Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - John Mozeliak's Legacy With The St. Louis Cardinals: Success Or Struggle?

Starting point is 00:00:00 John Mosei Locke has been a polarizing figure the last few seasons. And today we're going to continue our recap of the 2024 season by talking about what Mo did this past year, the good and the bad. 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 fans. I'm J.D. Haffern 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 Lockdown Cardinals, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network covering your team every day.

Starting point is 00:00:39 Follow me on Twitter X at JD Sports Radio and the podcast at L-O-1-Uscore Cardinals. I want to thank those of you who make Locktown Cardinals. Your first listen to every day. We are free and available wherever you get your podcast. We're also on YouTube. Make sure you stop on by, like, subscribe, and comment and interact with us, and hit that notification button so you know where the new episodes are posted because this is a show, serving Cardinal Nation and giving the best fans of baseball,

Starting point is 00:01:01 all of the info about the birds on the bat. Today's episode brought to you by prize picks. Download the app today. Use the code locked on MLB to win $50 instantly when you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks, run your game. John Moseilock, let's get into it, boys and girls. He has been with the Cardinals organization. Just a quick recap on what Mo has done and meant to this organization because it hasn't been all that.

Starting point is 00:01:27 All right, since mid-90s. That's when he comes on, comes on over from the Colorado Rockies with Walt Jockety. he took over as the GM worked his way up through the system in a number of different roles. And when they parted ways with Jackety in 2007, it was Moe who took on the GM role. And early on, he made some pretty bold moves, pretty bold moves. You know, training Jimmy Edmonds was a bold move. I mean, he ended up getting David Freeze in return. Somebody not a lot of people knew a whole lot about.

Starting point is 00:01:57 Not an easy move to hear when you're a fan. And Jim Edmonds has been a part of, you know, the history of the Cardinals and how good he'd been with the team to see him get moved, but it did pay off in the end. He acquires Matt Holiday. He brings in Lance Berkman. He traded for Raphael for call. He made the Colby Rasmus trade with Toronto. They brought in all those relief pictures like Octavio, Octavio Dotel, Edwin Jackson, Mark Zipchensky,

Starting point is 00:02:24 Corey Patterson. That helped launch that furious comeback in the month of September back in 2011 to make the playoffs and ultimately win a championship. He became your MLB executive of the year in 2011. Under his watch, the Cardinals have had a lot of success. They made two World Series appearances, 2011, 2013, five NLCS appearances, seven NLDS appearances. He's won six NL Central titles for NL Wildcard Burrists and just one losing season.

Starting point is 00:02:52 One losing season. In 2020, John Moseilock is going to be a Cardinals Hall of Famer one day. He is. but, but in this world of what have you done for me lately, Moe was viewed by many as the bad guy, as someone who has outlasted his welcome. It's time to move on.

Starting point is 00:03:16 For all the good that he brought this franchise over the years, things in recent years have not been all that great, at least not up to St. Louis Cardinal standards. For many other franchises, what he's done would be phenomenal. but it's not up to St. Louis Cardinal standards. And it's certainly not up to the fan basis standards. They want more. They don't want Mo.

Starting point is 00:03:41 They want more. You've had certain trades that have simply not worked out. The Marcello Zuna one is obviously a big one that people point at to with trading off guys like Zach Allen and Sandy Alcantra, Rania Rosa Rana for Matthew Libertor, which up until this past year looked very, very one-sided for the Tampa Bay raise in that one. But, you know, Libby has come around and seems to have found a nice little role as a member of this bullpen.

