Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - The Cardinals Reset: Right Or Wrong Direction

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

- Blake Snell Signing Effect - Is This Proving The Cardinals Right? - Tommy Edman Signs - Juan Soto Chatter Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms… 🎧 https://link.chtbl.com/LOSTLCardinals?sid=YouTube Locked On MLB League-Wide: Every Team, Prospects & More 🎧 https://linktr.ee/LockedOnMLB Follow on Twitter/X: @JDSPORTSRADIO Follow the show on Twitter/X: @LO_Cardinals Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Gametime Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime. Omaha Steaks From legendary steaks to mouthwatering desserts and more, save fifty percent off site-wide at OmahaSteaks.com. Plus, our listeners get an extra thirty dollars off with Promo Code MLB and a thirty-dollar reward card when you shop early. Ibotta Download the FREE Ibotta app now and use code LOCKEDONMLB to get 100% cash back on your Thanksgiving feast starting November 1. FanDuel You can start the season with a big return on FanDuel. New customers can place a FIVE DOLLAR bet and you’ll get started with ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS - if you win your first FIVE DOLLAR BET ! Visit FANDUEL.COM to get started. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) #ForTheLou #stlcards #mlb #lockedoncardinals Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Does the Blake Snell signing with the Dodgers prove that the Cardinals are doing the right thing or the wrong thing with their reset? 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 are Cardinals fans. I'm J.D. Hafferin. And I am your host for Lockedon Cardinals, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network covering your team every day. You can follow me on Twitter X at J.D. Sports Radio.

follow the podcast at L.O. underscore Cardinals. I want to thank those of you who make Locked on Cardinals, your first list. And every day we are free and available. Wherever you get your podcast. We're also available on YouTube. If you haven't stopped by yet, make sure you do. Like, subscribe, comment. That way you can be a part of the action that is locked on Cardinals.

Hit that notification button so you know when the new episodes are posted. This is a show serving Cardinal Nation and giving the best fans in baseball, all of the info about the birds on the bat. Today's episode brought to you by Fandall. You can start the season with a big return on Fandall. New customers can place a $5 bet, and you'll get started with $150 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. It's fandle.com to get started. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.

I hope you had a good day. I had to do family stuff the last couple of days, so we haven't had an episode since Tuesday. So, you know, this is what it is, man. family and stuff comes first before we can start talking about the Cardinals. And we're back. It's okay. We're going to talk about them each and every day. We've still got you covered with any of the latest Cardinals news. We did find out here just a little bit ago that a former cardinal has signed an extension with his team. So we'll get you the information on that first. But I want to take you back to Tuesday night when we had our first real big signing of the office.

season. Two-time-side Young Award winner, Blake Snell ended up eking that five-year deal with the world champion Los Angeles Dodgers. Yay! The rich get richer, right? I'm like everyone else who doesn't root for the Dodgers. It kind of sucks, man. It kind of sucks. You know, five years, $182 million for arguably the top pitching arm on the market. Certainly one of the top ones at the very least, you can make an argument that Corbyn Burns is ahead of them, but it's very 1A, 1B in my eyes when it comes to that. The Dodgers, as of today, on the 29th of November, now have a rotation consisting of Blake Snell, Tyler Glass Now, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shoha Tani, who is expected to pitch

to get in 2025. Plus, we assume that Clayton Kirshall will be back. He's been dealing with injuries. Dusted May and Tony Gonsland are coming back from injuries. You've got multiple pitching prospects like Bobby Miller, who, You know, yeah, he stumbled a little bit last year. But I do recall in the game against the Cardinals, his first started the season, making our Cardinals look like absolute buffoons, all the talent in the world for Bobby Miller.

So we've got that, Michael Grove, Emmett Sheehan, Gavin Stone. All of these guys are on their 40-man roster. So they've got a plethora of talent going, and they just keep signing more and more people. And then to make everyone vomit a little bit more in their mouth, according to reports, the Dodgers are still the early favorites to get Roki Sasaki from Japan and are still in the Wands Soto sweepstakes, although news today might show that maybe they're not so much in the one soda sweepstakes. We'll get to that in just a little bit as well.

But I know what you're saying. This is not fair. This isn't fair. This is stupid, right? You're right. It's not fair. It's not fair at all. And it is stupid.

