Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Ohtani Drama, Cardinals Injury Replacements Plus The Biggest Spring Surprises And Disappointments!

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

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One week away from opening day, and today we are joined by 101 ESPN's Brooke Grimsley to talk about how the Cardinals will deal with all the injuries that are mounting. Plus, who she thinks are the biggest surprises and disappointments at camp so far. 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 Jaddy Haffern and I'm a national radio sports anchor, born and raised in the Lou. in a lifetime cardinals, and I'm your host for Lockdown Cardinals, part of the lockdown podcast network covering your team every day.

You can follow me on Twitter, X, the JD Sports Radio and the podcast at L.O. underscore Cardinals. We want to thank those of you who make Locktown Cardinals, your first listen every day. Free and available wherever you get your podcast and free and available on YouTube. Be sure to like and subscribe and comment. That way you're interacting with us and hit that notification button so you know when the new episodes are posted. This is a show serving Cardle Nation and giving the best fans in baseball. All of the info about the birds on the back. So we've got another guest in today, our good friend Brooke Grimsley from the opening drive at 101 ESPN joining us. Brooke, before we get into any cardinal talk, let's talk about the elephant in the room.

Who did you take in your brackets this year if you filled out any brackets? I know it's difficult for us in the sports world to not do one, but I imagine you want you at least fill that one, didn't you? Of course. I have multiple. I always have a chaos bracket and then I have my more reasonable bracket. and why does it always seem like the reasonable bracket is the one that ends up actually doing better? I feel like that always happens every single year. First of all, great to see you. I know I haven't seen you in a while. Huge fan of your work.

Love everything that you do here on Lockdown Cardinals. And you're one of my favorite follows on X as well. So it's great seeing you. Oh, thank you, girl. Yeah, for my picks. So in my final four, I have this written down and I had my bracket right in front of me. I had to go pull it out. All right.

Yeah, because this is the opening day, man. So here's the thing. I feel like I didn't want to do the vanilla pick or maybe the easy pick here that everybody else is doing. But I have Yukon as my winner. You can go ahead and boo me because I know everybody else is doing that. But I just feel like that's the right choice to make here as your winner. And I know that would make them, what is it, the first team to do that since 2007 to be able to win back to back. But still, at the same time, it just feels like it makes a lot of sense.

Then I have Purdue. And then this is where things get a little bit tricky. I also have Houston and I have Arizona. All right. Not bad. Not bad. See, I got a Yukon winning as well because my wife said, you've got to take Yukon and you're an idiot. And then I went Clemson, Houston, and Creighton as my, my final four with Yukon knocking off Creighton in the finals. So what's your chaos bracket? Who's your winner in that one? My chaos bracket? Well, that one is going to be Arizona winning it. That's just what I have because for some reason, and maybe this is just like a little bit of the St. Louis bias

because you have Caleb Love, and I know that that would end up him being facing North Carolina, the team he played for for three years. But I got to see him. I know players are always different than what they are in high school. But when he was at CBC, Caleb Love was absolutely electric. He's a guy, as the kids like to say, has that dog in him. And I feel him going against his former team. He was also the Pac-12 player of the year for AP, last Pac-12 player of the year. And so I just feel like there's something there may be with Arizona where they could catch them steam. All right. I can go with those picks because I usually stink at these anyway. Like I tried to find different reasons to take teams. So I rolled with Drake as one of those that goes really far this year because my

little brother just had his first son and he named it Drake. So I went with Drake. So these are because I don't when I think I know what I'm talking about. I don't when it comes to college basketball when it goes to the bracket. So I usually screw them up anyway. So well, we hope everybody's enjoying the March Madness going on thus far. Let's talk a little baseball. First, what are your thoughts on the show? Hey, Otani thing before we get to the Cardinals? I know, it's a weird story, but the interpreter, I guess,

$4.5 million on gambler. What is going on here? Like, is this nuts? Well, it's absolutely nuts because all of that coming out yesterday, I was absolutely shocked. First of all, I wouldn't want his interpreter to make any bets for my March Madness bracket. I'll just put that out there, four and a half million.