Starting point is 00:04:10 Could be a huge part of it if Brian Helsley ends up getting traded. But that's for another day. The Tyler O'Neill trade this offseason to Boston. Those have not worked out very well, right? Not at least not what we'd hoped that you were going to get in return. There's been a lot of bad pre-agent signings. Brett Cecil, Andrew Miller, Dexter Fowler, Mike Leak, just to name a couple of them. Certain contracts like the Miles Michaelist and Stephen Matt Steele's that he's got on right now,

Starting point is 00:04:38 in hindsight, have been awful the last couple of seasons. I was never a fan of the Stephen Matt Steele. I thought he's an entry riddle guy. And just because he had one year where he wasn't hurt, that's not a good reason to give him a four-year deal. And they did it anyway, and we've hardly seen him on the field. he's constantly hurt. Miles Michaelist deal wasn't so bad that first year, but then it's progressively gotten so bad where Michaelis has become one of the most hitable pitchers in baseball. So now

Starting point is 00:05:08 you see it and it looks terrible when you're paying this guy over $17 million to be in your rotation. Letting guys like Adolese Garcia, Patrick Wisdom, Lane Thomas, get away from your organization for virtually nothing, only to see them have a lot of success in other places. you've had the managerial moves, which have been questionable, you know, and left people scratching their heads. Tony LaRusa, who has been, you know, a manager for so long, you know, working his way up with the White Sox and then the A's. And then he said all the success with the Cardinals.

Starting point is 00:05:40 And then you go to Mike Mathini, who's never managed anywhere, except for Little League teams? Like, that was weird. And then you go to Mike Schilt, who's been in your system. But then he gets let go for philosophical differences. and you go to another guy who's never managed it in the major leagues and Ali Marmel. So just questionable, right? It's just weird stuff for a lot of people.

Starting point is 00:06:05 And because a lot of this has happened over the last five years, it's almost wiped out all memory of all the good things that John Moseilac had done. And like most things in life, sometimes it's just time to move on. Things have run their course and it's time to move on. And that's what's going to happen. And John Mosei Locke has admitted to that. He's never said, you know, no, no, I can turn this all around. I'll do it.

Starting point is 00:06:30 I'm going to be here forever. Oh, he's kind of like, you know, I think it is kind of time. He's felt it. And Moe's going to step down from his role as president of baseball operations at the end of the 2025 season. And Heim Bloom will take over fully in 2026, has been with the organization this past year. We'll take on greater roles here in 2025, mostly with scouting and whatnot. and then he takes over the big job in 2026. So that's led us up to where we are here in 2024.

Starting point is 00:07:02 So I want to focus the rest of this episode on what John Moseiloc did leading into 24, like offseason stuff, what he did during the season. And then we'll make a judgment call on how bad or how good John Moseilock was in this past year and how he shaped the St. Louis Cardinals for 2024. So we'll start arguably, or I should say, we'll start with arguably his most controversial move, at least in my opinion. We'll get that next on Locked on Cardinals.

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Starting point is 00:09:17 So after the disastrous, uh, 20, 23 season where the Cardinals finished 71 and 91, I hate saying that out loud all the time. The only losing season actually had under Mo. We were wondering if manager Ali Marmal was the right guy, right? Is this the right guy? Are we sure we got the right guy for the job here? You know, as a rookie manager in 2022, the Cardinals had a very successful season.

Starting point is 00:09:39 You had the, you know, the chase for 700 with Albert Poo holes, the last ride of you out of here Molina. Paul Goldschmidt wins you in an LNBP, no and Arnaata was a finalist. So you had a lot of thunder in that lineup, which covered up for the lack of pitch. that the team had. And despite Moe making trades for Jordan Montgomery and Jose Cantana at the deadline, which outstanding moves, right? Right. We can all agree on that. They get bounced in the first round

Starting point is 00:10:07 by the Philadelphia Phillies. Now year two for Ali ends up being awful and the Cardinals. Ali and the Cardinals. Allie and the Cardinals. It was bad. So many issues and problems littering the team and it crumbled under them. Many wanted Ali fired, despite having one year left on his contract, 2024. And I was someone who thought that the 2024 season was going to be the maker break year for Ollie. This was a chance for Ali to prove that 2023 was a fluke occurrence, that he learned from the mistakes that he made in years one and two. But if things went really, really south, the deep south, once again that the Cardinals, you know, his contract is up and we could be looking for a new manager.

