Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Matchups Against The Dodgers Announced, Top Prospect Gets Cut From Camp And Lynn Faces Houston!

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

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It's official. Prize-free agent acquisition. Sunny Gray will start the season on the injured list, what it means for the rest of the pitching rotation at the start of the season. 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. Haffron 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 Locked on Cardinals. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. covering your team every day. You can follow me on Twitter,

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This is a show serving Cardle Nation. and giving the best fans of baseball. All of the info about the birds on the bat. So Mother Nature rained things out on Friday. All right. We got to backtrack a little bit here to get to the start of the weekend. Mother Nature, rainy in Florida, rain things out on Friday between the Cardinals and the Marlins, so there wasn't a game.

But she also rained out Sunny Gray's throwing session, which prompted the Cardinals to go ahead and make the decision to put Sunny Gray on the injured list to begin the season. And in all honesty, it's a smart and safe move, right? I know you're tired of hearing the same old song and dance where, oh, early games, they don't matter as much. It's a marathon, not a sprint. I can throw out a bunch of cliches at you. Don't get me wrong.

The early games do matter. Like, you don't want to go out and get swept by the Dodgers and the Padres to start the season and just be like, okay, it's the beginning of the season, no big deal. It is a big deal. trust me. But when it comes to the health of your best pitcher, you want him not risking things just for the first week or so so that he can be healthy for the rest of the season. You know, you've got this whole season to look forward to so you can make up for whatever happens in April if things don't go according to plan here in the first couple of weeks. Now, granted, that didn't work so well for the Cardinals last season who fell into the back of the pack very quickly in April of 2023. never go on a sustained run to ever catch up. And the season got out of hand real quick.

And then it was over by June and it was just gross. I don't want to keep rehashing this. But the idea is that they built their 2024 team to be better than last year's team and to be able to endure any slow starts they might have or endure any injuries that might be occurring, which we've got a few of them to get to. But if I'm being honest, aren't you starting to get already kind of the, the 2023 vibes again already. Maybe it's PTSD from what we went through last year, but it's starting to feel that way again already here in 2024. I mean, hey, we got this great outfield, right?

So many guys, we don't even know where to put them all. They're so good. And now two of the guys who were supposed to be starters are gone, Tommy Edmund being the one that we really have no idea about. We have no idea when or if Tommy Edmund is coming back in 2020. We think he will. We're hoping he will, but there's no guarantees there. I just assume this is just my mind.

I'm going to just pretend that Tommy Edmund has gone for a couple of months at the very least. Like I'm going to say he's gone to the All-Star break. Let's just put it there. And if he comes back earlier, great. But we need to plan for life without Tommy Edmund for an extended period of time. because I haven't heard that anything has gotten any better concerning Tommy Edmund and that risk that he had surgery on in the offseason. It is just not progressing the way people were hoping it would,

the way Tommy thought it might. And he's going to be out for a while. The news on Lars Neupbar obviously has been better. He's progressing. He's swinging. I's hoping to be back as soon as he is eligible from the injured list. But it feels like the cardals are kind of like right back in that same pickle that they were last year to start the season.

You know that no real ace or number one guy, Sunny Gray is going to miss a couple of weeks at least to start the season. Miles Michaelis, who would be a decent number three on most World Series caliber staff is now your top guy again. The guy's behind him have a lot of question marks. Last year it was Jack Flaherty and Stephen Matts's help. We weren't sure how that was going to work out. You didn't know what you were going to get from Adam Wainwright,

who had a horrendous September to close out the 2022 season, Dakota Hudson, Jake Woodford. Wouldn't know what the heck you were going to get out of those guys. We weren't sure if they were ready or not. You were hoping they would be. And then you had Jordan Montgomery, who was your only like stable guy behind Miles Michaelis. This year with gray out, guess what? Michaelis again, health questions about maths.

We're not totally sure. We're taking it very easy with Stephen Matts here in spring training. They're not trying to push them. They want them to be healthy. But you're not sure how good Gibson and Lynn are going to be. We're hoping for the best. We want them to be good and we want them to be at least as good as they were last year in the, you know, when it comes to Kyle Gibson and hopefully a lot better when it comes to Lance Lynn, who was really, really bad last year. You're hoping for good things from Zach Thompson, but you're not totally sure.