$4 million. And the story just seems to keep getting crazy and crazier. First of all, him and his interpreter, Shohay and his interpreter, have been working together since 2018, have even known each other prior. So this isn't just somebody who just came into Shohay Otani's life here recently. He's known him really, really well. And so at first you have Shohay Otani with the comments that he knew about the debt. And that's why he had the direct contact, I guess, with the bookie. And this bookie apparently made it very well known and was kind of boisterous. about the fact that, you know, he worked with Shohay Otani in some way. An FBI investigation is what really opened this up. And it looks like right now that almost his interpreter looks like the fall guy in this situation. And I hope that that's really not the case. And maybe Shohay Otani just maybe misunderstood what was going on and was trying to help out his friend in this situation. But the looks and the optics of it doesn't look good whatsoever.

Was he betting on baseball? That's a huge issue right there. but vetting in general in sports, especially when you are a pro athlete at the level of magnitude that he is, it's never a good look whatsoever. So I'm still trying to wrap my head around what exactly is going on here. But in my opinion, I think that Major League Baseball needs to come out and have a press conference about this. Really explain this. I know there was reports today that they're not going to do an investigation. They absolutely should do an investigation.

This looks absolutely fishy. And you need to get in front of the narrative. before the narrative keeps getting crazier and crazier, which it already has at this point. And then it's left for everybody to assume. I wouldn't want people to assume the worst about the star and the face of Major League Baseball currently. Exactly, exactly. And here's the other thing. Four and a half million you mentioned like how horrible that gambler must have been if he's losing that much.

But that's also two years of Shohei Otani's salary with the Dodgers. How's this guy going to eat, right? Yeah, I know, right? Like, man, he's going to really be hurting for cash, is it? But that's why it's kind of like a drop in the water for him, the four and a half million. But I don't know what to make of it at this point. It's not a great look for him. I hope that the Dodgers may be get in front of this, as I mentioned.

You have to do something about this when it comes to holding a press conference. I don't think this is something you could just sweep under the rug and say, oh, nothing to see here. Nothing really going on. Don't worry about this over here because I think a lot of people are pretty worried about what this means. Yeah. Well, well, we'll keep following the story. make sure you guys are listening to the opening drive on 101 ESPN. I'm sure they'll have the latest each and every morning for you guys when it comes to

the show, Hey, Otani situation. Let's get into some cardinal talk. Let's talk about injuries. Everybody's favorite subject these days. A couple of updates coming out today. Drew Rom, left forearm strain has been shut down for pitching after experiencing tendonitis in that left forearm as a pitch since he allowed nine hits and four and runs in two and a third on March 15th against the Marlins.

wasn't likely going to make this roster anyway, but it's still a bummer. You don't want to hear about any injuries to anybody, especially any of your young talent that you might have to rely on later on down the road. And then the bigger name that got an update was Sunny Gray, but dealing with that right hamstring strain, will pitch two minor league hitters in a game-like situation on Friday morning.

That according to Ali, and if Gray physically passes those tests and shows no ill effects, he could then be slotted into the Cardinals' regular season rotation. So we got bad news on Drew Rom. Hopefully he's okay, bounces back quick. Good news on Sunny, but we're still dealing with Tommy Edmund, going to be out for a long time, have no idea when or if he's coming back. Lars Neupar out. I heard he was taking some dry cuts and stuff, so he's working his way back. Keenan Middleton, he's going to be out for a while. These injuries stink. The Cardinals dealt with a ton of them last year, Brooke. Let's start in the outfield where the competition has been very, very fierce on how we're going to fill these spots.

that have been opened up because of the injuries to Edmund and Noopvar. It's been Burleson. It's been Dylan Carlson, Victor Scott the second. How do you see the Cardinals' outfield shaping up for opening day in Los Angeles? Well, the first addressing the injuries, one of the big things that Oli Marmal talked about going into the season is that he wanted to have more of a consistent lineup. And the Cardinals thought that they were going to be able to accomplish that when they named their starting outfielders, essentially, with Lars Neupar and Tommy Edmund prior to knowing really what was going on with Tommy Edmund's injury.

And then Lars Newbar, it seems like he gets injured in just the wackiest of ways. And you feel for it because it's two rib fractures. That's not something that you want to deal with, especially when you need him to swing the bat. And also you need him in the outfield. So it really puts a lot of things into question out there. And they wanted to put out that consistent lineup. Now everything has shifted. But you really have a lot of guys that have emerged.