Starting point is 00:10:54 yet again, but at least you would know that, hey, okay, this did not work out and we need to go in a different direction. Instead, John Mozaylock doubles down, pushes all his chips in on Allie Marble, backs him 110 percent so much that he's like, I'm giving this guy a two-year extension through 2026. How about that? Now this caught a lot of us off guard considering how bad things got in 2023. They pointed out that the early portion of the season here in 2024 was going to be a tough stretch, was not going to be an easy first couple of months. And they were hoping, at least from what we were gathering, was that they were hoping that it would avoid any of the fire-a-lety chance that would pop up early on if and when the Cardinal

Starting point is 00:11:51 struggled, which they did going 16 and 24 in their first 40 games. An extremely bold move, but Mo stated on many occasions that it wasn't all on Ali for the failures in 2023, that he was taking a lot of blame for that and essentially said, if he's going down, talking about Ali Marble, if he's going down, I'm going down with him. This is my dude, you know, ride or die, baby. And I respect the loyalty there. I really do. I respect it. I respect the loyalty that he, that he showed Ali. And in the end, Ali, at least in my opinion, which not everybody agrees with, was a whole lot better in 2024, leading this team to an 83 and 79 record, despite his top three headers either regressing to career lows offensively or in Contreras's case, missing half the season. due to entry to having a team that was missing your starting center fielder from day one.

Starting point is 00:13:00 No Tommy Edmund. Also, two of your future pillars of your team, Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker, not hitting worth a lick at certain points of the season. With Walker not even being on the team for most of you all of that. And Ali Marmel still pulls 83 wins out of this team. that's why I think Ali, Ali did a good job. And Mo stuck by him and was like, yeah, I, I'm telling you, he's good. He's not as bad as everything was in 2020. The other big offseason moves he made, as far as roster construction,

Starting point is 00:13:39 were with pitching staff. How aggressive could Moe and ownership be to try to turn things around immediately? After things going so bad in 2023, that was the question. It was like, well, what are they going to do here? Are they going to play the short game, right? Are they going to play the short game? Are they going to just throw some money at the problem and try to get things turned around like bang, quickly? Or would they take the long game approach?

Starting point is 00:14:07 Not make much of a splash in the off season and perhaps even trade away. Some of the veterans that were making a whole lot of money guys like Paul Goldschmidt, who we talked about trading in the off season of 2020. We discussed trading him at the trade deadline of 2020. would they go that route instead and the cardinals kind of just fell in the middle of all of that right they didn't go one way or the other they kind of just went in the middle you know so they the sunny grace signing i thought was nice i mean a lot of us thought that that was a really good fit made a lot of sense and when they got them for just three years excuse me it seemed like okay that's

Starting point is 00:14:52 that's you can handle that three years that's not that's not signing an old guy to like a six year deal where he's pitching into his almost 40s right um but then there was the Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn signings and those are the ones where I was kind of like I what I don't know I don't I'm not sure I like that one of them made sense two of them did not so much And, you know, the reaction to it was like, well, instead of two average veterans, I mean, we can say that, right? Average veterans, why didn't they, you know, for what were they making $23 million together? Why not use that money towards another top tier picture? Like, why are we, I don't want to say dumpster diving because that's not what they are.

Starting point is 00:15:48 But why are we kind of lower area? And I don't want to say low-hanging fruit either, which is another great Jamo's-Loc line because that's not what it is. It's not like we're getting two guys or we're coming off injuries or something. But why are we down here? Why are we shopping down here in the clearance aisle, you know? And perhaps the reason why is that those pitchers weren't interested in coming to St. Louis. Anything better than that may not have wanted to come to St. Louis.

Starting point is 00:16:20 If you remember, Mo kept saying, you know, that Gibson and Lynn and Gray were guys that wanted to be here. He kept making that a point. They wanted to be here, which makes me think that maybe, maybe Mo did kick the tires on some of those bigger names that some of us fantasized about. And they just flat out said, no, I don't want to go to St. Louis. I don't want to be a cardinal. So he pivoted to two guys that he knew for a fact that he could sign. And that's really the hard part about judging the offseason moves because we don't know what is said behind closed doors unless somebody leaks it. We don't know.

