Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Cardinals Sign 4x Gold Glove Award Winner Brandon Crawford

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

A look at what Brandon Crawford brings to the table for the Cardinals and why they felt the need to sign him in the first place! - Tommy Edman Injury - Brandon Crawford - Internal Options weren't enough - Cards Tie Marlins - Weekend Recap 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! eBay Motors With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to turn your car into the MVP and bring home that win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers. Gametime Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. FanDuel New customers, join today and you’ll get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS if your first bet of FIVE DOLLARS or more wins. Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started. 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 https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Cardinals have signed former giant shortstop Brandon Crawford, plus a look at how things went today in their spring training matchup against the Marlins, plus a look back at all the fun that went on this weekend. 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, they're Cardinals fans. I'm Jannie Hafer and I'm a national radio sports anchor, born and raised in the Lou, and a lifetime Cardinals fan,

and I'm your host for Locktown Cardinals, Locked on Podcast Network covering your team every day. You can follow me on Twitter X at JD Sports Radio. You can follow the podcast at LO underscore Cardinals. I want to thank those of you who make Locked on Cardinals your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get your podcast. On YouTube, you can find us as well. Make sure you like, subscribe, and comment.

That way you know when new things are coming out, man. We got, you know, people in the comments section, always talking about Cardinals, good, bad sometimes. but at least it's constructive conversation. Make sure you hit the notification button so you don't miss the new episodes when they're posted. This is a show serving Cardinal Nation and giving the best fans in baseball, all of the info about the birds on the bat. A reminder also that when there is breaking news, we do the YouTube shorts.

So when Brandon Crawford's announcement was made that Brandon Crawford was getting signed by the Cardinals, there is a video short out there on YouTube. So another reason why you might want to stop by the YouTube side. like, comment, notification button, all that jazz. Today's episode brought to you by Fandul. Make every moment more new customers join today, and you'll get $150 in bonus bets. If you first bet of $5 or more wins,

visit fandle.com slash locked on to get started. So first off, how great is it to have Cardinals baseball back? I mean, even though it's just spring training, it was a lot of fun watching games this weekend, and of course today as well on this Monday. And in particular, getting a chance to watch the young players get a lot of action. That was, I had more fun.

I don't care what Nolan Arnato and Paul Goldschmidt are doing in spring training. It really doesn't bother me. You know, it's great that they're getting hits and if they go O for open, whatever, I don't care. I like watching the young guys. I like seeing what these guys, the future of the Cardinals are going to be. And we're going to get into the good and bad of what happened this weekend. We'll do that a little bit later on, probably in segment three here.

And we'll talk about today's game, which. it was not on TV, unfortunately. But they ended up having to sit Matt Carpenter, so I'm going to let you know the latest on his injury. But let's start with the eyebrow raising news that came out today about the Cardinal shortstop situation. It was reported early on by Derek Gould from SELTay.com in the Post Dispatch that there was mutual interest

between the Cardinals and four-time gold glove winner, Brandon Crawford. Okay, that was the tweet. It was put out. I was like, ooh, okay, okay. I thought Brandon Crawford was retiring. I didn't think he was signing anywhere. I had no idea he was actually considering playing in 2024. I thought he was done and he would have finished his entire career with San Francisco.

And then just a couple of hours later, it was announced by Katie Wu from the Athletic and others that the two sides have agreed on a deal pending a physical. And then Brandon Crawford is now going to be a St. Louis Cardinal. But us comes after the news that the Giants had signed a former Diamondback. shortstop, Nick Ahmed, a name that we actually talked about last week as a possible solution for the Cardinals depth. I don't want to say problem, but their depth question, if you will, at the shortstop position, the Ahmed signing by the Giants signified that the 37-year-old Crawford would not be returning to San Francisco.

Again, I thought he was retiring. I didn't think he was playing a ball. He had spent his first 13 years of his career in San Francisco. And what a career was? I mean, Brandon Crawford has been great. great for the Giants. Four gold gloves, three-time All-Star, Silver Slugger winner, and a winner of two World Series championships. That's quite a resume. That's quite a resume for him. And he's got the luscious curly locks that come out of the back of his hat, which everybody's going to be a fan of, I'm sure. So you could understand why the Cardinals would be interested in talking to him. Now, the Cardinals, in my opinion, don't have a short stop problem. I just pointed that. I wouldn't, the word problem means that, oh, my,

gosh, what are we going to do? We're screwed. That's the type of scenario I think of when I say the word problem. But I want to be clear on that. I don't think it was a problem. The idea in plan for 24 is to have your top prospect. And yes, still rookie eligible Mason Win. Get the first crack at being the starter. Now barring something catastrophic, this is Mason Wins job. And he looked really, really good in his spring debut on Sunday. We'll talk more about that later. The idea was that backing up Mason when a shortstop will be Tommy Edmund, who just so happens to be the team's preferred center fielder too, which is odd because you don't see a lot of that where a guy is a starting outfielder,

and then he just comes in and plays a little infield here and there. We saw it with Mooky Betts and the Dodgers, apparently he's now going to be an infielder, but you didn't see that very often. Sometimes you see infielders go to the outfield. The cardals do that a lot, but rarely did you see somebody like, you know, say Lars Newport coming and play shortstop. You know what I mean?