Of course, everybody, and I know that J.D., you've been talking about him a lot. Victor Scott the second. Everything that he's doing right now is what exactly you want. He's a name that I think that I had some expectations for going into spring training, and he has surpassed them. He has obviously just pushed himself into the conversation, what he's been able to do offensively right now, a 316 average 409 on base percentage, 777 OPS right now,

four stolen bases, which I love to hear that, because I think that's something that all of us want to see from the Cardinals this season, is to be more aggressive when it comes to stealing bases. He has that speed. You want to see him in the outfield. I want him to be the Cardinal's center fielder. But now entered Dylan Carlson into the conversation. He got off to a slow start this spring.

I think he was like, what was it? Like one for 12, but now he's been on a tear recently, had a grand slam the other day. And we know what he can do defensively. I think the biggest question surrounding him is his health, which we just talked about two outfielders who are dealing with injuries. and then Dylan Carlson hasn't experienced anything yet, but it's something that we have seen time and time again.

So this is the outfield that I would like to see. I would like to see Dylan Carlson be your left fielder. And this is the outfield. I should also start by saying, I think we'll give you the best chance defensively. Dylan Carlson as your left fielder, Victor Scott the second as your center fielder, and Jordan Walker, of course, as your right fielder.

Alec Burleson is another player that has hoisted out to me because of his bat. And I know that the Cardinals had a really tough conversation with him this past off season. And he talked about that a lot about how they wanted him to improve defensively. He has worked on that. The bat's there. But I kind of see him now as another outfield option for them because of what Dylan Carlson has been able to provide here lately. And then outside of that, Ciani is another interesting name. Now, Ciani is a name that you will hear the Cardinals bring out a lot.

He's a reliable defender. and we've seen him play center a little bit this spring. I think that he's somebody that the Cardinals, if they are not ready, which I know the Cardinals fans do not want to hear this, and I don't want to hear this either. But, J.D., look, we got to be a little realistic here. I know where she's going, guys. I know where she's going with this.

You know where I'm going with this because we know that possibly the Cardinals will not want him to be there just yet. It's not now maybe. It will be a win for him. But still, maybe the Cardinals will wait just, a little bit longer for Victor Scott the second. And so then they'll have Siani as a bench option who could be an outfielder for them. Yeah.

And as tough as that is to say, because, you know, when you think about your team, you want the best possible players on your roster. But Victor is sitting at the end of the bench more times than out on the field. If everybody's healthy, isn't going to do them any good, which is why the Siani name continues to be brought up as a guy that gives you some speed and defense off the bench, you know, in late game situations, if, you know, you need that defense. You can pull Jordan Walker, Siani can go out there to right field or you can move people, whatever you want to put up. But that's why he's there.

But if Victor's on the bench, he's not doing anybody any good. And it's certainly not doing himself any good as far as becoming a better ball player overall if he's not playing every day. So it sucks, but it might be the right move and the smart move, at least for the start of the season. Yeah, Alec Berlinson, I feel bad for a man, you know, because you see what he's done this offseason. He trimmed down. He's looked pretty good defensively. He's sticking the ball once he hit. He was hitting like 350 coming into the game today. And yet he still might not be able to crack the starting lineup, even with the injuries to nude and to Tommy Edmund. But it's nice to have that guy on the bench available if you need him. Another area where we thought injuries might be a problem would be the starting. rotation when the sunny gray strain went down. That appears to be moving in the right direction. So I want to ask you about the concerns you might have with the way some of these guys

have looked so far this spring with the struggles of, you know, a Kyle Gibson and a Lance Lynn and a Stephen Matt so far. So we're going to get more from Brooke Remensley coming up next on Locked on Cardinals. Fire TV is your 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 that provides access to millions of movies and TV episodes as well as free and live TV. Now, whether it's the opening weekend for baseball, which I guess kind of just happened because of the Soul series, but not really. You've also got the college basketball tournament. Obviously, that's on right now. You're going to want to have a fire TV at your house or your condo or wherever you're living.