Starting point is 00:16:58 We don't know what was said between Mo and, you know, representation for free agents like Jordan Montgomery or Blake Snell or Michael Walker, Seth Lugo, Sean Mania, guys that, at least in my eyes, are a step above what Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson were. you know so we don't know we don't know we don't know we don't know if there's other guys out there that he talked to either you know there was remember we were all talking about ooh yamamoto's we got a chance uh laris new bar he's gonna go he's gonna hook us up right and um we don't know we don't know if mo was able to approach those people or not but obviously uh things didn't work out and you ended up with Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn I don't know if that was by design in choice. I don't know if other people shot him down or not. We don't know that. But that's what was left. And he signed him early on, which was why I feel like people were like, not interested. I'm sorry. Not

Starting point is 00:18:00 interested. I'm sorry. And then he's like, okay, well, Gibson, Lynn, hell yeah, let's do it. And he was like, all right, cool. I don't want to wait too long and then get completely shut out and somebody else pick up these guys. So Mo also this offseason had to rebuild the bullpen. He traded Richard Palacios for Andrew Kittridge. That worked out. Ryan Fernandez in the Rule 5 draft. That worked out. I also added a couple of arms that didn't work out because of injuries. Unfortunately, we don't know what Riley O'Brien could have done. You know, we had all this excitement about him in spring training. We were like, ooh, this could be a nice little toy. And then he was gone after after the first series against the Dodgers.

Starting point is 00:18:42 And he was gone for most of the year. And then when he came back, there were moments you're just like, oh my gosh, this guy sucks. But again, coming back from injury, we're not sure what Riley O'Brien is. Maybe he can be a part of the puzzle for next year and be better if he's healthy. Keenan Middleton, a lot of us were excited about what Keenan Middleton could bring to the table coming off of a season where he was a white socks.

Starting point is 00:19:04 And then he was really good with the Yankees. And he gets hurt. And he's gone for the year. He never got to see him. So what would two healthy guys in O'Brien and Middleton have been able to do for this fulton as well? We'll never know. The other offseason moves he made were he went a little old, right? He brings back Matt Carpenter and also signs veteran shortstop, Brandon Crawford.

Starting point is 00:19:30 Now, I think we can all respect Matt Carpenter, right? We all love carp, and we were happy to see him back. and we were told that he was there to kind of, whether they admitted it or not, was there to kind of take on a bench bat, kind of coach's mentor type of role. I mean, I think we can all see Matt Carpenter as a bench coach of some sort

Starting point is 00:19:55 or a coach of some sort with the St. Louis Cardinals of the future, right? It aligns up nicely. It feels like it makes a lot of sense at some point. What he was going to give us off the bench, or anything on the field this year. Right? We weren't like, we were like, okay, is he good enough still to actually play?

Starting point is 00:20:16 And then there's the Brandon Crawford signing, which I don't think was something they were even thinking about until they realized that Tommy Edmund was going to be gone for a long time. And when they realized the severity of Tommy Edmund's injury and what was happening there, they were like, oh, crap, we don't have a shortstop. What if Mason, what if Mason when is already? But if he doesn't work out, what if he's overwhelmed?

Starting point is 00:20:38 And what do we do then? Who's playing Georgetown for this team? So they get Crawford and they're like, we just kind of need you to be a backup and just, you know, hey, shatter this glass. If something happens, type of maneuver. So I think it was more of a desperation, backup role situation. And luckily, he wasn't really needed all that much.

Starting point is 00:21:01 And eventually the team moved on because Mason won was fine. He was great. They had rested him a little bit early on to, you know, just make sure, you know, that he was going to be able to make it through an entire season. And then they were like, all right, eventually they had to move on from Crawford because he was providing little to nothing production wise at all for the team on the field. Off the field, I'm sure he was great. We've heard things that he was a great guy in the clubhouse and everybody loved him. But eventually, they just needed more from that spot on the bench. They just had to get more. and there was nothing that Brandon Crawford was offering anymore.

Starting point is 00:21:39 So they said, thank you for your time. We got to move on. So that's what happens. So as far as rebuilding the rotation and the pitching staff is in the bullpen, probably did a pretty good job, right? Like you can't really say that there was anything horrible that went on there. Yeah, I would have liked to have something better than Gibson and Lance Lynn. But again, we don't know if that was even available.

