Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Is This Team Better, Still Average, Or Disappointing So Far?

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

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The St. Louis Cardinals fall back under the 500 mark and are still in last place in the NL Central. But is it really as bad as it sounds? Jeff Jones from the Belleville News joins us today to talk us through it all on today's episode of 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 fans. I'm J.D. Haffern and I'm a national radio sports anchor, born and raised in the Lou, in a lifetime I'm Cardinals fan, and I'm your host for Locktown Cardinals, part of the Locktown 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.

We want to thank those of you who make Lockdown Cardinals, your first list in every day. We're free and available wherever you get your podcast. And on YouTube, make sure you like, subscribe and comment if you're stopping by there. Interact with us. Don't be shy. Hit that notification button so you know when new episodes are posted. This is a show serving Cardle Nation and giving the best fans of baseball. All of the info about the birds on the bat.

Today's episode being brought to you by eBay Motors from brakes to exhaust kits and beyond. eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride or die alive. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it's easy to bring home that big win. Keep your ride or die alive at eBay Motors.com. Eligible items only exclusions apply. eBay guaranteed fed only available to U.S. customers. So joining us today, our pile Jeff Jones covers the Cardinals for the Belleville News, which you can find at B&D.com.

He's also on Twitter X at J.M. Jones. Welcome back, buddy. I saw that you tweeted this out earlier. News has broke. O.J. Simpson has passed away at the age of 76. Where were you when the Bronco chase went down way back when in 1994? What were you doing? So weirdly enough, I don't really remember what I was doing that day.

That was two weeks before I turned seven. So I was not super aware. But, you know, when people talk about kind of the events in their life that bring them, make them aware of like the news happening, right? I don't remember the Bronco chase, but I do remember the verdict of all things. That's one that I do remember. If only because my understanding is that at the elementary, my elementary school, there had been some sort of direction to not say anything. Like, don't tell the kids for whatever reason. And one of the lunch ladies, like, yelled it out in the lunchroom when the verdict came down.

I guess they had a radio going back there. And she yelled it out. So that was what I remember from most of all of that. Yeah, I actually remember we were sitting at a friend's house and we had just played one of our summer league games because it happened like in June. And I remember this because I was injured. I had hurt my wrist in the game earlier that day.

And I was like all wrapped up. They thought I had fractured it or something. And I remember we were at a buddy's house and we were trying to watch the NBA playoffs. And they kept flipping back and forth and back and forth. And we didn't know anything about what, was going on. We didn't know anything about evidence or anything like that. So we were all kind of like, go OJ. We were rude for him. We had no idea. We're like, get out of there. That's great. We didn't know

what was going on there. So we didn't know any better. And then later on when the verdict comes down, and I remember being on a three-way phone call with two girls from class. And we're all cheering, not realizing, you know, how guilty he actually seemed to be. You know, we were kids. We didn't know any better, but just something that's a major part of this country's history and the juice gone at age 76, cancer got him. We knew the Cardinals were going to have a tough time, Jeff. Let's get into some cardinal talk. At the start of the season, you know, we were warned about this due to the level of competition that they were facing, the travel that they were going to endure from, you know, going from spring training to the West Coast, then go to St. Louis. Then you got to go back to the West.

and they're now at six and seven following the loss to the Phillies on Wednesday on an ugly day at Bush Stadium, like very much not baseball weather. But they're in last place, in the division, same place they were last year. How do you see what the Cardinals have done thus far? How do you look at it? Has it been a failure? Has it been better than you thought, or do you think they're kind of right where you thought they'd be when the schedule was announced? Yeah, I think this is pretty well close to the middle of the depredictable outcome. so much of this team in the early going. You know, would you kind of look at the way that those

games played out. I think that you would probably say that they would want the last game in LA back, you know, the game where the bullpen just kind of ran out and John King's from the homer to Max Muncie. That's probably one that feel like they should have gotten across the finish line. And I think also, you know, you have to look at this home series against the Phillies. And you would want to take either that first game where you have a chance against Spencer Turnbull or the way that yesterday's game played out. You know, there are a couple of mistakes in that game that kind of both originate from Victor Scott that unfortunately for better you know that I mean that that's the game that game turns on the four three game and he's responsible

in the negative for arguably like five runs in that game yesterday like you know the thing that I was expecting or not I'm not expecting what was curious if somebody would say yesterday after the game was that like that will almost certainly be the worst game of Victor Scott's career like it it would be really hard for a center fielder to more negatively impact the game than Victor did on Wednesday, which is not to say, you know, which is not to say that that's like a positive in that, okay, well, it's a learning experience, but more that it won't be that bad ever again. Like that it just, the confluence of events is so, is so unexpected that, you know, I guess knock on wood, and it would be really hard for him to repeat a performance like that.

