Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - St. Louis Cardinals’ Offense CRASHES Before Late HEROICS — Is Trouble Ahead?

Starting point is 00:00:00 A Cardinals victory, Camp Cuts and Ali Marmal extension backlash, all on today's episode of Locked on Cardinals. You are Locked on Cardinals. Your daily St. Louis Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey, they're Cardinals fans. I'm Jannie Haford, a former national radio sports anchor, born and raised in St. Louis and a lifetime Cardinals fan. And welcome to another episode of Locked on Cardinals, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, now the number one. sports podcast network. Thank you to our everydayers who continue to be here with us through the thick and the fan for the newcomers. Welcome in. Let's talk some ball. This is a show serving Cardle Nation giving you all the info about the birds on the bat. Today's episode brought to you by MLB the show 26. Visit MLB the dot show slash locked on and use code locked on to unlock a pack

Starting point is 00:00:56 for use in Diamond Dynasty. Pre-order now available March 17th on PlayStation 5, Xbox, and Nintendo of Switch rated E for everyone. On today's show, we got a ton of stuff to get to the Ali Marmal extension. Backlash continues to be a hot topic that people want to talk about. So I want to share some more feedback, both negative and positive, because there's people on both sides of that fence. We got our first cuts of camp to talk about, but we're going to start with the game at hand on Monday, a pitcher's duel, if you will, between the Cardinals and the Marlins. Cardinals come out on top of this one by a score of three to two. And one of the most pivotal at bats in this game involved rookie Joshua Baez and the ABS challenge system. And it was capped off by a walkoff hit

Starting point is 00:01:43 from one of the newer cardinals that came over this offseason. So let's get into the three stars of the game. I number one star. And I'm going to go with Joshua Baez on this one. And I'm going to do that despite him getting picked off at one point in this game, got picked off at first base. which is obviously a big no-no. I realized that he's young, fell asleep over there at first base, got picked off. But there wasn't a whole lot really to get excited about in this game. And I got to pick somebody. So he still went one for one, one for two in the game.

Starting point is 00:02:20 Also had that all-important walk that I was talking about, which was one of the few highlights in this game as the Cardinals offense really had a tough, tough day for the most part coming off that one-hit. effort on Sunday. Didn't have much going on here either. Didn't record their first hit until the fifth inning. It was just crickets in that first half. So if you happen to not off at some point while listening to this game on KMOX because it wasn't on TV yet again, don't beat yourself up about it. It's okay. I was actually at the gym listening and I think I heard more about the weather than things actually about what was going on in this game because things were so dull. Really, it was it was kind of

Starting point is 00:03:00 boring. There's no need to sugar-coded. But bottom of the fifth inning after Nelson Velasquez got the first hit of the game for St. Louis, it was Baez who got hit number two on an infield single. Yay. But then with Brody Moore up in two-wilds and a two-oh count, Baez gets picked off by the catcher to end the inning. Boo. Don't like that. But as I've said before, when it comes to these younger players, when you've got guys who are as inexperienced as the Cardle's roster is, they're going to make some dumb mistakes. And it's going to happen during the regular season two and you're going to be like so frustrated about it all. But you'd rather see them trying to learn from this now before the games actually count. And hopefully that's what

Starting point is 00:03:42 this is for Baez. It's a learning experience. Then in the seventh with the score two one, runners on first and second and one out, Baez falls behind one two. And not once, but twice, gets called out on strikes only to tap the helmet and challenge both calls and then have them overturned and turned into balls. And here's the thing. These were not egregious calls either. It's not like the ump was, you know, pulling an angel Hernandez and they were like seven,

Starting point is 00:04:09 eight inches off the plate and was ringing them up. They were right there. They were very, very close. Normally these would be what we'd call pitchers pitches. And they would go in favor of the pitcher and you wouldn't really argue with it. But the first pitch ends up missing by one tenth of an inch. Second one missed by three tenths of an inch. borderline calls, but the zone is the zone and they were overturned and Baez eventually worked