Starting point is 00:22:05 option for Mo to go to. And that's going to take us into the season and take us to the trade deadline, where the Cardinals pulled off a deal, which at the time made a lot of sense and earned Mo a lot of adulation across the league. And then there was another trade that was made that was a complete letdown altogether. So we'll get to that part of this season and our judgment of John Mosea lock next on Lockhartons. Price Fix is the best place to get real money sports action with over 10 million members and billions of dollars in award winnings. Price picks as made Daily Fantasy Sports accessible to all. You just pick more or less on at least two players for a shot to win up to 100 times your cash. Run your game all season long on price fix. You can now

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Starting point is 00:23:20 Use the code locked on MLB to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup. Download the app today. Use that code, Locked on MLB, L-O-C-E-D-O-N-M-L-B to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup. Price picks, run your game. Thank you again for making Locktown Cardinals your first listen today. Be sure to check out the Lockdown MLB podcast with our guy Sully, who's covering everything going on with the MLB playoffs. And of course, the MLB offseason is going to be all over it for every single team.

Starting point is 00:23:59 Any news going on in baseball, Solie's got you at Lockdown MLB, part of the Lockdown podcast network, your team every day. So the Cardinals were 55 and 52 at the Johnson. July 30th trade deadline. They were going to be buyers. We knew that. Thank God, because nobody wanted to speak sellers again like they were in 2023. At least I did. I know some people were like, we're not going to win anything to get rid of everybody. What are you doing? I was not that guy. I'm a little more optimistic. I was like, yeah, let's bring some people in. Let's try to, let's try to sneak into the playoffs here. And we knew where they wanted to upgrade. We knew the spots.

Starting point is 00:24:35 Everybody did. There were three spots. They wanted to upgrade the starting rotation. wanted a right-handed hitting outfielder, and they wanted a right-handed relief pitcher. And Moe was able to pull off a couple of deals here to fulfill those needs. First one was the big one. That was the three-team trade between the Cardinals, the Dodgers, and the White Sox. The Cardinals got Eric Fetty, who at the time, 3.11ERA in 21 starts. One of the top available pitchers in baseball at the deadline. Okay. He also got Tommy Fam to be part of the deal from the White Sox.

Starting point is 00:25:14 The Dodgers end up getting Tommy Edmund, which stung. That stung, right? That hurt us a little bit. Even though he had not played at all yet during the season after he was recovering from that wrist surgery, that ended up being way more severe than I think anybody thought it was going to be. The Dodgers also got Michael Kopeck from the White Sox and a minor league right-hander, Oliver Gonzalez, from the Cardinals. The other side of it is what the White Sox got. They got infielder Miguel Vargas, and Chicago received two of L.A.'s top 30 prospects.

Starting point is 00:25:48 I think they were infielders, if I remember correctly. Most experts, myself included, if you want to call me an expert, but I was on board with this. We love the deal for the Cardinals. They essentially were able to cut some payroll by dealing Tommy Edmund away, who again injured. We weren't totally sure what his production level was going to be, even when he did come back.

Starting point is 00:26:14 The Dodgers were willing to take that risk. They were like, all right, well, if he comes back and he's all right, it's going to fulfill some needs for us, right? And you get one of the top, as I mentioned, starting pitching arms that were available at the deadline. It wasn't like a ton of them out there. And you also add former Cardinal Tommy Pham, who adds more of that veteran presence,

Starting point is 00:26:36 that they always craved and would help with their inability of hitting left hand. He could be a bench bat. He could start if he needed him to. He came out of the gate swinging a hot bat. So they had him in the lineup a lot early on. But I don't think that was the role that they envisioned for him that he needed to start, but they didn't want to sit his bat because they didn't want him to cool off. The other deal they made, to put it lightly, very underwhelming and very,

Starting point is 00:27:05 and very disappointing when they traded former top prospect Dylan Carlson to the Tampa Bay raise for right-hander Sean Armstrong. The Carlson deal, it just took a lot of shine off the Fetty deal because you got the fettie deal and you're like, oh, okay. And what can we get for Dylan Carlson? Because here in St. Louis Cardinal land, Dylan Carlson was still considered a top prospect. We thought he was really good. Oh, he just needs a little bit of work.