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Locked on sports today brings you can't miss analysis, opinions and news, streaming 24-7 on YouTube or the free Amazon Fire TV channels at. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, you're a team every day. Brooke Grimsley from 101 ESPN, the opening drive. Joining us here today. We're talking Cardinals baseball. Just ran down what our thoughts were on the outfield. Let's talk about this rotation, Brooke, because, you know, everybody was pretty skeptical when

they heard about the signings. I know both of us wore when we heard Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn's name come across the ticker as new signings by the Cardinals. And so far this spring, not all that impressive. Not really. Stephen Matts has it really looked like the guy that they had before he got hurt at the end of last year. What is your level of concern when it comes to, and I know it's spring training, but it's all we have to go on so far. How are you feeling about the rotation thus far? here on March 21st. I will say that out of everybody probably on the show on the opening drive on 1-1 ESPN, as you mentioned, I'm probably the most concern. And maybe that's just me being very reactive off of everything that we saw last season. Because J.D., as you know, when we talked about, and everybody saw it last season, starting pitching is something that really hurt the Cardinals. And you can put that on the list of many different things that went wrong.

But starting pitching was one of them where things really fell apart, especially early on in the season, because those are your guys, that are setting the table. And we saw very early on that they struggled, and it just felt like everything fell apart there. I think obviously the bullpen was a huge issue for the Cardinals last season too, but you could also look to the fact

that you had to go to your bullpen so early that you were burning guys so early on in the season. So my concern level right now with the Cardinals starting a rotation, I would say I'm not fully on the panic bus, JD, but I'm a little bit panicked, especially when you consider everything that's going on with Kyle Gibson, as you mentioned there, 10.80 ERA, that is going to be eye-popping when you see that. That's bad. That's bad. From the last time I checked, that's not good.

It's not. And, of course, it is spring training, so I understand that players are working on things. But at the same time, I think that my expectations were not that high for Kyle Gibson. I would like to see him. I think a good Kyle Gibson would be what we saw last season from him, where he had a 4.73 ERA. If you were able to get that out of him by the end of the season with the Cardinals, I'd say, okay, I was freaking out a little bit. But this early on in spring training, when we know everything that's going on, especially with some question marks surrounding Sunny Gray, you're really worried about the back of this rotation,

because it seems like you have a lot of back of the rotation guys. And that's why I was kind of hoping that the Cardinals would have added at least one more frontline starter, just so that I could feel a little bit more secure in this rotation, because now that you see with Sunny Gray's absence, possibly how shaky the starting rotation, can be. So you have Kyle Gibson, who hasn't exactly looked great this spring training. You have Lance Lynn, not high expectations, but it hasn't been exactly perfect. I think Miles Michaelis has

actually had a pretty good spring training. So that's great to see. He's going to be your opening day starter for the Cardinals there. And then as for the other guy, Stephen Matt's didn't have high expectations for him. The big question with him is, will he be able to stay healthy this season? And you hate to say that, but he is actually the youngest guy in your starting rotation, Currently, if you take out Zach Thompson and Matthew Livertore, who are still competing for spots in the starting rotation. But at age 32, we've seen that he's had injuries season after season after season. Would he be able to get back to what he was in that 2021 year when, of course, he wasn't with the Cardinals and he was with the Blue Jays? And that, though, was also a free agency year for him.

You know, that's kind of a prove-it year when you're trying to get a contract. So sometimes you never know what to fully believe with that. But that was the best that we've seen him in a while. and that was back in 2021 when he started in 29 games. So you hope that he can get back to that. But that's the issue that I have, J.D., is that you have a lot of players who we're going to talk about a lot this season, and so is everybody else who are a little higher up in age.

And to hope that they can have a better season that they had prior is what concerns me. Because especially when you're getting on up there, can they really do that again? And with Sunny Gray, I wasn't expecting an injury to pop up, considering that he had such a healthy 2023 season. But when you hear hamstring and then you look at his history back in 2022, considering he was on the injured list three times, two of which were hamstring injuries, the panic alarms start to set off a little bit because then you can start to see

possibly how fragile this starting rotation is going into the season. Because if Sunny Gray say that things aren't going to be completely great with him, what does your starting rotation look like? especially when you're about to go face the Dodgers and the Padres without Sunny Gray possibly. I know that as you mentioned there, they're hoping that maybe he'll be able to get back to things soon. But personally, I know that the Dodgers are really, really good. And so are the Padres. Have you been watching them in Seoul?

Those are some really, really good lineups. I don't see the point in rushing him back. I would rather have him be healthy for the rest of the season, maybe start him on the injured list, give a guy like Zach Thompson more of a chance there, which he will get a chance here early on. But it sounds like their plan right now is to get Sunny Gray ramped up to at least start at the last part of that road trip that they will have before coming back here to St. Louis.