It's kind of a question mark there the way Jake Woodford and Dakota Hudson were. You know, they're younger guys that Zach Thompson has looked apart in spring training. He looked pretty good last year too. we're hoping for good things, but you haven't seen them do it a lot yet at the major league level. So we don't know. Now, if there is a silver lining here, it's that everyone in the rotation outside of gray has at least looked healthy,

has said they are healthy, has been saying the right things about their performance this spring, looking at you, Kyle Gibson. They've said the right things about the preparation, where they're trying to get physically and mentally. They're not so worried about the stats, but, you know, stats is something that we look at and judge you by. So, you know, it hasn't been a great spring for the starters outside of Miles

Michaelis and Zach Thompson. So the way things are set to shake out, now that Gray is officially out of the picture for a little bit. Miles Michaelis will get the opening day start in Los Angeles. He's going to go up against Tyler Glass now. The Dodgers came out and released their situation, their rotation decisions today. So it'll be Tyler Glass now in that first one. Then it will be lefty, Zach Thompson.

He'll go against Bobby Miller, young righty for the Dodgers. And then it's going to be Lance Lynn in game three. Game three for the Dodgers, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who got lit up by the Padres over in Seoul. Stephen Mats will then go and then Kyle Gibson. So they'll be starting against the Padres. So which if that all goes as planned, would line up Lance Lynn to make the start

on the home opener on April the 4th against the Marlins. Now, some might be surprised to know that this will actually be the first time that Lance Lynn has ever started the home opener with the Cardinals. He spoke with STL Today.com's Ben Fredrickson about to start saying, I was never honored with that gift. You always want that. You want opening day or the home opener. And then with a grin, he said,

Waino was always a, and he called them a certain word I can't say. But let's just say jerk. We'll go with jerk, but it wasn't jerk. It's another name. He called them a Richard. How about that? We'll say that. It was always a Richard. Alluding to the Future Cardinals Hall of Fame, we're always getting that home opener starting assignment.

But then he continued saying, in all honesty, you were kind of stuck back then. Wayne was going to get opening day or carp or somebody like that. You just kind of filled in where you filled in. To start years there are always two days that matter. If you get that opportunity to start opening day or the home opener, they are both great honors, never done it. first time back.

It'll be fun for me and the family. And Fredrickson also pointed out in his story, which I'm going to link in the description and in the show notes for the audio folks, that Lynn never pitched as an opposing player at Bush Stadium, which is kind of cool. So he's never actually worn anything but a Cardo's uniform on the mound at Bush Stadium.

Kind of cool because you go back and you're like, yeah, I guess not. I guess he never did have to pitch for any of the other teams that he played for. as an opponent. So pretty neat that he'll likely finish his career as a Cardinal and will only have worn that uniform on the mound at Bush Stadium. Lynn was on the bump today against Houston. We're going to talk about that later on in the show.

It wasn't great. As for Gray, he threw three innings in a live batting practice session on Saturday after a minor league game got rained out for a second consecutive day. He scheduled a pitch at a minor league game in Florida on Thursday, March the 28th. Again, not expected to be back. The earliest he can come back is during the home series. against the Phillies. So that's the earliest he can come back.

And hopefully things will continue to go well and he'll be back as soon as possible. The Cardinals did make a difficult decision on one prospect with another one still hanging around camp, fighting for a spot. We'll talk about it next on Locked on Cardinals. Spring is here and who doesn't want some extra cash for what, future vacation coming up this summer,

perhaps a road trip to a couple of stadiums. You're going to do one of those stadium tours and visit a bunch of them. I hear going to Pittsburgh is a good idea. something I still have not done yet. And I don't know why. I know people in Pittsburgh. I should be going.