Starting point is 00:04:35 a seven pitch walk instead of striking out. So that worked out huge. That worked out huge. It got the fans excited and helped the Cardinals load the bases for Jeremy Rivas, who does his job, hits that sack fly to tie things up at two. This ABS thing, it's going to be a lot of fun. I think it's going to be a lot of fun in the big leagues this year. We've had, you know, the challenges on the calls at bases, you know, plays at first base, stolen bases, you know, we've had these challenges for a couple years now. And obviously those are very excited for fans because there's that anticipation. You're like, okay, and we're watching the play on the scoreboard and you're like,

Starting point is 00:05:13 well, okay, what's it going to be? I think he's out. What do you think? Here, you know, because there's that gray area in those plays where, well, there wasn't enough evidence to overturn the call or whatever. So, you know, there's this gray area where, you know, the, the call could still be messed up. There's still the possibility of them screwing it up. Here the computer is telling you exactly who's right and who's wrong. So it's, it's going to amp things up even more for the crowd. There's no, well, it kind of looks like

Starting point is 00:05:43 a strike. No, it either is a strike or it is not. And home plate umpire, John Bacon, who was the home plate umpire in this game on Monday, actually had four of the five challenges. overturned in favor of the players. So these guys are going to be held accountable this year. Boys, you better get your ish together. I cannot wait to see some of the more familiar home plate umpires that we've had issues with over the years, the CB Buckner's and Laz Diaz's and Hunter Wendellstetz

Starting point is 00:06:10 and Rob Drake's of the umpiring world. I cannot wait to see them get their cheeks smacked with overturned calls and their ability to ruin games at times. Like, that's not going to happen this year. Every umpire is going to miss calls. I get that. It's okay. I understand it.

Starting point is 00:06:31 You're a human. I get that. But the guys that are notoriously bad, like the guys I just listed are about to get theirs, that's for sure. So that's going to be a lot of fun. I cannot wait. And then, you know, you can't argue balls and strikes if you're a, you're a player or, or manage or anything like that.

Starting point is 00:06:50 So maybe that gets taken out and guys aren't ejected as much this year. So what are these guys going to do? What's CB Buckner going to do? And he gets all worked up because he's not, he's getting stuff overturned all the time. So it's going to be interesting. Second start of the game is going to go to Colson Ledbetter, who drove in the winning run with his walkoff hit in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Starting point is 00:07:10 And what an excellent bat it was for Colton. Eight pitches long, four foul balls before he laces that base hit to right field to score our guy Mike Antico. Ledbetter came over from the race as part of that three-team trade that sent Brandon Donovan to the Seattle Mariners. He's only had five at bat so far this spring, but he's now three for five. So he's hit in 600. And he's got one pretty little swing. If you haven't gotten a chance to see any of his at-bats, because there hasn't been many. But when he gets in there, man, that thing, that thing is nice. It's nice. Colton Led Butta is what I'm calling him, because that swing is butter. It's beautiful. I can see why the Cardinals were attracted to him as wanting him as part of this deal with the Rays and the Mariners.

Starting point is 00:07:57 So third star of the game is going to go to Joelle Posa, who drove in the first run of the game. Posos had a good spring, guys. It continues to swing the back quite well. He's now batting 364. One home run, four RBI's got an on-based percentage of 500 OPS now at 1.227. who most of the players in the big league level are already going to be, but those bench spots, those are still kind of a dog fight right now. And Pozo put in the work this off season, give this guy credit, put in the work this offseason, he dropped 30 pounds, he looks much healthier, he looks better, and he's putting up numbers this spring. And he ain't going down without a fight.

Starting point is 00:08:38 Like, you know, we keep talking about how, well, do we need all of these freaking catchers? We got a bunch of them. he can play a little bit of first base as well. He could DH as well. You liked him off the bench last year. He was pretty good at that job. So, you know, Pozo is, he's going to make it difficult to send him away. So I got more observations from today's game.