Starting point is 00:27:33 He's going to be fine. You're going to love it. You're going to love them. Obviously, the rest of baseball didn't think all that highly of Dylan Carlson, because all you got in return was a right-handed relief pitcher whose contract was set to expire at the end of the year. And Sean Armstrong, previous year had a pretty good year. 2023 or 2024. Not so good.

Starting point is 00:28:00 Wasn't having a great year. He was just kind of all right. that's all you can get for Dylan Carlson. So it took the shine off Fetty because it was such a letdown. Because after all the hype and all the promise that surrounded Carlson for years, this was it. This was the Cardinals finally throwing their hands up and waving the white flag and saying, we're out, we're done, change the scenery time.

Starting point is 00:28:31 We got to move on in our life. lives, just a sad end to the Cardinals career for Dylan Carlson at the ripe old age of 25. This is not like some guy who's 28, 29, and the career is over. Still is 25. He could still have a very successful career, but it's not going to be with the St. Louis Carls. And that was a tough pill to swallow because we thought he was going to be one of the future starting outfielders for this team for a very long time. Switch hitter, speed, good defense, some pop,

Starting point is 00:29:10 and it just never happened. Injury is obviously a big reason why, but it just never happened. And after we clear all the smoke and we figure out who's going to the playoffs and who's not, none of those trades ended up being all that great. Like none of them had the impact that most,

Starting point is 00:29:30 or anyone else had hoped. And eventually, FAM and Armstrong get designated for assignment and end up going to different teams. Armstrong went to the Cubs and then he got let go from them. I don't know where he went after that, if anywhere. Fam ends up going to the Royals and ends up being a part of their roster. So they were let go in all reality, not because there was anything wrong with them,

Starting point is 00:29:55 but it was allowing them to pursue other opportunities with other teams after the Cardinals' playoff chances have been vanquished. So, meanwhile, Tommy Evan has been an integral part of what's going on with the Dodgers playoff run. 37 games, obviously hadn't played all year. It's 237, six home runs, 20 RBI, six stolen bases. Boy, when that I've looked good in a Cardinal uniform, has been playing shortstop in center field, just like he did with Cardinals.

Starting point is 00:30:25 And then in the postseason, sitting three, 324. He's got eight RBIs, three stolen bases. And the NLCS alone right now against the Mets, he's hitting 412 with seven ribbies and was batting cleanup for the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday night, was batting cleanup for that team. You know, I mean, whoever thought that was going to happen. And they lights it up. He goes two for six, two doubles, three RBIs. And you're just like, yeah, it's what happens. You get out of St. Louis and you immediately, pay dividends for whatever team you're playing for. Even Dylan Carlson hit very well for the Tampa Bay raised right away and then cooled off eventually. But the idea of trading for Feddy,

Starting point is 00:31:14 fam, and Armstrong, it all made sense. It all made sense at the time. But in the end, those moves made little difference as the Cardinals ended up falling short of a wildcard spy. Fetty wasn't as bad as his record may seem. I know you can look at it, two and six. You're like, oh, two and six, that's really not all that great. Why would, what? That's not good. August was his worst month that he had all year. And, you know, part of that might have been just, you know, getting traded and getting used to new catchers and new coaching and new pitching, you know, coaches and what, you know, things are different with the Cardinals than they are in other places.

Starting point is 00:31:55 I don't know what kind of coaching he was getting with Chicago White Sox at that point. You know, it's a White Sox team that was the worst team in majorly baseball history. And I don't know how much they were helping him. He was probably just kind of doing whatever he wanted to do, get to the Cardinals, and things are a little different. He struggles in August. He goes one in four. The ERA is at 4.64 in six starts. But after settling in September was a whole lot better.