Like it just doesn't happen that way very often. And Tommy Edmund had to have risk surgery this offseason. Remember, it caught us all by surprise in January when we're like, okay, what? Where did that come from? Because they just didn't talk about it very much at all, to be honest. We didn't really find out about it until January. Well, according to Jeff Jones at the Belleville News, Tommy Edmund, talking about the rehab and his recovery this offseason,

is unable yet to make contact with a pitch ball as he goes through the progression of his rehabilitation. His uncertain readiness stands as the first real potential turning point for a roster, which is otherwise fairly straightforward to predict. He also points out that Edmund is sporting an angry red scar, which you got to love that term about the scar, an angry red scar, which runs roughly from his wrist to the midpoint of his forearm and is limited to hitting off a T, sometimes only with one hand on alternating days. Today is February 26th. That means we've got 30 days until opening day against the Dodgers. The baseball season, as we know, is a grind.

It is not a sprint. It is not the first team to get to 50 wins. You're automatically in the playoffs. No, it's a long, long season. Does pushing Tommy Edmund to return by opening day make a ton of sense? If he's improving and he's progressing and is on pace to be ready to go, then great, right? Like, oh, cool. kind of ahead of schedule. That's fantastic. But if that doesn't happen, then does what the Cardinals have internally, was that going to be enough?

That really was the question. Is that what they wanted to go into with no admin? So bar you don't have your center fielder. And then you don't have your backup short stuff. So you're trying to fill not one but two voids on the roster. That's how important Tommy Edmund is to this team. So the Cardinals have decided to go in the direction of pulling somebody out of the free agent market. They went with Brandon Crawford. So we're going to talk more about the newest Cardinal and what the internal options were for this situation and kind of decide, is Brandon Crawford better than what they already had in the organization to fill this void? So we'll get into all of that coming up next on Locked on Cardinals.

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app. Locked on sports today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of locked on plus our national shows, which cover every single league. You can find locked on sports today now available on the free fire TV channels app. Again, thank you for making Locktown Cardinals your first list in every day. Leave your comments on YouTube as well as on Twitter X anytime you want. Feedback always welcome and encouraged. So far, feedback on the signing of Brandon Crawford pretty positive. I know some people are knocking his age a little bit.

We're going to get into that. But for the most part, most people seem to like him. And I liked Brandon Crawford as a player throughout his whole career. I'm not trying to be a pessimist. You know, I'm not a pessimistic person. That's just not my nature. But I find it difficult right now to believe that after this signing, we can bank on Tommy Edmund being ready and back in time for opening day.

Not the end of the world that he's not, but it certainly causes some shuffling on the roster. And Brandon Crawford makes sense for a team. But at the same time, you know, there's still some questions about it of whether or not Brandon Crawford was the right way to go as opposed to what you had internally in the organization already. And now I've been a big fan mentioned of his, of him, his whole career. Great glove.

So smooth over there at shortstop, four-time gold glove winner. a solid hitter from the left side who showed some surprising pop over a couple of years. He's been a winner. The Giants have been a very good organization over the tenure of Brandon Crawford's time with San Francisco. From all accounts, he's been a great clubhouse guy. I've never heard anybody say anything negative about Brandon Crawford. Not long ago, 2021, the guy finished fourth in the NLNBP voting just a few years ago. and he's reportedly willing to play second and third if he needs to, which is great because we know the Cardinals love versatile players. Like versatility is a big, big deal, you know,

and if you're going to be replacing a Tommy Edmund for a little while, nice to have somebody who can do a little bit of everything on the infield there. So play second, play short, play third. That's cool. Now what are some of the negatives about one Brandon Crawford? Well, 37 years old, so we're not getting any younger. Had a lot of injury issues last year. April, he dealt with a calf issue, July, leg and knee.