And so I guess the hope would be that he doesn't internalize it. You can kind of write it off as a fluke with baseball and go on from there. And that seemed to be the message from the team. So, you know, is this a team that could be eight and five? It is? Is this a team that if they were seven and six, maybe they'd be talked about a little differently than six and seven? I think that's fair.

You know, I think if they had won that game yesterday and gone into the off day after winning both series on the homestand and they're above 500 instead of below 500, I think it really probably looks different. And instead that kind of turns on, you know, a rookie center fielder who has, just an unpredictably lousy day. So I don't think it's like a gloom and doom type situation, especially given what they had to weather here in the early going, but there are certainly areas that you would look at as a concern.

Yeah, and I thought Brad Thompson said it very well after the game where he was like, you know, this is one of those games that Victor Scott, like it was bad for him, but it was like the first time the Cardinals kind of beat themselves where it was kind of like the mistakes that happened out there. Yeah, a lot of them were from Victor, but those kind of led to the loss happening, whereas, you know, the rest of the season really so far, you know, it's just been baseball. You know, sometimes the pitchers get beat. Sometimes they get put themselves in a bad situation by not, you know,

scoring runners from a scoring position with one out. So a lot of different things have led to it, but yesterday it was like the first one where you were like, oh, man, I really should have had that one. And we probably would have one that had this and this not happen. But it's part of it. Like he said, you know, Victor's going to learn from it. And like you said, the Cardinals believe in the maturity of him that this isn't going to be something that defines him. It'll only make him better as he continues to progress in his career. One of the things that the Cardinals have definitely struggled in is offense. Okay, it's been brought up a lot. We're going to get into more of that. It's one of the reasons why this fan base feels a little bit disgruntle because the one thing they thought they could depend on is the one thing that's not working so well. So we're going to dive into that more with Jeff Jones. once next on Locked on Cardinals. Today's episode is brought to you in part by Policy Genius. Policy Genius is the smarter way to buy insurance. Their proprietary technology makes it easy to compare personalized quotes and policies from top-rated insurers side by side. Policy Genius's

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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 U.S. customers. Are you watching Fox Sports or ESPN on your TV all day? Have to turn down the volume with all the shouting? Well, make the switch to Lockdown Sports Today.

It's a free 24-7 sports streaming channel and it's programmed for you every day to bring you the biggest stories without all that screaming. Locked on sports today brings you can't miss analysis, opinions, news, streaming 24-7 on YouTube or the free Amazon Fire TV channels app. It's part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Jeff Jones from the Bell Bill News joining us today. Remember you can follow him on Twitter. at J.M. Jones. You've also got his work available to you at B&D.com. We're talking Cardinals

and we're talking offense now. The offensive struggles have been somewhat, at least in my opinion, somewhat surprising. Okay. I know they've faced some pretty good pitchers, you know, guys like Aaron Nolan, Zach Wheeler, and, you know, these guys are going to get people out. That's what they do. It's why they get paid big bucks. But the offensive struggles, particularly the slow starts from Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Aronado, has got a lot of people talking. You know, these guys are supposed to be your big boppers. What are your thoughts on what you've seen from them so far? And on a level of 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest, what's your level of concern about them moving forward? And, you know, why is this still Jeff Albert's fault? I'm kidding.

