Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - What Surprise Starting Pitcher Is Poised For A Big Season

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

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! eBay Motors With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to turn your car into the MVP and bring home that win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers. Gametime Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. FanDuel New customers, join today and you’ll get ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS if your first bet of FIVE DOLLARS or more wins. Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON 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.

Thomas Govane from Redbirdrance.com joins us today as we talk about what we've seen so far at spring training, whether we've got some concerns and some people blowing things out of proportion a little bit. What does everybody need to relax about? Plus, which Cardinals are poised to take off in 2024? And who does he think is going to make the final roster and be on the bench for the Cardinals when things get started at the end of the month? This is Locked on Cardinals. You are locked on Cardinals. Your daily St. Louis Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey there, Cardinals fans. I'm J.D. Haffern and I'm a national radio sports anchor, born and raised in the Lou and a lifetime Cardinals.

And I'm your host for Lockdown Cardinals. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. You can follow me on Twitter X at JD Sports Radio. You can follow the podcast at L.O underscore Cardinals. I want to thank those of you who make Locktown Cardinals your first listen every single day. We are free and available wherever you get your podcast. on YouTube. Make sure you like, subscribe, and comment. That way you're interacting with us. Hit the notification button so you know when the new episodes are posted. We're making that grind for 10,000 subscribers before opening day. So if you're somebody who stops by each and every day, just give us a like and subscribe. It's like to take you just second. And it does us a wonderful

amount of good when you do that. So this is for you. This is a show that serves Cardle Nation and gives the best fans of baseball, all of the info about the birds on the bat. Today's episode brought to you by Fandle, make every moment more new customers joined today. You'll get $150 in bonus bets. If your first bet of $5 or more wins, visit fandle.com slash locked on to get started. All right, first and foremost, we want to welcome in our guide, Thomas Govane from Redbirdrance.com joining us today to talk a little bit of baseball. Thomas, how are we on this first of March, a Friday?

Here we are, man. Yeah, I'm doing well. It's taking us a while to get to March, it feels like, but it feels good to have some baseball. ball, that's for sure. Things have been interesting so far with for the Cardinals at spring training. Number one story, obviously, which caught a few of us off guard was the fact that the Cardinals brought in longtime San Francisco Giant shortstop Brandon Crawford. We've had a couple of ties. The bullpen competition has been pretty fierce. I've been really impressed with how things have gone so far specifically for the Cardinals pitching staff and specifically the bullpen.

you actually just did an article at redbird rants.com. If you guys haven't checked that out yet, make sure you guys get over there for all of the entertainment value that they offer you when it comes to different stories about rumors and news, like they cover each and every day, brand new stuff getting posted all the time. And you put one out about four overreactions to the beginning of spring training. And give me one of those overreactions right now because I know Cardle's fans get worked up. I would imagine every fan base gets worked up about the little things in spring training

and they start freaking out about whatever it is that's upsetting them. What is one of the things that you want Cardinals Nation to just kind of take a step back and just relax for a second? It's got to be the home runs. I think we're going on, the game's on right now, five innings in, still no home run in spring training nearing 70 innings at this point. I would imagine that the lack of power is probably the biggest overreaction. I mean, this team was 12 last year in the league with home runs per game, over one.

They'll be fine. Goldschmidt, Arnado, Newt Barr, Walker, Gorman, all those guys are almost locks to hit 20 home runs. I think that's one of the biggest overreactions at the moment. Yeah, I actually just posted something on our Twitter feed or X, whatever you want to call it, at L0 underscore Cardinals. A little poll. Just poking a little fun at it, like who's going to hit the first spring training home run for the Cardinals? I gave you, you know, like the top three guy,

give you Gorman, Goldie, and Aronado, and then option number four, because that's all that let me do, was nobody, a power outage. They don't hit any of the spring. It's for fun, guys. Like, it's okay. It's not, it's not like the Cardinals are giving up, like, four and five of them a game either.

And, like, the ball is just flying out of the yard in Florida right now for anybody. Like, it's not really happening. Although, I guess we saw a couple of big flies go off of Gibson yesterday, which had people freaking out about that. So perhaps maybe that's something that is in your article as well. But check that out at RedbirdRance.com. Who do you think, if you had to make a guess, who do you think it is that ends up hitting the first home run of the spring for the Cardinals?

