he got into a Cardinal uniform. So another shoutout inning for him today. The other one of the Mets did get was on a home run in the ninth inning against Michael Gomez, but he's not somebody that you really need to be worried about right now. So who should you be worried about right now as far as like, who are the guys that are going to be on this opening day roster?

Who is projected to be on this opening day roster after today? I'm going to tell you what one reporter thinks that's next on Locked on Cardinals. Get the supplies you need from the site made for the skilled trades. Supply house, whether you're in plumbing, HVAC, or electrical work. Supply house is the reliable way to order products online. They're easy to use website. It's packed with helpful resources and the latest product information. They help you get the job done right.

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Join the Trademaster program today at Supplyhouse.com slash PEM and start ordering plumbing, HVAC, and electrical supplies with just a few clicks. Plus use promo code SH5 for 5% off your first order. That's Supplyhouse.com. Thanks for making Locktown Cardinals your first list in today for your second list. And I encourage you to go find our guy Sully over at Lockdown MLB with a daily blend of humor in baseball. the guy is entertaining. He's going to talk about all the teams during spring training. He'll bring up the Cardinals,

but he's going to talk about everybody. So if you're interested in what's going on around the league, locked on MLB is where you can go. You can find it on YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcast. All right, John, excuse me, John Denton from MLB.com, covers the Cardinals from MLB.com. I'm sure you're very familiar with them. Released his latest opening day roster projections for the Cardinals.

released it. He's went and so he left Tuesday. So he put it out Tuesday. Here's what he got so far. And this is before today's game, but it doesn't really alter anything that he put here. At catcher, he's got Ivan Herrera and Pedro Paix, no surprises there. Herrera, for me, at least, he doesn't list who he thinks the starter should be.

He does mention Herrera being the better hitter. Paa has needs to be better offensively if he wants to play more. but that's how I feel too. Herrera should be the starter because of the offensive capabilities. I know it's tough watching him throw the ball to second base. Not great. He's working on it. He's trying to be better about it.

It's why I thought he might make a good first baseman one day because he doesn't have to make that throw, but you can keep his bad in the line of him. So maybe he follows suit after Will Scintreras becomes a first baseman full time. That's way down the road. But anyway, first base, he's got Will Scintreras. Second base, Donovan and Gorman. Third base, Aronado, shortstop, win, so no surprises there.

By the way, Gorman over three in today's game, but no strikeouts, no strikeouts again. In the outfield is where we get, I guess our first eye-opener, if you want to call it that. But Lars Dupar, Jordan Walker, when he's healthy, which by all reports, he's getting better, going to be fine. And then Victor Scott the second. Victor is outplayed Siani by a landslide. Go look at the stats. He's hitting 320 this spring. He's got six walks.

He's got five stolen bases. His OBPs at 452. Ciani's batting 36. It's over. It's a knockout. He's earned it. Then at D.H, it's Alec Burleson. Now for the bench spots,

I'm proud to say he's got some cool names listed here. Jose Barrero, Luke and Baker, Matt Caperniac. All three of them he's got on this, And that would be along with, you know, Gorman, Paix. So he's actually got 14 position players listed. 13 is what they're probably going to carry.

So we'll see what happens there. But pitching stat, Sonny Gray, Eric Fetty, Andre Palante, Miles Michaelis, and Stephen Matt's, no McGreevy. Even though he's pitched very, very well this spring, he's got him starting at AAA Memphis. I would personally rather see McGreevy pitching in the big leagues this year. But as I brought up yesterday, if you do that, it's all righties in your rotation, which is something that maybe the cartels would like to avoid.

Most teams don't want it that way. Like, you wouldn't want all lefties either. And you already got three lefties in the bullpen. If you put mats in the bullpen, it gives you four left-handers. So I wonder if that's part of the process here. And they're like, well, maybe that's not such a great idea. Bullpen. He's going with Ryan Halsley, Jojo Romero.

Ryan Fernandez. Matthew Libertor, John King, and then he's going to go Chris Roycroft, Gordon Grisoppo, and Riley O'Brien, which gives them 13 pitchers, which, like I said, 14 position players, 13 pitchers, 27, you're only allowed 26, so someone's going to have to go. It'll probably come down to Barrero, Baker, and Coperniac from this list. Barreiro has done basically everything you've asked him to do. He can play infield. He can play outfield. He's a right-hand. hand at bat. He gives you speed. He shows you power. It's hard to not have Barrero on this roster. Luke and Baker has been one of your best hitters all spring. I know that he can't play

anywhere but first base and DH. I get that. But a right-handed slugger off the bench, considering how many lefties you've already got on this team, something that could be quite useful. And then you got Coperniac. He's an outfielder, left-hander. He's done well this spring. But I feel like if I had to pick one of those three that had to start at Memphis, I'm going to go Coperniac. He hasn't done anything wrong, except he doesn't hit right-handed. So that would be where I'm at on this. But what do you think of his roster? Leave your thoughts and your comments down below. And we can discuss it. you guys for making Locktown Cardinals your first listen every day if you haven't already.

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