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Again, thank you for making Locktown Cardinals, your first listen every day. Leave your comments on YouTube. You can also send me up on Twitter X. Feedback always welcome and encouraged. Victor Scott the 2nd. had a memorable camp, right? The speed, the defense, all made lasting impressions on the front office,

the coaching staff, the players, and of course, all of us fans. We finally got to see him in action, unless you got to see him at A ball or double eight last year or in the Arizona Fall League. So everybody was really excited this spring to see everything that we've been hearing about, and he didn't disappoint, didn't disappoint whatsoever. But the numbers game and youth, his age, were never on his side to make the team this spring. And the Cardinals have officially reassigned him to minor league camp, along with another impressive young player, which really opened some eyes here at camp,

Cesar Prieto, who hit 429 this spring with 11 RBIs. I mean, how do you not notice that? Pretty good. This spring, Victor Scott hit 316. He went 12 to 38 and run scored, which led the team, by the way, at an OBP of 409 OPS of 7 to 77. Making sure I said that right, I feel like I I added a seven there, but 777 and led this even stolen bases with four. Probably could have had more than that, but four, we'll take it. And on top of that, he showed why he won himself a minor league gold glove award last year. Numerous outstanding catches in the outfield. He covers a lot of ground in center field.

And let's be honest, when you got a Jordan Walker and maybe an Alec Burleson on your sides, you either have a center fielder who can cover as much ground as possible. the guy did everything you could possibly ask of him. And yet it still wasn't enough to make the team. But it's not his fault. It's not that the team doesn't like him or doesn't love him or that management doesn't want to win or any of those silly things that people were posting online. It's simply a numbers game. It's an experience thing that's going on right now.

And I've explained this repeatedly, but I'll throw it out there quickly again. Unless Dylan Carlson or Alec Berluson, like completely. bombed at camp this year and looked utterly useless, Victor was not going to make this team. To keep him means you play him, right? You don't bring him up and then sit him on the bench. That doesn't happen. And with Brennan Donovan, looking healthy, following elbow surgery, where he's playing in the outfield as well. Burleson having this great camp hitting 364. Dylan Carlson, coming to life, hitting 271, three home runs, team leading 13 RBIs. and then you've got the future heart of your team, you think,

in Jordan Walker, entrenched in right field, there just, there wasn't a spot to put him where he was going to get the proper playing time to further his development. Now you can make the argument that having Victor and center, Carlson and left and then Walker and right is the best trio available, specifically defensively with Newpar out at the beginning of the year. You can tell me that. You can make that argument, and you're probably right.

but with Neutbar coming back sooner rather than later, they're not expecting him to be out very long. They're expecting him to be able to come back as soon as he's eligible off the IL. You know, someone was going to get squeezed. And right now it just makes sense to let Victor start at Memphis, playing every day at Memphis, facing AAA pitching for the first time, mind you. Remember, he didn't make it past AA last year. And then if something opens up and he's doing well at AAA,

then you bring them up to play and you play them a lot. The idea is to when they do finally bring him up, that he doesn't ever have to go back down, that he's up and he's up for good. And the resurgence of Dylan Carlson at the plate this spring is making everyone, myself included, I think feel a whole lot better about things in the outfield to start the season. Now, like I do with Stephen Matts,

I am cautiously optimistic about D.C. because of the injury history, it is real. Dude's been hurt a lot, but there's probably not a person I'm rooting for more on this roster to start the season than Dylan. I just want to see him get a chance to be the guy that we've seen before. I want to see him healthy and enjoying the game again. And lately those things have been going well for him after that slow start at Jupiter. Like, you know, he came out of the gates and he looked bad. And it was frustrating for everybody involved, but they stuck with him. They kept giving him the bats and he broke out of it. Heard an interview between Bernie Michaelis and Derek Gold the other day talking about Dylan swinging

with intent, looking to do damage with his swing instead of just swinging to make contact. And so far the results, they speak for themselves. He's been on fire. Gold told a great story to Bernie in that conversation about how, I think it was that at the Mets Stadium in Port St. Lucy that during batting practice. It was Gorman, Berluson, and Carlson, and they were having kind of a home run derby power display type of contest, and D.C. was putting them just as far into the seating as Gorman and Burleson were. And this also kind of coincided with the recent surge that Carlson's been on at the

plate. It could be he's just healthier finally, and we're finally seeing him with physically where he wanted to be, that his skills are starting to blossom again. Could be just confidence. Confidence is a huge thing when it comes to sports and baseball. If you go up there thinking you're going to get out, you probably will. So confidence obviously had been lacking for Dylan Carlson, but it's probably just a combination of both. He's healthy.