Yeah, I could agree more. We're pushing him to just be there in the opening. It doesn't, that's okay. We don't need him to throw in those first three, four games. It's okay. A long way to go in this thing. So getting him healthy. And from all accounts, everything I've read, everything I've seen,

he's headed in the right direction, which is great news. And he caught it right when it happened when he felt the twinge in the hammy. And he's like, I've been down this road before. I knew better to stop. And thank God he did because we couldn't go without him for a month or two and expect much out of this rotation, which you mentioned it when it doesn't have sunny gray in it, you know what it looks like? It looks like last year's rotation, which was not good.

It was bad. That's what it reminds me of, just different names, but it's the same kind of stuff. So he's got to stay healthy. And I mean, we could say that about any guy on the roster, really. But if there's one guy that this team cannot go without, like I think you can miss an Aeronado or a goldschman for a little while, but great missing significant time would be devastating to this team. All right.

Coming up, we're going to talk more with Brooke Grimsley about surprises and disappointments so far at camp. We're going to throw some names out at you that maybe went under the radar. and some of them that you're just like, dude, what happened to this guy? Looking into all of that next year on Lockdown Cardinals. You can now win up to 100 times your money on prize picks with as little as four correct picks. You can turn $10 into $1,000 with NBA, NHL, and college basketball entries today on price picks.

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less, it's that easy with price picks. Locked on its launch the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube, and now it's also available on Amazon Fire TV and the Free Fire TV channels app. Locked on Sports Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of locked on plus our national shows covering every league. So find Locked on Sports Today available now on the Free Fire TV channels app. 101 ESPN's Brooke Grimsley. You can find her on the opening drive each and every month.

Monday through Friday, and it's been you and Randy, Danny Max, been joining in. How's he coming along with all of the chanting and stuff that goes on on the opening drive? Is he starting to, are you starting to break him a little bit? Because I know he's very hesitant to do things. Oh, Jady, I've been working on it just about every day. And even I've tried to be even more tactful of trying to trap him into a yo-ho. But this is his whole thing is it's a yo-no for him. And so for those who don't listen, we do have our text line that we call out and the letters at the end basically are the numbers on your phone. And so it's a yoho. We even came up with, we do the blues little power play.

You do the power play with it. Yeah, we do. We like to have a little bit more fun with it. Dan is not fully on board yet, but I'm working really, really hard to break him into it. So eventually, I will get him past one yoho a day. It's a big goal of mine. All right. Well, we look forward to that, because eventually he will break. It will happen. Have some fun, Danny. I'm a very persistent person. I like it. All right. So the Cardinals were winding down through the final week of camp here. And I want to talk surprises and disappointment so far. A lot of big names that have popped up here in the spring that I've been pleasantly surprised by. Name me at least one that has come. on your radar so far this spring that you were like, I did not see that coming. Okay. Can I give you, I know you asked for one, but can I give you like a one? You can give me as many as you won? I just didn't want to put you on the spot and overwork you.

So here's the thing. Of course, I have to mention Victor Scott because I told you guys about this earlier that it's not that I had expectations for him coming in, but I wasn't expecting him to do this. And honestly, I don't think the Cardinals were as well when it came to the outfield competition. One, they thought they had their outfield set. And two, he has just been running away with the competition. I loved everything about him. I love that he has this swag about him because I felt like last season,

and this is not a knock against some of the players and their personalities, but it's kind of true. You can have maybe too many Boy Scouts on the team. You need some guys with some flares, some of that personality, that pizzazz, that swag that I was talking about. I think Harrison Bader was a good example of that. Wilson Contreras is another player who is very much like that. But of course, we saw what happened with him last season, where you saw maybe some of that flare be pulled away from him.

I think we're going to see more of it from him this season. But Victor Scott, everything that he adds and his confidence that he's playing with currently, to me, that is the biggest breakout star of the Cardinals this spring training. I think that he has forced himself into the conversation where the Cardinals have to consider making him their starting center fielder for opening day and for the rest of the season. Now, will that be the case? that's a big question because he hasn't played in AAA yet. I brought up the other day some other big name players who kind of skipped at AAA and went to the major league level.