But this is how the owners and the Players Association wanted it. And as we've said before, the players are not going to agree to a salary cap. Like, why would they? The salaries keep rising, rising. And why would the players want to limit the amount of money that they're able to make when they hit free agency? You know? Teams like the Dodgers and the Mets and the Phillies and the Yankees. You know, those big market teams.

why would they want to handcuff them from throwing their money around to whomever they won for as much as they want, which is essentially what a cap would do. Yeah, competitive balance and everybody's on a, you know, you see it the NFL. It works out nicely. You know, teams come and go. They're up, they're down. Some teams do it better than others. And that's why you get teams like the Chiefs and the Patriots who are able to consistently win year in and year out.

And then you get somewhere out of nowhere, a team becomes really, really good all of a sudden. It happened with the Rams in St. Louis when they won the Super Bowl. If you remember, like, nobody was expecting the Rams would be that good. They lost Trent Green, and then Kurt Warner had to come in, and then just magic. Magic happened, and they were one of the best teams in the league for three years in a row. But what they spend, what like these major market teams spend helps set the market. And if they're going to pay big bucks, that means just more money for other players. You know, it's the trickle-down effect.

Ken Rosenthal was talking about this and said that at the end of 2026, if the owners decide they want to push for a salary cap, which he said he expects them to do, there will be a work stoppage of Major League Baseball. Yay! We all want that, don't we? No, no, we don't. The Dodgers are also getting some help from both Blake Snell and Shohei Otani,

who used that D word deferred money, which is a big help to the team and allows them to, spend more now on players while those two guys are still playing with the Dodgers. So, Tani, I mean, he's making $2 million. That's technically what he's making $2 million a year until 2033 when he's 38 years old. Then in 2034 through 2043, he'll make $68 million per year. That's crazy, right? It's ridiculous.

But absolutely legal under what the. the agreements are right now. According to reports, Blake Snell will make 13 million per year under his new deal, but we'll then have 65 million deferred down the road. But again, there's nothing illegal about it. So what are we, what are you going to do? And if the players are willing to push their money down the road, because that's the thing. The player has to agree to it. You know, most players are like, no, no, no, no, no, I want it now. I want to spend it now. I want to have it in my bank now. I'm not going to wait, but they've decided that it's okay. We'll wait. And if that's how they want to do it, then they have the right to do that. You know, deferring money is, it's nothing new. This isn't

brand new stuff coming to the game. Lots of teams do it. We've just never seen the numbers, like 68 million being deferred. And now you've got Snell joining Otani doing it to join the Super Dodgers, who will now boast a roster that has one six MVP's between free. and Vets and Otani and Kershaw, you got the five side youngs between Kershaw and Snell. And, you know, they could be adding the top picture from Japan. And if Sasaki signs with them, which I saw something, it's like it might come down between the Dodgers and the Padres. It looks like he's going to stay on the West Coast. And if you look beyond the payroll salary and instead look at the luxury tax and I'm not great with math and I'm going to be up front with you on this.

So I'm looking at these numbers on SpotRack. and I'm just kind of comparing what's going on. But if you look beyond the payroll salary that they get, and then you go to the luxury tax money for each player, which is what seems to be more on par with what the player is actually worth that year, to me at least, you've got Otani at 46 million, Blake's now at 32 million, Glassnow at 27.3, Yamamoto at 27.1.

I mean, those four players alone are at $132.4 million. So again, according to the spot rack, that puts those four players getting paid more than all but six teams of Major League Baseball when you look at their active payrolls, like as of right now. Obviously, these are going to fluctuate with free agent signings and arbitration and whatnot, but that's crazy that those four people are more than what some teams are even paying their whole rosters. That's nutty.

That's, it's just weird, right? Like, that's not normal. But we're going to dive deeper into. these numbers and, you know, I'll show you how I think, and how this relates to the Cardinals because of what they're doing that. What their plan right now is is with this reset. And I'm going to go to the numbers and show you how I think this just kind of proves that what the Cardinals are going to try to do is actually the smartest thing for the franchise

and not just a case of them to decide to be cheap all of a sudden and put winning on the back burner. That's not what I think they're doing. So I'll get into it next for you on Locked on Cardinals. Get ready to tackle the NFL action with Fandul America's number one sportsbook because right now new customers can bet $5 and get $150 in bonus bets if you win. The Fandil Sportsbook app gives you everything you need to place live vets on the NFL and it's all in one place.