It's not Jeff Albert's. Yeah. So the thing I would, you know, if we're talking about what the team kind of looks like overall, the other way to look at this team is that, you know, it's optimistic, I guess, or a positive that they would have as many as six wins in their first 13 games when, you know, Aronado and Jordan Walker have combined for zero home runs. When, when Paul Goldschmidt has one extra base hit this season and it was a solo homer on opening day. You know, Nolan Gorman is showing some signs of starting to come out of it. We're starting to see Aronado hit for a little bit of average, but no slug, like none, no power for him, really nothing at all from Walker in the early going.

you know, Victor Scott for the games that he's had that have been solid defensively. He is hitting 070 at this point and has played in every single game. Like there are big problems on the offensive side of the ball that you would assume that they're going to shake out. Now, you know, do I think that Aronado is going to go the entire season and not hit a homer? I don't. But I think that when you kind of look at the broader trend of him offensively, starting with, you know, didn't hit a homer after August 20th-ish last season, somewhere in the August 20th last season, was the last time he hit a homer.

run before, you know, you're finished up with him on the IL. And you kind of look at his career trends as a hitter, right, has never, has never been a really high exit velocity guy, has never been a really high barrel guy, has been a high contact guy, who has had the kind of raw power to muscle the ball out. The problem is that, you know, historically, guys with that kind of bad a ball profile don't age great. Now, with Nolan, he was in a position where he was such an elite defender that when you kind of look at that contract, you thought, all right, as long as he stays close to that level defensively,

then probably he ages just fine, you know, for a team that might need him. He has not been that either. You know, it's a little better in the last couple of days, but he definitely, you know, last year was by far the worst season of his career and has not looked like an elite defender at third. It looks like a fine defender at third, but that's not going to be enough for them, for this team. And, you know, you look at Goldschmidt, Goldschmidt turns 37 in September. And look, sometimes guys get old, right? You know, conversely, he is a guy who you would probably say has the profile hitter who might age okay, especially if they have the ability to get him more

DH at bats or, you know, to do whatever they need to do to maximize that output. But it's just not there yet. And it really hasn't shown up. It really hasn't shown up for Jordan Walker yet. And, you know, this team is just, they're just not going to be able to survive if none of those guys hit. And so the fact that they've been able to piece it together thus far through, you know, Yvonne Herrera and Mason Wynn and Brendan Donovan and the guys from whom they have been getting contributions

that much as a plus because when and if the big guys in the middle get going, and this team might really start to hum. But, you know, they got to go in order for that to happen. Now, I was looking at the analytics at Baseball savant.com on both Nato and on Paul Goldschmidt. and everything is so bad. But you brought up a name that has been very surprising. And it's a name because people didn't probably know as much about him in Ivan Herrera, where his offensive capabilities,

it was something that I noticed watching some of the Memphis games last year, where, I mean, he takes a mighty hack and he just looks dangerous at the plate. I said that a lot last year with his approach. Have you been surprised by how well he's been able to put some things together because he's on the opposite side of. things when it comes the analytics dude. He is in all red, pretty much in every category you can look at. Yeah, I think we've got to look at the arc of Avon's career to this point. You know, when he first got to the big leagues two seasons ago, he was pretty open about, and the team was

pretty open about the fact that he really didn't have a handle on the amount of preparation and the kind of off-field stuff he was going to have to do to catch on a day-to-day basis. And they get really kind of dragging down for a bit. And when you look at sort of the way his offense maybe he didn't quite reach previous peaks the last couple of years when he was in the minors, it's fairly easy to chalk a lot of that up to, okay, you know, look, he's focusing on the defensive parts of his game. They've asked him to do X, Y, and Z. But you're right, that Herrera throughout, you know, his early minors career, at least, always profiled as really a dangerous hitter, especially behind the plate. Now, you know, is this current version of Yvonne Herrera?

Is he going to be a guy who right now is a 30 homer hitter? I don't think so, but I also don't know that he's not for sure because he does have really good added ball numbers and he does really look like a guy who at a bare minimum you can trust the hit you know in that five six seven range and kind of lengthen that lineup and they you know he's given them a lot of that and you know when you consider that they were without wilson contraris for basically you know three four full days and a fair question as to how much contraris they really have now how close he is to being the guy that you know that he's going to be uh herrera has been again extremely valuable to this team in the opening,

and I think it's going to really make them reconsider how they deploy their catchers throughout the season. You know, I do think that even heading into the year, it probably would have been a reasonable expectation that that might have been, say, you know, 100 games for Contreras, 60 games for Herrera kind of split, and you think of Contreras D.Hs another 20 or 30 more times. That would have been to me about the split that I would have guessed heading into the season. Now you kind of wonder, you know, what does that look like?