He's confident. And I'm just really hoping that we get to see the guy that we saw back in 2021 when he finished, what was it, third? and the NL Rookie of the Year award voting. And with Edmund out for God knows how long, Carlson has a chance to reestablish himself as a major piece in the future of this organization. And I hope he does.

I really do because we've seen it before. We know he's got the talent. He's had it all the way up through the major leagues in that rookie year, and then the injuries came in. And it's a lot like Tyler O'Neill. You know, I hate to say it, but Tyler O'Neill, we knew still has the talent. he had the talent when he was in St. Louis,

but he couldn't stay on the field to show it off on a consistent basis. He had one year where he was healthy and you saw what Tyler O'Neill did. Dylan Carlson has had one year where he's been healthy. You saw how good he was that rookie year. I hope it stays. I hope he remains healthy and becomes the guy that the Cardinals thought he was going to be when he was a top prospect in all of baseball coming up. The other young prospect that is still lingering around Major League,

campus Thomas Sejacy acquired in that trade with the Rangers last year for Jordan Montgomery and Chris Stratton. Damn glad to meet you. So Jacey had the monster year at AA won that Texas League MVP award. He opened eyes during spring training. I believe he batting average has dropped a little bit. He's down to 304 after today's game. One home run, 11 RBIs, OBP of 373, slugging 435, OPS of 808.

That's pretty darn good. Pretty darn good for a guy who just had a taste of triple. way last year. I don't think he's going to make the team, barring something happening to Brandon Crawford and Matt Carpenter because they've kind of got those infield bench spots sealed up. Crawford has a played since getting hit on the hand back on, what was that, say, Paddy's Day, March 17th, was taking swings on Saturday and scheduled a hit on the field on Sunday. But with both of Crawford and Carpenter on the squad and healthy, really not a place for him. And again, another young guy that if he's not going to play, then set him down and let him play.

That's, you know, what they did with Mason win last year. Mason went at a great spring last year, but he wasn't going to start at the major league level last year. They didn't think he was ready. They wanted him to work on some stuff at AAA and get as many reps as he could, and that's what they did with him. That's going to be the future for Thomas and Jacey for now. There's just really not a place to put him. He's going to be a big part of the 2024 version of the Memphis Mafia, right, with Victor Scott, Cesar Prieto,

Lucan Baker, who had a tough spring, Jose Fermin, Pedro Pahes, Mike Antico, Moises Gomez, Matt Coperniac. I mean, it's not a bad lineup. AAA Memphis, I know, right? So, Jayce and the rest of the team finished off the Florida portion of spring training today against the Astros.

Lance Lynn got the start. Wasn't great again. We'll talk about it next on Locked on Cardinals. Byer TV, destination for sports from live games to highlights to in-depth analysis. Fire TV offers amazing viewing experiences with smart TVs as well as the Fire TV stick that you can plug into your existing TV and that will provide you access to millions of movies and TV episodes as well as free and live TV, whether it's opening weekend for baseball, which we already had kind of the opening weekend thing,

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Locked on Sports Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of Lockdown Plus our national shows covering every league. Find Locked on Sports today right now on the Free Fire TV channels app. So Lance Lynn took the mound in Jupiter today against Hunter Brown. the Jupiter? No. They were on the road today against Houston, weren't they? Anyway, on the road, took on the Houston Astros. Hunter Brown, one of their bright young pitchers, throwing for the Astros, Lance Lynn on the mound for the Cardinals. And once again, things were shaky. Things were shaky. Lance Lynn's final line today, four in a third inning, six runs, seven hits, two walks, five strikeouts.

Once again, he had an anywhere. He had to leave early and then come back to finish his work. Again, I don't know what Lance Lynn's working on in his starts. You know, they're all working on different things, but he was very wild today. Like weirdly oddly wild today. Looks healthy. I'm not saying something's wrong with him, but that's what makes me think he was working on some things where things are getting away from him. You know, never good when you first hit the first batter of the game on the first pitch you throw. Not a good start.