Starting point is 00:09:01 Plus, we got the first set of cuts, like official cuts, sending people back to minor league camp. So we'll get into all of that coming up next on Locked on Cardinals. Today I'm thrilled to be talking about our sponsor, MLB the show 26. My favorite game that I play out of all games, doesn't matter what style. MLB the show, my favorite game. Greatest game in baseball, it's back with its newest installment. Baseball fans are going to have a hard time pulling themselves away from this one. Early access coming on March 13th, full release, March 17th. A ton of things coming from the team this week.

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Starting point is 00:11:55 where you can tap the link in the show notes. Some more observations from the Cardinals three to two victory against the Marlins on Monday. The latest start from Andre Palante, obviously something that we're all paying attention to. He went three innings. He allowed one run on three hits, no walks. He struck out two.

Starting point is 00:12:15 The Marlins lineup on Monday, not their best available, right? This was not their everyday lineup. You know, we're all dealing with guys that are gone to the WBC now. So think about that. He still did all right, I guess. Opponents are hitting just 167 against him over the five

Starting point is 00:12:37 endings he's thrown so far. He's going to continue to battle for a rotation spot. Hasn't done anything necessarily bad yet, but hasn't really stood out all that much either. I feel like he's the odd man out in this rotation this year when everybody is healthy. He's not going to be off the team by any means. I know some people are like, just get rid of this dude.

Starting point is 00:12:59 No, they're not going to do that. Like he's going to be a part of this organization in some way, shape, or form, whether it is going to be in the rotation, in the bullpen. I don't know about options or anything like that at this point. But I would suspect he goes to the bullpen and can play that role of long reliever, get you a couple of innings when you need it. That's what I expect out of him. but, you know, so far, not the worst, right?

Starting point is 00:13:26 For Andre Palante. But it still, we still have that bad taste in our mouth from last year. We saw how bad things were. So it hasn't gotten to that level by any means. Bulpin, good on Monday as well. Bruce Zimmerman. Now, here's a guy that I'm kind of interested in, fired two more shutout innings.

Starting point is 00:13:45 Left-handed relievers, we know they don't have a lot of them. You know, you've got Justin Broll, you got Jojo Romero. You know, who else are you trusting? Nick Rakey. Is that the other guy? I don't know. I guess you could use him. But Zimmerman's been around and he can get you a couple of innings.

Starting point is 00:14:07 Could be a sneaky opening day roster ad. Maybe take on that Stephen Matt's roll from the bullpen last year. Just something to think about. I have not ruled him out. I feel like he's a sneaky one at this point. backed about shutout innings for Ryan Fernandez, who had that horrible first appearance where he just got lit up. But last couple of appearances has been much better. George Soriano, Scott Blewett also had scoreless innings on Monday.

Starting point is 00:14:33 So you're impressed with what the bullpen was able to do on Monday. And so far this, you know, the guys that are really in line for spots at the major leagues, they've been pretty good so far this spring. So that's good. That's a positive. Offensively, three runs on five hits, not until the fifth inning. J.J. Weatherhold, O for two, in this one, but he earned another walk. He's got six of them so far in the spring and just 16 played appearances.

Starting point is 00:15:03 His OBP is at 5, 63 this spring. Pretty quiet for the rest of the main guys in the game on Monday. For me, Burley, Gorman, Pahas, Victor Scott, combined to go over 10. They got two walks, but O for 10. the team is batting just 226 this spring, which is the fourth worst average. Among all teams, they've got just eight home runs, which is third worst.