Paul Goldschmidt being one of them now, I'm not saying he's Paul Goldschmidt because obviously Paul Goldschmidt is a very well-accomplished player. But at the same time, I think there's just something Vince Coleman-esque about Victor Scott the second. It's a flare that I would love to see on this team. I just hope that when he is here, if and when they do that this season, because I think it's just a matter of when it happens for Victor Scott this season. Just let him be who he is.

Let him go out and steal bases. He had 94 stolen bases in the minor's last season. As I mentioned, four so far in spring training. Let him show off his speed. I think that's going to be a huge asset for them this season in many different ways, but of course, defensively as well because he'll be able to cover so much ground in the center field. Yeah, especially when you got Jordan and Wright who's still trying to figure some things out. So you need somebody who can cover as much ground as.

possible out there. And like you mentioned earlier, if you defensively, if you have Dylan Carlson and left, it's pretty strong with them two together on that side. And then you'll be able to kind of make up for the ground that maybe Jordan's not ready to cover just yet. And I also want to bring this up when you talk about Victor Scott. One thing that this Cardl's team does not have a lot of is speed in general, especially when you are missing Tommy Edmund. There's just not a lot of that going around. Mason win. If he gets on base, he's had some tough times so far this spring. But we We think he's going to be fine. He's got wheels.

But outside of that, there's not a ton of that type of thing for another team to worry about. Like there's not any pressure being put on, you know, the battery with the pitcher and the catcher. When somebody's on base that they're afraid any of these guys are going to run and take advantage of them. And Victor brings that like you've seen at the spring where as soon as he's on base, he is the focal point of everybody. Like nobody's paying attention to the batter. And if you've got somebody like you mentioned to Paul Goldschmidt batting behind him, when it's, be nice for the pitcher to be a little more concerned with that guy on first instead of Goldie and maybe throw a couple of heaters down the pipe that Goldie can displace up into Big Macland

this year. That would make a lot of sense to me. Will they do it? We'll have to wait and see. You got some more surprises for us? I think the other big surprise for me is going to be the acquisition from the Mariners, and that is Riley O'Brien. Of course, with Kenan Middleton, he's dealing with a forearm injury currently right now. So who knows how long he will be out. But Riley O'Brien, I think has been a player that I'm really excited and a huge asset for the Cardinals bullpen. I'm going to go ahead and say that he's going to be a part of the Cardinals bullpen because I don't know why you wouldn't put him in there. He is a 1.13 ERA currently. His curve ball is absolutely nasty if you haven't been able to see that yet. And he brings the swing and miss that the Cardinals talked about.

Remember they said John Jose Locke, the president of baseball operations for the Cardinals mentioned that they need to add some more swing and miss to their pitching staff. Well, you have Riley O'Brien coming into this conversation. So I like what Riley O'Brien brings. I think he can be a huge asset for the Cardinals' bullpen. And I wouldn't be surprised by June if we see him at a lot of high leverage situations. Yeah, Riley O'Brien, I've been one of those guys that it makes you wonder, like, how did Seattle just let him go or? And how was he not, concerning his numbers at Tacoma last year, how good they were.

How did the Mariners not use him? Like, have him up on the Major League roster. It's kind of baffling to me. But, hey, give credit to the Cardinals for finding him and being able to bring him over to our roster. All right, now we're going to get a little negative, Brooke. Like, I'm not saying we got to bash on people, but who are some of the people that you were hoping we're going to have better springs? And then so far just hasn't added up the way we thought it was going to be. I'm going to have to put, and this is tough, because I do not like to be exactly negative or beat up on some of these players because they all are going out there and competing.

But there was two guys in my Prove It category for the spring training. and that was Dylan Carlson, who was slow to start, as I mentioned earlier, offensively, but has picked up steam, and now he's more into that outfield conversation. He looks great right now. But also, I had Matthew Libertor as a part of the conversation as well. And it hasn't exactly been a great spring for him, a 6-3-2 ERA in 15 and 2-3rds pitch so far. And with Libertur, this was a competition between him and Zach Thompson for one of these starting rotation spots to be a factor in this, especially right now with the absentech.

sense of sunny gray, I think at this point, he would be best utilized in the bullpen. I think that's where he'll be most effective. So that's why I'm not completely down and out on him. I think the cardinals were trying to give him one last chance to prove that he can be a starter. I just don't know if I can completely see it right now for him. But I think there's still a chance for him in the bullpen, of course. Yeah. And now when you talk about, you know, lefties out there. And I know the lefty specialist thing is not really a thing anymore because of the three batter rule. but, you know, having Libby, Zach, Jojo, and then you've got also Palante who can get left-handed hitters out. So that's a pretty decent grouping of left-handed pitching that will be in your bullpen likely to start this season.