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once again you get started with $150 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. That's Vandau.com, never waste a hunch and make every moment more with Vandul, an official sportsbook partner of the NFL. Thank you again for making a lot on Cardinals. Your first listen every day. You can leave your comments on YouTube as well as on Twitter X anytime you want. Your feedback is always welcome and encouraged. We're going to have to do a fan feedback episode here real, real soon.

If not tomorrow, the day after that, got to get to it because there's been so. many good comments and so many good suggestions from all of you. So I appreciate you being a part of the show. Now, we left off where four players and the current starting rotation for the Dodgers is actually getting about $132 million combined when you add up there deferred money and divide it by the years. Now, if you look at the estimated opening day payrolls, things bump up a lot because of arbitration numbers, as I mentioned earlier. So the Dodgers estimated payroll is over $300 million right now. Meanwhile, you've got T's. teams like the A's estimated at less than 50 million. You've got the White Sox 71, raised at 82, Marlins at 83, Nationals at 93, Pirates at 94 and so forth.

Cardinals are estimated at $160 million, which would put them at 15th in the league. They were 12th this past year at 176 million. While at the top, you had the Mets spending 314. You had the Yankees at 308. You had Houston at 255. You had Philly at 246, and then the Dodgers were at 240, which was fifth. All those teams were playoff teams with the Yankees and Dodgers meeting in the World Series. Clearly, it pays to pay to win, right?

You know, that works. If you can afford what these teams did and can spend $240 million plus, you're probably going to win some ball games, all right? it's probably going to work out for you. Then if we go down to the bottom of the payrolls from 2024, you see teams like the Tigers, 86 wins, $97 million. Cleveland Guardians, 92 wins, $105 million. Baltimore Orioles, 91 wins, 109.

The Brewers, 93 wins, 114. Kansas City Royals, 86 wins, 122. All of those teams also made the playoffs. And I look at these numbers, and I think what this tells us, at least tells me, is that the Cardinals are wanting to do business, more like these other teams that I just mentioned, instead of trying to compete with the big market guys, by constantly signing expensive, free agents to long-term deals. Now, how did these lower payroll teams do it?

they do it by producing great talent from within. And then they complement it with free agents or trades when they need to. Now, the Orioles had to play below 500 baseball for five straight years to get all those high draft picks, acquired a lot of them, and then hit on them. You know, that's the other thing, too, is you have to draft well. You can't, you know, draft a bunch of bust over and over. You'll just keep churning your wheels. But that's how they got those top picks. And that has essentially brought them back from the dead.

The Royals endured seven straight losing seasons before this past year. Same thing for the Tigers. And now you're seeing their prospects like Bobby Wood Jr. and Terrick Scoobel lead the way for those franchises. Whit was a can't miss prospect, taken number two overall behind the Orioles, Adley Rushman. who's arguably the top catcher in baseball. Scoobo was a ninth round pick.

So they got pretty lucky with that one, you know, well done with the scouting to draft him and get him in the ninth round because he's become arguably the best pitcher in baseball. But the Tigers also drafted guys like Riley Green and Parker Meadows. Colke. Casey Mize was with top pick, although he hasn't lived up to expectations. Same could be said about Spencer Torkelson,

but they were just on this roster. who got them into the playoffs. All homegrown guys. All homegrown guys. And then when you go and you look at what some of these teams spent, like, you know, what they spend on what's his butt from the Cubs? Like that hasn't worked out at all, just a waste of money, really, for the Detroit Tigers. But all these other, you know, guys that they've grown themselves,

they've done a really good job of producing their own talent. Meanwhile, the Guardians of the Brewers have been fairly consistent through the years and you've seen them live off homegrown talent. You know, the Guardians go out and sign Jose Ramirez and, you know, and are able to develop him. Shane Bieber, Stephen Kwan, Bo Nailer, Tanner Bybee, Emmanuel Class A, all guys that they either drafted or signed when they were young, developed them and have led the way. The brewers are doing it too. They drafted Corbyn Burns before trading him and getting a bunch of assets.