He had a forearm problem in August, his hamstring in September, played in only 93 games last year, and had his worst statistical year hitting. Just 194. I'm going to throw up on YouTube here real quick. I'm going to throw up some of the baseball savant stuff. there you go. So there's this page. Once again, red is good, blue, not good. And there is nothing in red whatsoever. It just 194 last year, 273 on base percentage, 314 slugging, OPS plus of just 63. He only hit 188 against right handers,

which during his career he's normally been pretty good at. He doesn't suffer against lefties, but righties is where, you know, there's just more right-handed pitchers out there in the league. That's just the way it is. And, you know, most of the power and stuff that he had came against right-handed pitching and it just was not there. There just wasn't a lot to be optimistic about last year when it came to his offensive skills.

Perhaps his best characteristic throughout his career for Brandon Crawford was his defense. He's been a four-time Gold Glove Award winner. And defensively, the last couple of years, years, things are going in the wrong direction. Defensively last year, had a minus 14 total defensive run saved, which was a career low. And it's not like that came out of nowhere because the previous year in 2022, he was at minus six. So he's going in the wrong way. That's not a good trend.

That's not what you want to see. And honestly, what does it say when the team that has had him as such an important piece for how good they've been for so long that they decided to move on, that they were like, we'll go with Nick Ahmed instead to back up their top prospect, which is Marco Luciano instead. Like, wouldn't you think the Giants would want to keep Brandon Crawford around and have him kind of tutor their young prospect? But instead, they're going to let Crawford walk. He's coming to St. Louis.

And they bring in Nick Ahmed, it was with, who was let go by the Diamondbacks last year. I mean, that's kind of weird, right? I mean, they know him better than anybody. And they said, no, thanks. Thanks for your 13 years, but no, thanks, Brandon. We're going to move on. We're going to get somebody else. So I found that to be a little bit odd.

Internally, the Cardinals, they had some options. And we've discussed this before because we weren't worried about who was going to be the starter. Mason Wynn's going to be your starter. But we were just curious what they were going to do as far as the backup role. What was the depth? at the shortstop position when Tommy Edmund, even if he was healthy, he's still your starting center fielder. You really want to rely on your starting center fielder to have to come in and play

shortstop when Mason Wend needs a day off or something? Like, don't you want him out there in center field? He's your center fielder. So I've been talking about this throughout the off season. Like, well, what are they going to do here? I was surprised that they went and got a free agent shortstop. I figured Brennan Donovan was going to be the answer. He's played some shortstop at the major.

league level. Again, he's coming off elbow surgery on that throwing arm. And we heard Ali talk about it early on in the spring about how they want to kind of keep him at second base for now. He's not got any limitations or anything, but I think they're just being smart about it. They're like, well, we don't want to make in a bunch of deep throws from the shortstop area. Let's just let him do his thing at second base. So far, so good in the games that he's played him. Jose Fermin on the 40-man roster as of right now because this deal with Crawford is pending a physical so we don't know who's going to get removed from the 40, man. But I don't think for me is going to be that guy.

I think maybe like a buddy Kennedy. That would be my guess, but we'll see. But clearly the Cardinals wanted somebody with a better track record at the position. And not a horrible idea to have somebody like Brandon Crawford mentoring your prize prospect and Mason Wend to play shortstop. You got Ozzie Smith, who's working with him in the spring, but it's nice to have a guy like a Brandon Crawford right there with him on the road and teaching them some stuff throughout the season.

I don't have a problem with that at all. Learning the ins and outs of the position from a four-time gold glove winner, I'll take that. Ozzie Smith is not going to be on the road with Mason win and at all the ball games this year. You know, he's there in spring training. He's doing his thing, but he ain't going to be there the whole time. So not a horrible idea, right?

Some other questions. Let's say Tommy Edmund comes back a couple of weeks into the season. What do you do with Crawford then? Does he remain on the roster? And if he does, you now have Brandon Crawford and Matt Carpenter on your bench. So you got two 37 plus year old left-handerers on the bench right now. What does that mean for Alec Berluson, who is your young left-handed hitter off the bench? Does he go to Memphis so he can play every day? I don't hate that idea. I don't want to waste Alec Berluson on the bench. But again, I thought he was good enough to be that fifth outfielder for you because you got new. You got Edmund. You got Walker.