I am okay with that. If Zach Thompson becomes the starter and runs away because he's looked fantastic this spring, I'm okay with that too. I'm okay with that too. Like I like that, I'm not like you. I'm not here to give up on Matthew Libertor, still a young man, still coming into his own. And it's kind of like, we don't know what to do with him yet because he hasn't gone one way or the other, like where he's been elite as a reliever and then not so good as a starter or he's the other way around. It's just been kind of n-h for both of them. So we saw a little bit last year where he was pretty good in the bullpen.

And I think that kind of sparked an idea that like, well, maybe that's where his best role is going to be moving on into the future. Will it become a starter someday? Possibly. But right now, like he said, I think his strongest spot would be out of the bullpen for the Cardinals. I think maybe the other disappointment. And, of course, injuries are nothing that you can predict. I hate to see these injuries to your outfielders and Tommy Edmund and Lars Newport. This is a huge season for both of them.

Tommy Edmund, of course, really just ran away with things in the outfield last season. I liked him as the Cardinals center fielder. But then you have everything that's going on. I wish that it was something that was addressed a little bit sooner when it came to getting that surgery. He got it in October, of course, as we know. He could have possibly gotten it maybe. I just think in my opinion, maybe should have gotten a little bit sooner. Kind of like Brett and Donovan.

Like Brett Donovan. And I know that Tommy Edmund was very optimistic. I remember I talked to him during the Cardinals winter warm up and he said, yeah, I'm going to make sure I'm ready for opening day. But as we see now, it doesn't look like that's going to happen. Of course, he's going to start the season on the injured list. But now you wonder when exactly he will come back in the conversation. And with the way that Victor Scott, the second looks,

and you have Dylan Carlson heating up, that's where it's going to be tough for the Cardinals and how I can kind of see them being okay with maybe not having Victor Scott coming up just yet, because what do you do if you have Victor Scott already up here on your roster, then Tommy Edmund's ready to go. How would they navigate that? Yeah, yeah, there's only so many spots to put these guys.

And one of the reasons why I thought maybe Victor should start it at Memphis anyways because Newt sounds like he's not that far away. No. Things can happen, but when he is activated, somebody's got to go down. And so you would hate to have Victor on the roster doing well and then be the odd man out all of a sudden and have to go back down like the way they did with Jordan Walker last year where they were like, yeah, we'll just send you down. It's just, I don't know, it just was weird for me last year.

Yeah, because it could just really affect a player like that, their confidence and everything. I think Jordan Walker handled it so well last year. But I just have a feeling your bench right now for what it's going to look like and this is going to factor into Victor Scott not being up with the big league camp is going to be Herrera. They're going to have carp and Burleson and they're going to be DH. One will be DH depending on day-to-day matchup, of course. And then Crawford and then Siani as your other outfield option off the bench. Yeah, I agree completely with that.

And I know it's not what everybody wants to hear. But again, just because this is how it starts doesn't mean that's how it's going to end up in the end of April when things might change again and somebody else might go down. And there's a number of different things happen. We should be well aware of how things change when it comes to lineups and who's on the 26-man roster. So we look forward to opening day coming up in a week. Are you going anywhere for opening day? Are you guys doing a broadcast or anything?

Oh, yeah, we're going to be out there right in early in the morning. That is one benefit, J.D, of being up on the morning shows is that we're kind of the only ones out there. So we get some great parking. And we'll be over at Ballpark Village set up doing a live broadcast. and then we always go over and watch BP and then watch the game. So it's a long day, but it's a fun day. It's one of my favorite days of the year. All right. Awesome.

Well, make sure you guys get Brooke a follow at Brooke Grimsley on Twitter X. Make sure you're checking out 101 ESPN listening to her on the opening drive and their fantastic lineup, not only in the morning, but throughout the entire day. It's a fantastic station if you haven't checked it out yet. Make sure you do that. And hopefully we'll get you back on here after things get underway in the Major League Baseball regular season, Brooke. Appreciate you coming on today. Of course. Anytime, JD. All right. And thank you guys for making lockdown cardinals your first listen every day. If you haven't already, give us a follow

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