is it closer to an even split? Is there some advantage to having both of those bats in the lineup a little more often, especially if they're not going to get the kind of pop they want from the left side of the plate? Again, whether that's from Gorman not being quite as consistently one or whatever. I will say the one variable there, assuming Lars Neutbar does indeed come out of BIL tomorrow in Arizona, and every indication is that he will, if Newtbar is playing left, and again, has not played center on his minor league rehab. I think the idea that Nupar is going to come up,

the IL and jump into center is misguided. So if we assume that Nupar is playing left, they're going to keep Donovan in the lineup. That probably means Donovan is going to DH a little more often, considering how happy they've been with the scene from Gorman at second. And if that's the case, then it's harder to find spots for Herrera and Contreras, unless you're talking about a game against the right-hander,

where maybe that's Donovan at second, and Gorman has a day off or vice versa, whatever it is, right? So those pieces are harder to fit once Newt Bar comes off the IL and presumably, you know, help spark that offense at the top. But he has definitely been super helpful, super valuable for them in the early going. Yeah, that's not going to bother anybody when they start sitting him a little bit more because they've got enough bats that are going to be back and healthy, hopefully, right? Sure. When it does come off the IL that everybody gets back into their normal spots and then you're like, okay, well, now where do we put him?

But, I mean, people are going to be like, Goody's your hottest hit? How do you bench it? And that's in the category of good problems, right? The fact that they could have a guy on the bench, that's a useful problem to have and also, excuse me. Also, frankly, puts them in a position where they're better able to adjust at the end of games because what we hear a lot about lineup construction now is talking about lanes of guys, right?

The reason that the Cardinals prefer to see right left right as much as possible in their lineup is that with a three-batter minimum, you can't easily match relievers up. if your lineup alternates like that. So if the Cardinals do find themselves in a spot where, say, they have a lineup that runs whatever it is, say it's Gorman, Newbar Berluson, for instance, kind of in a row, you can run that against a tough right-hander, knowing that you have Herrera at the end of games to plug in

to take some of those stuff at that, if necessary. Yeah, not to get super nerdy, but that's how we do it on MLB the show, 24. You just got to go right, right, left, right, left the whole way through. Lucky if you got a couple switch hitters, but that's how you do it. that's how you're able to stay ahead of what the other team could do with their bullpen. So it's the same way as it goes in the major league.

So good insight there, good insight there for sure. I want to get into the pitching stuff next because, you know, despite missing Sonny Gray until this week, of course, Keenan Middleton, the injury to Riley O'Brien. The pitching staff has looked much better than last year. We're going to get Jeff's thoughts on them and his thoughts on what's going on with the attendance and because we have to, because there's. voice pointing it out right now. We've got a couple of Cardinals who are thriving elsewhere. So we'll get into all of it with Jeff next on Lockdown Cardinals. It's playoff time in the NBA and NHL. Baseball is in full swing and Fandul is your place to bet on every game. Now, there's not a lot of Major League Baseball today. A lot of teams are doing this as a travel day. Weather is hindering

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You can also follow his work and be a part of everything he's writing about at B&D.com. Sunny Gray made his long away to debut on Tuesday night. And, you know, fantastic. Obviously, not a whole lot to complain about with what he did. Curious, since you're somebody who's around the team and around the clubhouse, what was the vibe around them leading up to him, showing up and making the start? And then how was everybody feeling afterwards? Yeah, you know, I think that there was definitely afterward a sense of maybe relief is too strong,

but definitely a sense of, okay, this is what it was supposed to look like. You know, I don't think you could have, given the limitations he was pitching under, you could not have scripted a better debut for a better debut for starting to get through five, to get a win the way he did, to be as dominant as he was. That's what you want it to look like. And, you know, he was adamant in the lead up that he felt 100% fine. And it has for, you know, a week or 10 days now. and that he was ready to go.

And he was, right? Because, you know, I think a lot of people sort of flashed back to the situation they had a couple of years ago where there was some consternation over whether Jack Flaherty would take another rehab start or whether he would pitch in the majors and let him make a rehab start in the big leagues. And he blew up and got hurt again. And that was, you know, obviously like a worst case scenario. And instead, with Sunny Gray, you saw close to the best case scenario.