Brandon Woodruff, somebody they drafted. Devin Williams, Bryce Terang, Sal Freelick, Garrett Mitchell. They also made very, very good trades as well for, you know, William Contreras, Willie Adamas, Christian Yelich. You know, they were very smart with how they did that stuff too. Now one thing that I, let's not just say it's all sunshine and rainbows for all these teams, because that's not true. Now one thing that they all have in common as well, none of them have won a World Series in

quite some time. The last one and won one was the Kansas City. Royals, but, you know, the Tigers haven't won one since 1984. The Guardians haven't won since 1948. The Orioles, 1983. The Brewers have never won one, and the Royals won it in 2015. And before that, it was 1985 when they upset the Cardinals. Thank you, Don Denkinger, RIP. And that stupid tarp at Bush Stadium that ran over my guy Vince Coleman. But here's something that I've said about the Cardinals the last couple of years. And it's something that's just I've started to notice and started to think about it more and more. And I'm like, well,

they're they're kind of at a disadvantage. Because if you're a player and you have teams in New York or L.A. or Philly and Houston and any of these major markets, are you going to sign with them or are you going to sign with the Cardinals if they're chasing you? Which city would you choose? and this is not to bag on our city. I love St. Louis. Florida and raised, love it there. I'm just trying to keep it real and be honest with you that, you know, you're a young athlete.

You're about to make a fat paycheck, right? And you have your choices of cities to make that fat paycheck in and to live it and to work in. Are you picking St. Louis, the city of St. Louis, over any of those other cities. Now, us from the Midwest, probably we're okay with it. But a lot of these guys are going to be like, no, no, no, no. I want to go where the lights are bright and shiny. You know, it's why I think the Cardinals are, like I said, at a disadvantage going into negotiations with free agents who weren't already like veterans

with established needs and families already, because those are the kind of players that would be comfortable in St. Louis still, veterans who are from the Midwest. like a Kyle Gibson or have been here before like Lance Lynn and Matt Carpenter, you know, these guys that have, you know, enjoyed success in St. Louis already. Those are the guys that will likely want to play for the Cardinals. Sunny Gray obviously was, wanted to be close to Nashville, had a great appreciation for McArdle's organization, but he's been with Minnesota.

He's been with Cincinnati, now with St. Louis. Like he was cool with the Midwest. He's fine with that. Nolan Aronado wanted to go someplace that where he could win. So he was comfortable coming to St. Louis from Colorado despite being a West Coast guy. Paul Goldschmidt, he just, he is Midwest, you know. He's from the Northeast, but, you know, he's just a very laid back chill guy. So Midwest worked out for him.

But, you know, how many other big free agents are going to want to come to St. Louis. Wilson Contreras wanted to come here because the tradition of the Cardinals, he was infatuated with it, loved it. And that's great. The tradition of winning in all those championships, though, it doesn't really have the same gleam anymore when compared to the bright lights of these bigger cities, the nightlife that exists with these bigger cities, you know? I remember, and maybe you do too. Do you remember when the fans took offense to, um, Chris Bryant. Chris Bryant was with the Cubs at the time, and he made that comment about like, well, what is there to do in St. Louis? And people got livid. People were offended. And obviously,

him being a cub didn't make it any easier on him. But when he said that and people were, hey, how dare you? But at the same time, like, think about it. What is the most attractive thing about playing in St. Louis? it's just being a member of the Cardinals, right? It's winning. Winning is the most attractive thing, or it has been in the past. And that's why people wanted to be here. Then, after you got them to St. Louis,

they would fall in love with the people, the fans, the community, and they'd realize, oh, wow, St. Louis is actually a pretty cool place to live. And I'm very comfortable. It's why a lot of players that used to be in the car, they stay in St. Louis and raise their families there because they like it so much. but it's like getting them here isn't always the easiest thing and if you take the winning side of that away and you just become this ho-hum average franchise then why do they want to come here? Think about it. That's a tough sell. Yeah, we can get you about, I don't know,

you'll be close to a wild card each and every year. No, we can't pay you as much as the bigger cities either, but we have Clydesdales. It's cool. You know, I'm just saying like when you're making a pitch to a big time free agent, what is the big sell about the Cardinals if they're not winning? How are you going to attract these guys? And as these contracts continue to rise, unless you're prepared to outbid those bigger cities, and over the last couple of years, it did not appear that the Cardinals were willing to do that, you're just ice skating uphill.