You got Dylan Carlson. If Edmunds out, Carlson slides in in the center field and Burleson would have been your fourth guy. So does that mean Donovan is like your fifth guy and now your fourth guy in the outfield with Crawford backing up Gorman and when up the middle? Also, like I said, apparently willing to play some third base when Arnaito needs a day off. Gorman can slide over the third base as well. I mean, I see how he fits, but at the same time, I see how it's going to push some people down the line a little bit, you know, and I'll be honest. I'm just a little surprised. I'm a little surprised by this move just because it seemed like it would have been more like the Cardinals to stick with what they have already than to go out and grab somebody off

the free agent market. But if you're going to get somebody and he's willing to, you know, be that backup role and not worry about him playing every day. Brandon Crawford, you can do a lot worse than them, right? You know, maybe Edmund's going to be out a bit longer than we thought than what they first anticipated. They're like, well, we're going to need somebody who can play a couple of months here. And here's the other thing. When Tommy does come back, what if he gets re-injured? So instead of, you know how last year we gave the Cardinals a lot of crap about not preparing enough in case things went bad, you know, where they just were very thin when it came to their pitching. Maybe that's what they're doing here. They're just like, dude, I'd rather have them than

not have them. And then if things go sideways and something happens to Mason and then you've also got Tommy here, then we're screwed and we don't have a short step whatsoever. We just got a bunch of dudes filling in. Maybe that's the idea here, that they're just making sure that they've got enough depth. Perhaps that's what it is too. But you get a, you give the squad a legit. veteran that if needed to play a bigger role, it seems like he can step up and do that. I know the numbers haven't been great the last couple of years, but again, 2021, fourth in the NL MVP. So maybe he's got a little juice in there and maybe a change of scenery will kind of wake Brandon Crawford up a little bit. It's a possibility. Again, I don't hate the move. Just a little

bit surprised by it, that's all. And also keeping up with the ages this offseason because that's the joke of the Cardinals this year is they're building an old folks home for their for their baseball team. It is not a youth movement in St. Louis right now, but as far as off-season moves go, Crawford, 37, in a relatively young 37, he just turned 37. Carpenters 38, Lance Lynn, 36, Gibson 36, sunny gray, 34, Kittridge 33, Middleton, 30 years old.

Now, a lot of these guys, remember, are one year, two-year deals. So it's not like they've got these guys locked up for five years, and they're all this old. But you bring all of these guys in to go, along with Michaelis, who's 35, Nats is 32, Goldie's 36, Aronado is going to be 33 this year, Gallegos is 32. So you've got some, that's for sure, but you've still got a lot of youth on this team as well.

But you're going to hear a lot of old people jokes when it comes to the Cardinals throughout the season if all of these guys, you know, end up sticking around on the roster. So anyway, we're going to discuss what happened this weekend in today's one-to-one tag against the Marlins. Leave your comments, suggestions, anything like that about the Brandon Crawford signing? I want to hear from you down in the comments section below and hit me up on Twitter X. And let me know what you guys are thinking about that. But we'll talk about today's game and this past weekend. We'll do that next on lockdown cardinals.

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Exclusions apply. eBay guaranteed fit only available to U.S. customers. Locked on has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube, and now it's available on Amazon Fire TV and the free Fire TV channels app. Locked on Sports Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories up the day with the local experts of Locked On, plus our national shows covering every league. Find Locked On Sports Today, now available on the Free Fire TV channels app. We have our first tie of the spring training. I don't even know why I'm clapping for that because ties are stupid,

but it's not a loss. It's not a loss. But neither the Cardinals nor the Marlins really could get much going offensively today. They finish in a one-to-one tie in nine innings. Matt Carpenter was originally in the lineup, but was taken out before his first to bad due to a bruised left wrist. You got to remember he got hit on that wrist earlier, But it didn't seem to be anything major.

Apparently, he was in the dugout, laughing, smiling, goofing off. So it didn't seem like it was anything to worry about, just giving the old guy a day off. Let it let it, let it heal a little bit, no need to push it. The Cardinals pounded out nine hits on the day, but had trouble getting them across the plate. As far as guys on the opening day roster go, Paul Goldschman had a hit in a walk, Arnato had a double, Gorman had a single. Yvonne Herrera had a single in the lone RBI off of Marlin's top pitching prospect. Yuri Perez. And by the way, does it drive anybody else nuts that? So, because the game wasn't on TV

today, so I was listening to the feed. And the announcers, Mike Claiborne, to be specific, continues to call him Ivan Herrera. And that is not how he says his name. Yvonne is how he says it. I even tweeted about it, putting some tagging some people on it like Jeff Jones and Katie Wu and Brooke Grimsley and I'm like, hey, it is Yvonne, right? Like, why are they saying it Ivan still? He's not some, he's not the Russian fighter in Rocky Ford. Yvonne Herrera. Say his name properly.