Starting point is 00:32:23 He goes one in one, but 2.38 ERA in four starts, that was more like the guy that the Cardinals thought they were going to get. And they also have Feddy under contract for next season at $7.5 million, which is a good deal if he continues to be the guy that he was this past year, where he ended up as a combined 9 to 9.9, the IRA 3.30, very respectable. ERA plus, $126. $7.5 million. I'll take that. You know how much it costs for pitching these days as a starting visitor? So while the Carlson trade was kind of a kick to the beanbag of what might have been, you know, we always thought that there was this huge future with him. The Feddy trade will have some worth beyond this season into 2025, where, you know, if he has a good season, maybe the Cardinals try to re-sign him or they can use him as trade bait later on, depending on how the season is going as a whole for the team.

Starting point is 00:33:21 Maybe they can turn him into something else, possibilities. So there are other things about Mo this season that were the handling of Jordan Walker or something that I'm going to deduct some points for from his overall score, specifically that weird week where he was just starting to mash at Memphis and we're seeing him to really put some sting on the ball. He's hitting it out of the yard and just smashing it left and right. And they're like, oh, all right, they bring them up. And then they make him a platoon player.

Starting point is 00:33:51 And then they just send them right back down after what was like six games, something like that. After a week, it was very silly, very confusing. Didn't like it. So all in all, got to wrap it up. All at all, going to give John Moseilock, I don't think you guys are going to like this, but I'm going to give him a seat. I'm going to give him a seat for 2024,

Starting point is 00:34:11 which might be generous in some people's minds, but I want to give him credit for stabilizing the rotation with Gray, Gibson, and Len. We got you three starters. Len, when he was healthy, was actually not so bad. when you go back and look at the numbers, he had to rebuild the bullpen with a lot of new arms. And again, even though it wasn't enough to get them over the hump to become a playoff team, because the offense still couldn't figure things out with runners in scoring position,

Starting point is 00:34:40 the trade for Feddy. It was a creative one. And it gave them something beyond this year in the starting rotation at an affordable price when he probably knew that they were going to be cutting some payroll. You know, it's not like he wasn't watching the attendance and watching how things were going with the Bally's negotiations and stuff like that. I mean, probably knew. He's like, dude, we're going to have to shed some payroll anyway. So let's see if we can swap this out.

Starting point is 00:35:06 And, you know, you got a capable starting pitcher in return when you weren't totally sure of what you were going to have in Tommy Evan. He's going to make $9.5 million next year with the doctors. Now, I caught a lot of hell for talking too positive about Ali the other day. Many think I'm very guilty of wearing the Cardinal colored lenses that were provided to me by Bill DeWitt Jr. and John Mosaylock. And I'll admit, I'm just a more positive guy than a lot of people are. I'm just that way in life in general. So me being nicer about the Cardinals and about their players and their ownership and their coaching staff and their front office, certainly something I'm guilty of. I'm happy to admit that. I kind of tend to see the brighter side of things than focus on. the negative. But that's where you come in. That's where you come in. I want you to unleash the fury about Mo and Ollie and ownership down below. Tell me why they suck in your eyes, why they shouldn't be around here anymore. Or if you do agree with me after hearing this and you're like, you know what? Maybe I ain't so bad. If you are like me, let me know too. I think there are

Starting point is 00:36:15 some positive things to bring up. It's not all negative. It's not World Series Championship caliber by any means, but it's not Chicago White Sox either. But let me know your thoughts down below. Thank you for making Locked on Cardinals for first list and every day. If you haven't already, give us a follow on Twitter X at L.O underscore Cardinals and a JD Sports Radio. Like, like, subscribe on YouTube, making that push for 11,000 subscribers. I need each and every one of you. We've got 11,000 subscribers, you know, like, what, I'd rather go a little over 1,800 subscribers at the moment.

Starting point is 00:36:49 And, you know, we get thousands of views. and then I get like 120 likes. Like somebody's not hitting the like button. You're doing us a disservice by not doing that. So like, subscribe if you haven't already. If you've been doing it already, God bless you. You're awesome. Because you guys are the best fans in baseball for a reason.

Starting point is 00:37:06 And I will see you next time on Lockdown Cardinals.

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