It's very, very difficult. So how do we get our hands on the best talent? If you can't buy them and you can't sell them on coming to St. Louis, how do you get good talent then? You've got to produce them to yourselves. And I believe that DeCardle's front office and ownership have realized that after watching the combination of paying big bucks for Nolan Aronado and Paul Goldschmidt, and that not leading them to the promised land,

and hence the spot they are in today, I think that was a big, like, that didn't work. Like, other than the one year, it's not like the Cardinals were terrible, but were they ever considered World Series contenders over the last four years? Not really. Nobody looked at them and were like, yeah,

that's the team to beat. Nobody ever said that. They just say, yeah, you know, that's good Cardinals team. They need some of this or they need that to put them over the top to become one of the upper echelon teams. You know, where, where are we without this miracle winning streak at the end of the,

the Mike Schilt year? Like, where are they then? They had to win that many games in a row to get back into it. Where are you without Albert Poolholes just becoming a god all of the sudden in the second half? Like, are we even sniffing the playoffs in those years? No. No, you're not.

So I think these signings like Blake Snell just prove that what the Cardinals are doing, at least what they're at stake. tempting to do, the direction, the approach that they're going to take is genuinely the best way to get back to that championship level again. You got to grow these guys yourself. Does it mean they should never sign free agents? No, it's not what I'm saying. Of course not. But they need to grow and produce their own star players. Mason win. Beautiful job so far, right? I feel like he's going to be a star. You are hoping that you get Jordan Walker and Nolan Gorman on track

and they become big pieces of a puzzle moving forward. J.J. Weatherholt coming up through the system. Chase Davis, Quinn Matthews. These are guys. You see the talent. You know they got it. Got to get it to the top level. You got to do like what the Orioles have done.

Where the Orioles, they draft these guys. but then they got to elevate their talent, get them to the big leagues, that way they can produce at the major league level. They have to be tops in the league. It's scouting and drafting and developing talent so that they don't feel the need or are forced to go buy the top level guys or have to sell themselves to the top level guys because outside of winning,

there's more attractions in other cities. There just is. But you got to build from with, it develop your own stars bring that tradition of winning back and then free agents will want to come to sailors you know if you build it they will come right people love money players love money everybody loves money but they also love winning and making a lot of money and losing all the time eventually it wears you out and they want to be where the winning is so the cardinals have to get back to being 90 win team

and they got to be able to produce their own guys. That way they start attracting free agents once again. So, and if winning isn't the most important thing to those guys, and it's just about the money, do you really want those guys on your roster anyway? I say no. Anyway, those are my thoughts. As I watch, as this free agent period starts and you see people sign, and it's weird that the Cardinals aren't in any discussions about signing any guys

or anything like that. But at the same time, it hasn't been working. None of that has been working the last few years. We haven't been any closer to a World Series by signing these guys. So there's got to be a better way. There's got to be a smarter way. And now it looks like the Cardinals are going to go that way. And I'm all for it.

And they're getting guys. They're pulling guys from other, you know, franchises that appear to have good. heads on their shoulders and will be a part of leading us in that direction to develop the talent, to draft the talent, and make the cardinals great again. To steal a line, I know, I know, and I'm not a political guy. I'm not trying to do that, but that's the idea, right? Aren't we trying to make the Cardinals great again? And it feels like we have to remove some things and build it back up.

It's not a full rebuild. It's not that. They're not tearing it down to like $60 million or anything like that. They're still going to be hovering around $150, $160 million. But there's got to be a better way to develop because you're not going to go out and pay $21 million for you say Kikuchi. You can't tell me you want the Cardinals to do that. And you're okay with that. That's nonsense.

You know? So anyway, those are my thoughts. Hit me down in the comment section. Let me know what you think. agree, disagree. We'll have a fan of feedback show coming up here in the very near future where we can go back and forth and I'll talk about some of your ideas and some of your comments.

So latest news from around the league is coming up next on Locked on Cardinals. A former Cardinal got paid. We'll talk about it next. Thank you again for making Lockton Carnals. You first listen today for your second list. And find Lockton MLV baseball guru. Sully brings you a daily blend of huge. and baseball, keeping you updated on all the teams during this offseason.

And you can find Locked on MLB on YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcast. So not a lot to report on the Cardinals. You know, we continue. It's kind of holding pattern right now. The biggest news, obviously, is Aronado wanting or willing, shouldn't say wanting, willing to move to first base if that would help facilitate a trade to a place that he wants to be. and if those people are a place that he wants to go, if a deal is agreed to.