Your thoughts, Thomas? Probably Lars Newport, mainly because he's the next guy up who could hit a home run, who's scheduled to play. I mean, Gorman, Nato, Goldie, and Contreras all play today. I would assume they get rest tomorrow. So Newt Barr probably would be the guy. He's going with New. Yeah, there was a bunch of guys that I couldn't put in the tweet because, again,

they only give you four options. But yeah, you know, Donnie, Newt, Contreras, you know, yeah, like all of these guys. What if Crawford does it? That's somebody then. That would be hilarious. Whenever he gets into game action, we don't know when that's going to be just yet. But I don't know. That's just one of the things people should calm down about.

And again, if you want to read the full article about what are some of the other things that Thomas is like, just chill out for just a second. We're only a week or so into this thing. You can read that at RedbirdRance.com. Now, one of the things I want to talk about, we brought up Brandon Crawford is his addition to the team here in spring training. What were your initial thoughts on that? Personally, I thought it was a good move.

I think they needed somebody. Jose for me, is fine. But when somebody who's got a resume like Crawford's available, I thought it was smart that the Cardinals scooped him up. Yeah, absolutely. I think in a vacuum by itself, Brandon Crawford makes a ton of sense. He's a veteran, which is what they've been targeting this offseason.

He plays a premium position, and he plays it well defensively. He can give Mason Wynn some advice and some help at shortstop there. And he's a good enough bench bat. I know his last two years, he's at an OPS Plus pretty negative, but I mean, you go back just two years of 2021, and he was an MVP candidate almost. So he's got the pedigree. He's got the history.

He's got the experience to bring in. So if it were just Brandon Crawford by himself, I'd be fully okay with it. But something I keep going back to is Brandon Crawford, Matt Carpenter. It just doesn't seem to make too much sense to have these two guys paired together on the bench. It's odd. It's almost like they painted themselves in a corner by agreeing to a contract with Carpenter early on. And now it's like, oh, yeah, so about that, man.

But we're going to get into that a little bit later when we talk about who we think is going to be on this team as far as position players. Because the bullpen stuff, a little tougher to predict right now because a lot of guys are pitching very well. So we'll have to see how it plays out. But as far as the position players and the bench bats, I mean, we've got some clarity of what's probably going to happen. So we're going to talk a little bit about that later on. I also want to get into an article that you put out about guys who are poised to break out in 2024, because there are a number of guys on this roster that, you know, that they're at that point in their career where they could take off. And then there's a couple other guys you have in there that veterans that you're looking for bounce back years.

So we're going to get into that discussion coming up next with Thomas Covein from Redwood Rants.com on Locked on Cardinals. Get buckets with your first bet on Fandall, America's number one sports book, because right now new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet. That's $150 if your bet wins. What could you do with $150 right now? Say you end up winning your bet, you got $150. What is something you would like to do with that? I'm currently moving residences and there's plenty of stuff that we need for the new place

that I can spend it on. maybe you're in a similar place. Maybe you're going on vacation soon now that it's spring. Whatever it is, you can end up making some money here with Fandold. I don't know, all your favorite NBA players and teams with the quick bets, live same game parlays, exclusive props and a whole lot more. And the great thing about betting on the NBA and in sports in general is just all of the different ways that you can actually place your bets and win money.

You know, with basketball, you've got points, field goals, three-pointers, free throws, assists, steals, turnovers, offensive. of rebounds. I mean, there's just a slew of things. And whomever your favorite players or teams are, you can bet on their success or you can bet on the failures of the teams they're playing against. It's entirely up to you. It just kind of enhances the experience of watching the game, whether it's NBA, whether it's going to be major league baseball, any of them, to be honest. So new customers, once again, get 150 bucks in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet. That's $150 if your bet wins. Visit fandal.com slash locked on. shoot your shot with Fandul, the official sportsbook partner of the NBA. Once again, we're joined by Tom at Scovane from Redwood Rance.com. A reminder that Locked on has launched 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 Lockdown, plus our national shows covering every league. You can find Lockdown Sports today available now on the Free Fire TV channels app. And thank you guys for making Lockdown Cardinals your first listen every day. When it comes to each and every show, we love hearing from you, your comments, positive or negative. I mean, you could disagree with everything we say on this show. And that's fine. That's your prerogative.

Let's have a discussion about it. So get into that comment section or hit us up on Twitter X. Anytime you want, you can hit up Thomas Govain. We're going to talk about one of his articles right now at Thomas Govain on Twitter X as well. So people who are poised, players who are poised to break out in 2024. Now, you put together a list that included six players. Now, we're not going to give you all of them because we want you to check it out at Redwood Rance.com, but we're going to give you half of them. We're going to give you half the list here. And the first one we're going to start with,

happens to be a pitcher, happens to be in the starting rotation, but he's not one of the new guys. Who'd you go with, Thomas? I pick Stephen Mats for this last spot on the article there. Okay. And what is it about Stephen Mats that makes you think that he is poised for a breakout? Because I know everybody's going to come at you and go, oh, Mr. Injury himself, Stephen Mats, the guy who's been sent to the bullpen twice now since he's been in a Cardinals uniform, why is it?