Starting point is 00:15:25 They're slugging. 341, which is, excuse me, third worst, and the OPS of 665, third worst. A lot of work to be done. A lot of work to be done, that is for sure, when it comes to the offense for the Cardinals, if there is something that you're going into the season and you're really concerned about,

Starting point is 00:15:44 you know, other than the fact that the team is so young and we just don't know how good or bad they're going to be. Most people think they're going to be bad. But offensively, we're like, where are they going to get runs from? Who's going to provide the pop in this lineup? You think Alec Berlinson's going to be fine. You expect Yvonne Herrera to be fine. But where else is it coming from?

Starting point is 00:16:05 JJ has been outstanding this spring. For me, it seems like he's going to be your lead-off guy just at the top of the order. I need the walks. I need the on-based percentage. So, you know, there was this. this pipe dream at one point that Victor Scott maybe could do something at the top of the lineup, hasn't really shown that much so far this spring. So I think he falls back down to the bottom of the order. Mason Winn, you've seen him bat lead off a few times, but I feel like it might do something

Starting point is 00:16:32 like a JJ, Mason Wynn, Burley, Herrera is your top four. So that's just where I'm at with things so far. First round of cuts took place after the game, reducing their spring training roster to 57 players, 11 players moved to minor league camp. The team option, right-handed pitcher to Co-A Robi to Memphis, the AAA roster. He's injured anyway, so that's not a big deal. They also reassigned non-raster pitchers, Gerangelo Sinha, Pete Hanson, Ishaun Henderson, Austin Love, Hansel Rincon, Sim Robbersa, Jared Schuster, Zach Thompson, Catcher Grayson Tarlow, and our boy outfielder Mike Antico went to minor league camp.

Starting point is 00:17:15 I feel like Antico is going to be the guy that when the Cardinals finally cut ties with him and let him go see if he can find a spot in the major league somewhere that he's going to do some good on somebody else's roster. He just feels like that guy to me. Like he's always involved and stuff. And apparently he's like one of the most favorite guys in the clubhouse. And that's going to sting when he goes somewhere else and becomes productive. And the Cardinals couldn't find a role for him on the Major League roster. But, As far as the rest of that stuff, you know, Sanger moving on. That sucks that we don't get to see him again.

Starting point is 00:17:52 But I don't know. They can still move guys around as far as I know. But none of this stuff is all that surprising as far as like where these guys are going. Cardinals currently have 39 major league rostered players, 18 non-rastered invitees in camp. They'll get the day off here on Tuesday. And then they're going to play an exhibition game against the Nicaragua team who's managed by Dusty Baker. is Dusty Baker from Nicaragua? I had no idea.

Starting point is 00:18:18 Like, I was looking at their roster just to see if there were some familiar names. Not a lot on there. And then there was Dusty Baker Jr. As the manager of Nicaragua, had no idea. Had no idea. That's what he was. But anyway, that's what's going on with the Cardinals. Up next, more feedback and backlash, both the same.

Starting point is 00:18:38 On the Ali Marmal extension, I'm going to be reading your thoughts on the Cardinals extending Ali Marmel for two more years. Cardinal Confessions coming your way next on Locked on Cardinals. College basketball is nonstop. Big games, tight spreads, momentum swings every single night from early tip-offs to late-night West Coast shootouts. There's always action on the board. And now Fandall is giving you a way to turn that energy into even bigger potential wins with a college basketball parlay profit boost. You can build any college hoops parlay you want. This is really up to you. How creative do you want to get with things? Rivalry games.

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Starting point is 00:21:36 The Ali-Marmal extension, as predicted, has angered a lot of fans. They don't like him. They think he stinks. They think he's a loser. And they want us to know that. So you will notice that when you go on to the comments section, and you start going through whether it's on this show, any show, right? Like you're going to see familiar names saying the same stuff on all the different message boards and whatnot.

Starting point is 00:22:07 And it's fine. You know, they want you to know how much they despise Ali Marmal being here. But that's what Cardinal's confess cardinal confessions is about. You know, it's about getting things off your chest, whether it's positive, whether it's negative. So let's start with the unhappy folks. Okay. Let's give them the floor once again. And this is just randomly stuff.