That drives me bonkers when they get that wrong. Anyway, the team goes one for nine in it with runners in scoring position. If you remember, something that drove us all nuts last year was one of the problems they killed them last season. They would get people on and then they just strand them out there. So one for nine with runners and scoring position, not great. pitching wise you had to like what you saw from prospect sim robbersa who got the start giomani gaegos struggle a bit giving me more PTSD from the 2023 season because he he walks the

first guy which is a big no-no we all know that and then he gets the next guy out walks the second guy gets another guy out strikeout two one two out guess what gives up that dreaded two-out rbi single to hasu sanchez and uh it just just the two out hits last year. Huh. Hence why I've got the PTSD from it because drove me nuts last year, drove you nuts last year. And then you see Giovanni Gallegos,

who's supposed to be a big piece of this bullpen puzzle again this year, doing the exact same thing that was happening last year that made us all so angry. So that sucked. But spring training, deep breaths, namaste. But I Andrew Ketridge and Matt's Fon, They end up coming in combined for two shutout innings from a first round pick. Cooper Jerpy looked good, struck out four over two innings of work. Again, spring training, trying not to freak out about it.

But when the same stuff that went wrong last year, start going wrong with guys who were supposed to be starters and people who are a big part of this team this year, I'm going to get worked up with that. I had a lot more fun watching the games this weekend, to be honest, split squad games on Saturday against the Marlins and Mets and then the Astros on Sunday. some of the things that stood out to me in that 9-8 loss to the Marlins, eight runs, 12 hits. Aronado had two of those. One of them was a double. He knocked into, Gorman had a double. Carpenter had a double. Matthew Libertor, not great in his first

doubting, two runs, two hits, two innings of work, just one K, one walk. You want more consistency out of him, but first start of spring training, not freaking out. Former first round pick, Michael McGreevy, he got knocked around, four runs, three of them earned on five hits, including a dinger and two innings of work. John King had a an ugly day two, three runs on four hits in one inning. He's a guy that originally I thought probably was going to be in this bullpen, but as they continued to sign people and you start to see how these other guys are performing, he might get squeezed out of a bullpen spot if he doesn't have a good spring.

Helsley got out of trouble, had a couple of punchouts. Ryan Fernandez had a clean inning. Then in the Mets game, which was the one I was paying more attention to on Saturday, the young guys, they came out swinging in a 10-5 victory over the Mets. Brinand Donovan looks strong and more importantly, healthy in that game, both at the plate and defensively, had a hit, scored two runs. Lars Neupar had two hits and a run scored in an RBI, Thomas Adjacy, two-run double. Victor Scott was on base, causing havoc.

He is so much fun to watch. He is, he, if he can hit just a little bit, if he can give me 260 at the major league level, that dude's going to be a weapon. He's going to be a weapon. On the mound, Zach Thompson looked great. shutout innings in the start. Riley O'Brien, he opened some eyes. First time I had a chance to actually watch him live consistently, 98, 99 with the fastball, wicked breaking ball. Andre Palante looked good, shutout innings. Same for the new Cardinal, Victor Santos, who they got

in the Tyler O'Neill deal. He looked good. Nick Robertson struggled, Adam Clothenstein, Andre Greenio, who's my guy, had a couple of strikeouts, but he also struggled, gave up a dinger. Those three guys gave up all five runs, but it was a nice, fun look into the future for the Cardinals. Sunday, the Astros game, it was the Mason Wind Show. Cardinals likely starting shortstop made his spring debut. He goes three for three, had a stolen base, showed off the cannon arm on that play that he had to go into the hole. And only his arm. Him and like, you know, an Ellie Dela Cruz or an O'Neill Cruz, only those arms, top 1% in the league are going to get that guy at first base. And Mason, win, got him. Victor Scott had his first stolen base, like his jump,

just massive, the speed, the quickness. He walked twice. I'm in love of this guy already. Man crush, Victor Scott the second for sure. Alec Berlinson, the RBI single, the pitching, dominant. You had Drew Rom got the start, tossed two shutout innings. Gordon Grecefo, two shutout innings. Connor Thomas, two shutout inning. Teen Kent's got to see him finally, two shutout innings.

He walks three, but he also strikes out for. It was fun. It was fun to watch this weekend. And I just, I love the youth that the Cardinals have coming up in their organization. Will a lot of them be on the team this season? Probably not, but the future at least looks bright. And early on in spring training, I've enjoyed what I've been watching so far.

They're now 2-1-1. They got the Red Sox on Tuesday. New Staff-based, Sunny Gray, scheduled to make his first start of the spring. Thank you for making Locked on Cardinals your first listen every day. If you haven't already, do me a solid. Give me a follow on Twitter X at L.O. underscore Cardinals and at JD Sports Radio. Like and subscribe on YouTube to help our channel and our love for the Cardinals.

row, you are the best fans in baseball for a reason, and I will see you next time on Locked on Cardinals.