That's not great. Also through three wild pitches in this game. So that's what makes me think that he wasn't exactly just trying to dot people up in the strike zone today. He was working on some stuff. So at times he did look like himself. But it was just kind of a messy day altogether for him and the Cardinals. They also committed a pair of errors as well, which contributed to a couple of earned runs to come in. At one point in this game, it was 9 to nothing, Houston.

Like it was ugly. The offense, the offense, man, where are you? Where are you, offense? It continues to struggle. and it's a little late in spring training to say, oh, they're just shaking off the rust. No, man, I'm done with that. We got real games in three days.

And I got Paul Goldschmidt. My MVP from 2022 over here hitting a frigid 116. And the scary part is, is the alarming amount of strikeouts, 19 of them in 43 at bats. That is not the Paul Goldschmidt I know in love. Guys barely putting the ball in play half the time. Cardinals have had a tough time. scoring runs the way that at least I thought they were going to score them this year because

we're banking on this team to be a top 10 offense at least. And the veterans having a tough time, Goldie, Aronado, Donovan, all struggling. And if you've got pitchers who are going to be, you know, like a Lance Lennon, a Kyle Gibson and Miles Michaelis who were going to give you great, six innings, super duper. But you're giving up three to five runs in those six innings. Your offense has got to step up. You could not have these cold. spells going on or you're going to lose a ton of games. So they got to be better than what we've seen so far this spring. Bullpen wise today, Andre Palante gives up two unerned runs in his lone inning. Spring area quietly, 1.80. I think he's on this team. If the competition for the

final two spots in the pen is between Palante, Ryan Fernandez, and John King. I think King is S.O.L. He's your odd man out. And he's been sick. He's dealing with a stomach virus right now. so he hasn't been able to pitch or even play. So that's not helping his cause. So maybe he gets sent down to start the year as he tries to get healthy. Ryan Helsley, lucky he didn't give up a bomb today. I forget who the kid was, but he hit one. And the Astros announcers were talking about,

they're like on a non-windy day, they're like, that's 450 feet to dead center. But very windy today. Held the ball up, held it in the ballpark. It hit at the base of the fence. ended up being a double instead. But credit to Ryan Housley, didn't let it phase him, struck out two, no walks, which has been a bit of an issue for him.

So far this spring, his spring are ERA 1.13. You like that. Then there's Geobani Gallegos. He throws another shutout inning that spring ERA for Gio down to two. But again, I want to caution you that throwing at the end of these games, they're not going up against Bregman and Yorna-Alvarez. and Altuve or any of the other superstars that the Astros got. You're going up against dudes who had 90s on the back of their jerseys and no names.

So they're not facing the starters anymore. So it's hard to get like super excited about the numbers when you're throwing at the end of the games. That's why like when they bring these guys in in like the fourth and fifth innings and they're facing major league hitters, you can get excited about that. But at the end of games, you know, you're kind of dealing with the leftovers from what's on the roster. So hard to get super excited about it. But it is what it is. You still got to go out there and do your jobs,

no matter whoever it is they're facing. So they got it done. But the Cardinals lose today by the score of 9 to 4, dropped to 11 and 12 this spring. A reminder, last spring they had the best record in all of Major League baseball, and we saw how the season turned out. So don't get all been out of shape about it on 11 and 12 record this spring. Nothing to worry about there.

Who gives a crap? If they want to lost these games, it's about getting the work in and doing well. but still you want to win games but they pack up Florida now they're done down in jupiter they're going to head to Arizona they'll play the Cubs on Monday and Tuesday you get the day off on Wednesday and then the regular season begins the real game start on Thursday in Los Angeles I'm getting awfully excited about it hope you are too and we're going to be there the whole way so thank you for making locks on Cardinals your first listen every day if you

haven't already do me a solid give us a follow on Twitter X at L0 underscore Cardinals and a JD sports radio just shy of 2,000 followers on our Locked on Cardinals Twitter X account. So we're getting there. That'd be nice to hit that mark. Like and subscribe on YouTube. We're making the push for 10,000 subscribers, help our channel and love for the Cardinals grow. And when you do like and subscribe, when you do that, it pushes us out there a little further for other Cardinals fans who may not know about us to come in and join the discussion as we get

ready to kick off the 2024 season for the St. Louis Cardinals. You're the best fans in baseball for a reason. I will see you next time on Lockdown Cardinals.