You know, I think in general that the rotation has really been a sense of stability. for this team and it's really kind of anchored them in the early going. I wrote about this yesterday, but the pitching has been exactly what they have drawn it up to be. They have gotten exactly what they thought they were getting. This is what it's supposed to look like by and large. You know, you look at, okay, you know, Miles Michaels in opening day, got hit around by the Dodgers. I think a lot of people probably at Dodgers Stadium went to the day against that lineup. We're going to get a hit around by the Dodgers. But, you know, he did. And that happened. But other than that, and, you know,

other than maybe some of the concerns you had about Zach Thompson and what he was or wasn't given you from a velocity perspective, you really can't argue with the starting. Even Kyle Gibson, who had a really bad start against the Marlins where he gives up six earned runs in the first inning. You know, depending on what kind of video you watch, probably pretty clear that the Marlins had a decent maybe of what was coming from Kyle Gibson in that first inning. And as a result, two, three run homers pop out of there. but he still got through six. And, you know, I know there were a lot of people who were sort of mocking the idea of that being important.

But, like, that is important because the payoff from that is Tuesday, right? The fact that Gibson on Sunday can get through six and then they go to Ryan Fernandez and John King, neither of whom factor into their, like, you know, really high leverage bullpen options, means that on Tuesday, when Gray only is able to give you five and they're grateful to get five, that they don't have to go to low leverage options in the game that they're winning, that they can go immediately to the trusted parts of the bullpen and pass the baton. That's only possible because those guys didn't have to pitch Sunday into Monday. The Kyle Gibson start is what allows the sunny gray start to happen.

And so when they talk about the value of eating innings, that's what they're talking about. They are talking about their ability to have bullpen guys pitch. A reliever is going to pitch three or four times in a week. you would want your leverage relievers to pitch in games where you're up one or two and knock down five. And they had too many games last year where they couldn't avoid that because the starters were not giving them enough and to physically get through games. Again, this is why we saw Casey Lawrence and Jacob Barnes and that whole crew. They were out of guys. They were out. They were tapped out. Out of addicts. And the fact that Gibson was able to stop that

from happening really does matter. And honestly, in a tangible way, probably puts Tuesdays game into their pocket as a win as opposed to what might have happened otherwise. Yeah, because last year you would get, you know, Wainwright, three innings. And then two days later, Flaherty gives you three innings, you know, and then you're just, and you're done for the whole week. And then you got to wait for an off day to finally regroup and you'd finish the week, you know, you would lose five games. And you're like, okay, how do we make it back?

And that's just how you get into these holes. And you're right. Like that was something that people were making fun of online. They're like, ooh, really good. Seven runs out of Gibson. I'm like, yeah, but don't you see? You don't see, do you? You don't get it.

And it's just, you know, and I harken back to the series in L.A. where that series, again, they lose that series in part because John King has to pitch a leverage inning and Max Muncie hits a Homer and that's not what you want. And there were a lot of people going, well, I don't think the Dodgers had problems pitching. And it's like, they did because they had to call up the Bill Kris mat to throw two winnings in that game. and then DFA in the next day. And Daniel Hudson pitched the ninth and not Evan Phillips in that game. The Dodgers have run like four relievers through waivers in the first two weeks of the season

because innings are hard to come by and they are important. And the fact that the Cardinals have not had to do that is a credit to what they've gotten out of their starters so far. Yeah, like Denelson Lamat guy got up. He gets thrown in, makes a save, and immediately gets DFA. Like it's, it's tough. That's what you have to do in a patch hole sometimes. or not if your starters do that for you. Yeah. Who on this pitching staff so far have you been most impressed by?

Like, I mean, it's hard to look past Lance Lynn despite it raining every time he goes out there on the mound, it seems. But he's been some guy that stands out to me where I've been like, you know what? Maybe we maybe we're getting a motivated Lance Lynn this year. Has anybody else or has it been Lynn for you as well that's kind of stood out? So there is somebody else. I will say briefly that Michael Bowman wrote a really good piece on fan drafts this morning about Lance Lynn and the changes that he has made, which essentially boiled down to not throwing the fastball over the middle of the plate, right? Which sounds super basic, but if you know, if you know a lot about

the way that first the Raids, you know, the Dodgers developed pitching the mantra has sort of always been, if your stuff is good enough, you can throw it over the middle of the plate and they're not going to hit it. But, you know, look, Lance is at this point in his career, the fastball is not good enough to throw it over the middle of the plate and not get hit, but it is good enough to spot it up and get out, right? And so he's made that adjustment. And, you know, and, it's looked pretty good. In terms of the guy that I had been most impressed with in the early going, it's Matthew Libertor. The results have been like pretty good on the mound, right? But again, we talk about the importance of what you get from guys throughout the season.