So we're just kind of waiting on that stuff right now. We did get some news on a former Cardo. Tommy Edmund and the Dodgers have agreed on a five-year $74 million extension that will run through 2029. It's got a sixth year club option. It's also reported that he got $17 million signing bonus and, of course, deferred money. Dodgers kicking the can down.

the road. And, you know, my buddy is a Dodgers fan. He was like, text me. And he's like, man, in like 10 years when the, when they have to pay the check, Dodgers are going to be in a world of hurt? And I'm like, are they going to be so rich just looking at all their rings that they won't care. So, but yeah, you know, in the NFL with the salary cap, if you continue to defer money, you know, eventually the cap will get you. And, you know, they'll come to collect and you're screwed because you've got all the is dead money that you've got to still pay off. Not the case in Major League Baseball.

So they just keep kicking money down the road. We're like, no, we'll get you. We'll get you in like five years, six years, whatever. We'll pay you. So, but congratulations to Tommy Evin, right? A guy that certainly has earned it, has had a really good career, worked his way back from that tough wrist injury, huge in the playoffs for L.A., and he cashed in, you know, good for him.

Does this put them out on the Juan Soto sweepstakes? Because that's something where the Dodgers, apparently were a team. that's been reported that I think it was five teams that have actually submitted offers to want Soto. The Dodgers were one of them. So does this mean that they're out on it? I would never roll the Dodgers out on any of these guys. But the Soto market is clearly a big domino that has yet to fall in Major League Baseball. The Toronto Blue Jays are a team that continues to be brought up and is one of five teams that, you know, have reportedly made an offer as well. They all seem to have backup plans, you know, because nobody's going to put all their eggs in the wanton Soto basket.

And then if they don't get them, they're screwed. Like, they don't want to do that. So there's been talk about like if they don't get Soto, Toronto is willing to be interested in Alex Bragman and Anthony Santander, Max Free, Luis Severino. And, you know, this was a team that was really disappointing this year, you know, like the Cardinals in 2023, the Blue Jays were expected to be pretty darn good this year, considering all the talent they had on their roster. I mean, you got Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and both shed. Kevin Kiermeyer was on that team. Kevin Gossman, Chris Bassett, George Springer, Dalton Bar Show. You say Kukuchi, Justin Turner, were on that team before they got traded. So a lot of big names there. And they struggled,

that's 74 and 88. I mean, not good. Guerrero Jr. and Bichette are in the final year of their team control. Beset had a dreadful year this past year. I know this because I took him in fantasy baseball and he was a steamy pile of poo. But Toronto apparently is willing to spend this offseason, which says to me that I guess are going to try to extend Guerrero Ambeshed at some point. Like, why would you go pay all these other guys and then the two that are already on your team? You wouldn't try to sign them.

So I would assume something like that would come down the pipeline. But Toronto looking to pay, they're going to try to buy their way out of this 70. before an 88 hole that they just dug for themselves. Maybe they're kind of like the Cardinals, where they'll go get some guys and then, yeah, they'll get better with 83 wins or something and then realize, yeah, this isn't working out so well and have to do what the Cardinals are doing. That could be a possibility. Yankees, obviously, are doing everything they can to keep Soto.

John Heyman said they increased their offer. He said they've also touched base with Corbett Burns and Max Fried. Red Sox and Mets were the other two teams that have been talked about a lot and have submitted a deal again. I personally, just for the game of baseball, I hope Juan Soda stays with the Yankees. No offense to any of your other franchises. It just seemed right.

It felt right him and Judge together and Stan. It just felt right when he was a Yankee this year. I liked it for the game of baseball. Yeah, I wish he had been a cardinal and that traded gone through a few years ago. That would have been great. but I just feel like that's where he belongs and that's where he should stay. But it appears at least that he's going to stay on the East Coast. It doesn't appear that he's going to go to the West Coast again when he was with the Padres.

And, you know, if he ended up being a Dodger, I mean, holy crap, that would be crazy. How much deferred money would that be said down the road if that worries where he ends up? But, you know, I keep telling people, the game needs balance. You know, you got to have balance with stars out west and stars in the east and stars in the central. Kind of like the good old days of gangster rap. Remember it was West Coast versus East Coast? Like, we got to do that without the bullets and the shooting and all that stuff. That's the bad stuff.

But, you know, East Coast, West Coast rivalries are always kind of fun. And I just, and that's how I hope it all pans out is that sort of just ends up with the Yankees. Just stay there. It was nice. Anyhow, we got to wrap it up. Thank you again for making Locked on Cardinals. Your first listen. Each and every day, be having already, do me a solid.

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