Starting point is 00:22:29 This is stuff that I just, you know, in the comments from Monday show, we're becoming the pirates, the St. Louis pirates. You know, the pirates, just throwing this out there real quick, the pirates do have some fun guys in Pittsburgh now. Just putting it out there.

Starting point is 00:22:44 Paul Skeens, obviously the headliner, but Connor Griffin, Bubba Chandler, O'Neill Cruz was hitting 538 this spring. So look out for the buck goes. sneaky pick because if you got Bubba Chandler, Skeens, if Jared Jones is back healthy, Mitch Keller, that's not bad. That's not bad at all.

Starting point is 00:23:05 And then they've added some offensive weapons this year. And I don't know how they can send Connor Griffin down. You've got to have that dude up on the roster because he's a freak. All right, more of these. I wish I had a job that rewarded such little success and mostly failures in millions of dollars. Well, don't we all? And that's kind of what sports is about where. You see these guys making, in every sport, it's not just baseball, but in every sport.

Starting point is 00:23:29 You know, you see guys that are like, suck. And they're just banking. And that's part of sports, man. Should have been a better athlete. Should have worked harder at the gym, dude. What surprises me is that attendance numbers are at record lows and firing marmal seemed to be at the top of most fan wish lists. Yet management opted to extend his tenure.

Starting point is 00:23:50 Stupid. Now Yadi will go elsewhere and we lose a great manager. it's awful. He has not made the playoffs in three years. The last two coaches we got rid of barely missed two in a row, and we fired them, but we're settling for mediocre with Ollie. Now, again,

Starting point is 00:24:07 and I know this show is a small percentage of the fan base, but those who voted on the poll approved of the Ali extension, and despite some of the comments that we have, which I would say in the comments section, I would say it's probably like 70% negative, which is fine. You know, usually the angry people are the more vocal when it comes to things. But not everyone is upset. Not everyone's upset.

Starting point is 00:24:38 Some of the pro-Ali extension people. As an avid cardinal fan, there was a huge dry spell from the late 80s, Tony LaRousse, arriving in the 90s. We even had Joe Tori as manager during that time. He was fired. Then he went to the Yankees and managed the dynasty. I'm from the old school of thought, pitching and defense wins, and I believe we are on the correct path for a long run. Funny story here, actually.

Starting point is 00:25:02 So that year that Joe Tori got fired, where it was like early on in a year. Like it was before the All-Star break, I think. But that year that Joe got canned, and it was Mike Jorgensen, who ended up taking over as the interim manager. I had some connections. My buddy, Mikey, happened to be related to somebody. and got us into the clubhouse during the final series of the season. And we got to go in after the game and they had played the Giants. I could not tell you what the score of that game was, have no idea.

Starting point is 00:25:36 But back in the lower area of Old Bush Stadium, we got to see the Giants come out of their clubhouse as they were going to their bus to take them to the airport, whatnot. And we got to see Barry Bonds and Matt Williams. Dion Sanders, which was awesome. And they all gave a shout-outs. They were very nice to us as kids at the point at that time. So that was awesome.

Starting point is 00:26:05 But Joe Tori, when we talk about this, you know, Joe Tori's record with the Cardinals over his tenure as manager, as great as he was with the Yankees, 351 and 354 with Cardinals. Was he a bad manager? I don't think many would consider that Joe Tori was a bad manager with the Cardinals. You know, he had, I think, three winning seasons while he was the manager of the team. I think he did well with the talent he had, but, you know, that was his record. He had a losing record as the manager for the Cardinals. So was that all on Joe Tori?

Starting point is 00:26:38 And I love looking at the old names. And I love going to the old stats and stuff. Let's look this up real quick. So where are we at, 95, 20 and 27 when he got fired that year. Yeah, three winning seasons. Did not go to the playoffs. But his outfield that year in 95, Bernard Gilke, Ray Langford, and Brian Jordan, which is very good. Had pags behind the dish, who we love.