Matthew Libertor is going to be a really important part of this bullpen because, you know, he's really flexible in his availability. He's perfectly comfortable back to back. He's perfectly comfortable warming up, even multiple times in one game and not getting in and still, being available the next day. You know, again, we talk about reliever availability. This is a thing that's really hard to understand because oftentimes it happens in games and if you're watching on TV, you might not even know

that it happened. But if a guy gets up and throws 25 warm-up pitches twice, they're done for that day and probably the next one if they don't get into a game, right? And all of a sudden, you're going, well, what the hell, Palante hasn't pitched in four days? No, but he warmed up twice and didn't get in and now he's toast. Whereas Libertore has a body, has a, and has a, you know, a routine that allows him to do that and bounce back. And so what

you've seen from him is the ability to cover multiple innings, to cover spots up, you know, up a couple, down a couple, and to be really trustworthy as a guy that they're comfortable leaning on as that kind of, you know, as that patch reliever, as that cover reliever. And that's, that's a big ask for a guy who's kind of making the full-time transition to the bullpen for the first time this early in his career. But it's going, like, it's going really well and then he has been really exactly what they needed. Now, is he going to jump off the page and blow you away with the numbers? Probably not, right? Like, if he kind of had that sort of stuff, he would probably still be starting. But whether or not he does, what he's doing now has been

really valuable for them. I want to jump into the defense real fast because we're running out of time here. But defensively, how big has this been for how this pitching sense? staff has been put together where, you know, it's not as much swing as missed up as some other staffs have, but the way the defense has played so far has made them a lot better, hasn't it? Yeah, I think, you know, a couple key areas look at there are number one that Wilson Contreras obviously has been heard, but when you look at the difference in his framing numbers from last year to this year, he literally went from one of the worst catchers in the league to one of the best at getting strikes kind of on the edges of the zone, you know, put in the work

this summer or this winter to make that possible and is seeing it pay off. The other thing, I think we've seen Mason Wynn show up on a couple more highlight real adjacent plays over the last week or so. You know, the Cardinals will say he's always confident and he's always felt comfortable here. I definitely believe that, but you have also, for sure, seen him kind of let the ball eat coming out of his hand a lot more over to me the last couple, you know, the last couple of spells. And you have seen him turn back in double plays that are really impressive plays that other people would not even attempt that he is able to cash in. And part of that, too, is the other guy to mention here, is Nolan Gorman, who went from a liability in the infield even as a third baseman when he was drafted, right, to a guy who does not have good range. It does not go very well either side to side, but he will catch everything that's hit at him. And he's playing second base with the third baseman's arms.

So he also can make those timing plays work really well. You know, it was notable that, again, in San Diego, they went into an alignment in a game late where they had a lead that involved Nolan Gorman entering the game as a defensive. replacement. And that really stood out. Consider right, that was a guy who you subbed in four, maybe as recently as the start of last season. And so for him to be trusted like that, I think really does speak to the work he's done and really does stabilize that infield defense because, you know, a rainy day for Victor Scott yesterday, notwithstanding, this team is extremely solid up the middle defensively. And that is how you build around a pitching staff that for all they're talking about swing

and this is going to have some contact, especially from the starters. attendance numbers down during the homestand TV ratings down a bit for their first road trip from last year. What are your thoughts on this? Are the fans trying to make a point? Or is it just, you know, early season, weather's kind of been crappy in St. Louis, and they'll be back when it starts to warm up again. So what I would say is the two, the first two games of the Philly series, the weather was like ideal. It's beautiful. It was like 70 degrees in breeze. Right. So ordinarily, yeah, totally, I hear you. But the weather really has been, was, it was awful Wednesday, but was great on Monday and Tuesday. And, you know, Tuesday night, if you exclude 2021 from the equation, Tuesday night was the least attended night game in the history of Bush Dayton. It was crazy. It was super noticeable. And that was for Sunny Gray's first start as a Cardinal, and that was well advertised. Vance and all that. And folks just didn't come down. Now, you know, I think content, for, for, For fairness in context, like a bad day for the Cardinals, and I remember this from last year, I haven't looked at it this year, but last year, their smallest crowd was better than the average