Starting point is 00:27:04 John Mabry over at first base. But the rest of that infield, yikes. Yikes. Jose O'Kendo in his 30s at the time hit 209. Playing second base. Trip Cromer. OPS plus a 55. Which is just shortstop.

Starting point is 00:27:22 It was him and Ozzie. Pattonville High School legend, my alma mater, Scott Cooper over at third base had a war of negative 0.3. That was tough. Remembering it started off so good for Scott Cooper too. Remember he had that first game at Bush and it was awesome and drove in the winning runs and it was great and it just never worked out for him, which is unfortunate. that. Rotation. Check out these names. Mark Pekysik, Alan Watson, Donovan Osborne, Ken Hill, Mike Morgan, and Danny Jackson.

Starting point is 00:27:56 We had Tom Hinkie's the closer then. I do remember him coming out of the clubhouse. Super dad look. Had the white T-shirt and jeans on with the white shoes. Tom Hinky, man. He was a stud for the Cardinals that year, too. And then he just retired. Probably could have hung on for a couple more seasons.

Starting point is 00:28:12 I could do this all day, by the way. Anyways, back to the Ollie stuff. At the end of the day, if Bloom believes Ali is the best person to help the young guys develop, then I trust him. Worst case scenario is Ali isn't good. And hopefully in two years, the players have grown. And Bloom decides to hire a new manager. This just feels like a keep things constant type of move, which I don't mind. Yeah, continuity was something that Bill DeWitt brought up at the presser.

Starting point is 00:28:38 You know, they need some sort of continuity. And having leadership in place together. moving forward with the same vision. Makes sense. I don't understand me. Ali hate. Whitey himself couldn't have done better with the roster and support staff that Mo gave him. Let's get the guy a rostered enough people to support them and see how he does. I think he's done pretty good with what he has had. First year, obviously very good. A lot of talent on that team sparked by the Albert Poole's run to 700. Second year was the train wreck. Remember, we lose Yacht. We lose. We lose. is Albert, Adam Wainwright's hurt.

Starting point is 00:29:19 Notto and Goldschmidt start their decline. So things were really, really bad that season. Third year, solid winning season. Last year, below 500 again at 78 and 84. Now he's going to have this team of young guys who are expected to be bad. So we'll see how things progress. This season, not going to be judged by wins and loss. in the eyes of management.

Starting point is 00:29:48 And I know fans, that's what we look at, you know, wins and losses. If we're losing a bunch, you suck. But that's not what the season's about. So hopefully most people are understanding when it comes to that. We're just looking for what this core is going to be moving forward. Who's coming with us? Who's going to drop off? We're going to find out.

Starting point is 00:30:08 You got a lockout possible in 2027. And then 28 is going to be the year where literally, I think, it's make or break with Ali. You know, that'll be the year. They're like, all right, by 28, we expect to be contending again. And if you're a good manager and we're winning and we're contending, then we're going to keep you around. And if it's not working out and things haven't progressed the way we want them to, maybe

Starting point is 00:30:30 we'll move on from that. So we'll see. Will it cost them Yadi or Albert is manager? Probably. I mean, are they going to wait around that long to see whether or not the Cardinals will have an opening? I doubt it. It seems like someone would jump.

Starting point is 00:30:44 at a chance to get them before that happens, and they would jump at a chance to be a big league manager somewhere else. I get that that you're going to be upset when you see them jump ship and go somewhere else, and then Ali is still here. But if we're winning, are you going to be that upset about it? But if they're losing, I'd hate to be in charge. But again, people could have had Yadi and Albert this offseason as their manager, and nobody took them.

Starting point is 00:31:11 Didn't happen this off season. So who knows? Who knows what the future holds? I can tell you this much. Cardinals have an off day today and they'll face team Nicaragua on Wednesday. So we'll be talking about that game tomorrow. Thanks for making Lockedong Cardinals. Your first listen every day.

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