crowd of like 20 other teams, right? So like, let's be, you know, for the Cardinals, a really bad night is the low 30s. They have never, again, COVID season aside, they have never announced a full capacity crowd, or I'm sorry, they have never announced a paid crowd of less than 30,000. I thought we might get that yesterday. Instead, they announced 33 and change, which I don't know where they were, but that's fine. You know, they've never, they've never announced a sub 30. I'll be curious to see you put that this year. My understanding is that the season ticket base is somewhere in the low 20s, 22 to 24, and maybe you add another 500 to 1,000 for ballpark pass. Anybody who subscribed the ballpark pass, they can count those numbers and paid attendance every night

because that is someone who paid to be there whether or not they actually show up. So, you know, if getting below 30 would be hard, but it would mean that there was basically zero walk-up gate, and we'll see what that looks like. You know, the other thing I will say about the attendance is, for the last couple of years of the team is going through a tough stretch and not winning playoffs here, you see a lot of noise on social media in our inboxes,

whatever from people who are saying, well, the only way to make this change is for folks to not show up to games, right? I, for one, to be honest, never believe that Cardinal fans have the stomach for that, right? Like, my opinion has always been, that's something that people who are fans online say, but that, you know, this is not in shock. The fan base trends older. The fan base trends older.

The fan base trends more affluent. And I thought that those people were going to show up to games no matter what. And they still are mostly, but it's undoubtedly the numbers are down. Talk about April, talk about kids in school, talk about the eclipse, if you want. Compared to other April's, people are not showing up to games in near the same numbers that It is really interesting to me that after a couple years of hearing, well, we're going to stop coming because that's going to make the organization pay attention. When that sort of happens and then you point out that people have stopped coming, now it's, well, the weather is bad. Well, the eclipse traffic is bad.

Well, we're still going to, you know, there really is this sense of like, how dare you point out that fans are not showing up. And it's like, no, no, no, because you're the same people who were telling me you weren't going to come because you were mad at how the team was being run, right? So there really is, for me, for my perspective, there really is that kind of dissonance in the fan base where it's like, we're mad and we're not coming, but don't you dare say that we're mad and we're not coming. Which, you know, look, the thing is, and we talked about this, you know, last year kind of among each other,

covering the team, a lot of us didn't have any experience covering a bad team last year. We just didn't. A lot of people there, we had never, we'd never done it, and we were figuring it out as we went. A lot of Cardinal fans, especially, ones that are, you know, that are maybe in their 20s and 30s as opposed to their 40s and 50s, don't have any experience being fans of a bad team. I don't think this is a bad team.

Last year's team was a bad team. I'm not, I don't think this year's team is a bad team. I think this year's team right now is a maybe over team that could be a good team, right? But there are a lot of fans who don't have experience with that either and maybe haven't quite figured out where they kind of fit on those scales. Yeah, because there's still that part of you that even if you're like, man, I don't think they're very good, but it's still my cardinals. I want to go out and watch them and stuff.

You know, you still have that. All the B-Fib stuff is kind of a joke and it's kind of a marketing slogan, but there are people who feel that way. And the reason that it is an effective marketing slogan is that they have gotten people to internalize that and believe that they are part of something, which, you know, God bless them. That's a great sales job. Final thoughts here. Tyler O'Neill, Jordan Hicks, just a couple of other former Cardinals that seem to be thriving in new places.

I don't know how much you've gotten a chance to watch what they've been doing thus far. but people want to know why is it that talent leaves this team and ends up being so much better in other places. Is it, I mean, I keep telling him, I'm like, it's not that they didn't want Jordan Hicks. Jordan Hicks took a deal, you know, this was part of it, you know, making the move of the trade deadline was good business at the time. They tried to bring it back and it just didn't work out. The Tyler O'Neill thing, different story there, obviously, with the injury history and whatnot. But your thoughts on how well they're doing in their new places. Yeah, you know, I'm happy for Tyler who had a really hard time staying on the field for a couple of years, found himself in a situation where it clearly was not going to work out here. Whatever the situation was in the clubhouse last year, I think I put behind them relatively easily and was not a huge deal down the stretch. But at the same time, it was pretty clear that, you know, his time was up here and it was time to move on. I don't think it's a shock to anyone that he is able to hit home runs in bundles when he is on the field and feeling good. you know, this is a guy who was a top, right, right, exactly. He was a top 10 MVP candidate in 2021 because for the last month of the season,

he hit like 13 homers in September and went bonkers because he was helping. He was on the field, you know, if on Memorial Day, Tyler O'Neill has played in every game for the Red Sox, and he has 25 homers, or yeah, the Cardinals are going to feel bad about that. But, you know, maybe that's not an outcome that they would have ever gotten in St. Louis. At the same time, that it's probably also true of Jordan Hicks, though the Hicks thing is it is a really interesting kind of parallel path to see what happens to the Cardinals if, if Yadir Malina does not talk the Cardinals into Jordan Hicks making the team out of spring in 2018.

You know, the Cardinals go to Montreal to play an exhibition game at the end of spring training and sort of legendarily on that trip. It's Molina. It's a couple other guys going to Mike Mathini and saying, you know, Hicks can help us now. This kid needs to be on the team now. And so Hicks goes to the bullpen, you know, he's there, he's there through 19, he gets hurt, he hops out in 20, he gets hurt again. And it just sort of never really locks in. He never gets to a point of having a real chance to be a starter again, which he always really wanted to do, like was really committed to wanting to do. And it just, it just never got there.

And instead, you know, this is the career that he's had. And again, still just 27, right? like Jordan does not turn 28 until the first week of September. And the Giants, to their credit, said, okay, you know, throw a splitter, take a little bit off the sinker, maintain the arm a little bit, and we'll see what it looks like. And all of the sudden, he's like filling up the strike zone and going six to seven innings and looks like a world beater. And entirely fair for the Cardinals to do an internal, in fact, for years they have already been doing internal audits of what is the pitching development? missed, why couldn't they be the team that unlocked that?

Why is it that he's able to do that in San Francisco but wasn't able to do it in St. Louis? Those are all eminently reasonable questions that they're going to have to come up with some sort of answer for. I think it will see that answer, you know, through changes in player development and it changes in the way that they kind of handle their pitchers. I think a large reason of why Heinbloom is drawing a paycheck in St. Louis is to answer some of those questions to figure out what the Cardinals were and not

doing in player development and what they can do better. So, you know, to me of the two, the Hicks one looks like a bigger miss, but the miss is not, oh, they should have resigned him and let him start this, you know, this winter. The miss is, what did they do wrong in 2018, 19 that prevented them from having access to the 2024 version of Jordan Hicks? Because, again, the version of Jordan Hicks, they might have got, had they decided to resign him, is not the version the Giants have. And that doesn't, that's not an excuse for that not being the case, but that is the reality. of it and they have to figure out why that's true from, you know, from a ball on up what they're doing that makes that be the case. Yeah. And, you know, give the Cardinals a little bit of credit here because, as you pointed out, they are making efforts to fix whatever has been going

wrong and how they're letting some of this talent, you know, like he's mentioned, not unlocking it while they're in a Cardinals uniform. Like, they're working on it. They're trying to. It's like, well, you know, whatever, you know, they're trying. Right. And it's, you know, and I I get that for a lot of fans, that's a tough, you know, just wait. And in four years, we'll see what they do differently with the pitchers that are developing. Now, I get that that's not exactly a palatable outcome, especially when you talk about a rotation that's going to have holes to fill maybe again this winter, right?

But that is the only way to do it is to start over and do it, and they are getting there. All right. Well, once again, Jeff Jones, B&D.com is where you can find his work for the Belleville News. You can also follow him on TwitterX at J.M. Jones. Always a pleasure to have you, dude. Very insightful. Appreciate you coming on. Thank you guys for making Lockdown Cardinals, your first listen every day. And if you haven't already, give us a follow on Twitter X as well as Jeff at L1 underscore Cardinals and a JD Sports Radio. Please like and subscribe on YouTube, help our channel and our love for the Cardinals grow. As always, you're the best fans in baseball for a reason. And we will see you next time on Locked on Cardinals. Thank you, Jeff. Anytime.