Stephen Mats is somebody that you think could be one of those guys that is poised for a breakout, bounce back year here in 2024. I've seen a lot coming out of. especially today, I think the post dispatch even had something about how he's preparing for his health more often. He's been doing physical therapy over the offseason before he was pitching to get him ready to go and help his recovery process. If you go back to 2021, it was his last year, the Blue Jays right before we signed him, he pitched 150 innings. And that was the third or fourth season out of his seven years in which he exceeded that mark. So, yes, he's got the injury history, but he also has the ability to pitch almost a full slate of,

starts in a season. He's always been a groundball pitcher with a bit of a strikeout touch to him. And I think that bodes well for Bush Stadium. He could realistically be the number two starter for the Cardinals, assuming he's healthy, pitches. Honestly, my mark in my mind is 130 innings for him to reach. If he surpasses that, I'd see it as a successful season for him. I can hear fans right now going, what did you just say? Stephen Matt's is going to be your number two. Here's why I think it's not that far-fetched. I mean, you know, Kyle Gibson is what he is. Lance Lynn, you're hoping is back to more like what he was in 2021.

Miles Michaelis looked pretty good the other day in his first start of the spring. But you saw the dominance that Stephen Mats had at the end of last year. Like after he went to the bullpen, figured out whatever it was that was going on with him, that was causing whatever issues, they got him off to that really rough start last year. and he was outstanding over the last few starts of his. And I do want to point out that I know they weren't always against the greatest competition. He played against a lot of teams that weren't exactly playoff contenders. But the fact is, he was dominating in those games too.

It wasn't like he was just getting by with like three or four earn-rids long. He was carving people up. And then unfortunately, the injury bug got him again and he got that lat injury. But he was really, really good at the end of the year. and it was unfortunate how a season ended. Yeah, it was. And he was a 2.7 F-war player just two years ago, which I know we're itching for four, five war guys,

but you don't need that out of a number two starter. Somewhere around that three-f three-war mark is great. And if Stephen Mats would have a full slate of games like he finished out last year, he would absolutely reach that mark. So I think he has the potential to be number two, given his health, which is a pretty big question, Mark. All right. So let's move on. So we are hoping for good things from Stephen Matt. So we'll give you the,

we'll give you the reasons why it's something that can happen. All right, let's move on to a guy who came onto the team at the end of last year, really, really struggled in his first time in major leagues, but a guy that top prospect in the organization. And if you ask people around baseball, their thoughts on what Mason win is going to be, people have glowing reviews about him. And I think a lot of people are a little bit tainted from what they saw in September. What is it about Mason Wynn in your eyes that makes you think he's one of those guys that's poised to have a big year in 2024? He's a really sturdy floor between his defense and his speed. I mean, he's got an 80-grade arm.

He's got 70 grade speed, I think, 65 or 70. So he can steal bases and he can field the ball. And those two things alone set him up pretty well to have a good season. And if you throw in his improvement as he's grown comfortable with each level in his baseball career, you'll see his offensive numbers grow as well. He's projected for an 88 OPS plus, which is below average. But if he can improve his walks a little bit and tap into just a little bit more power, he'll be an average offensive player with a very strong glove and great speed.

He's batting 500 in spring right now. He's got a stolen base. He had a cannon of a throw last week. He's showing off all of the skills already. And let's not forget last spring, he was the standout guy in the spring. Like, I mean, we were watching it and you're like, kind of sucks that he can't be on the major league roster,

that that wasn't going to happen because you saw how much excitement that he brought to the table and the energy that he was bringing into the roster. He was moving over and playing second base, remember, and he was making all these great plays. And you got to see the arm. You saw the arm already early on at camp, which, you know, only a handful of dudes are throwing whoever. I forget who it was that he threw out at first base,

but he had to go in the hole and just a seed across the diamond. And only a couple of guys in the league are going to pull that throw off. I mean, guys like, you know, L.A. Dela Cruz, O'Neill Cruz, guys with like the 1% elite arms in all of baseball, we're going to do that. And, you know, when it comes to people talking about his struggles last year when he came up, I mean, how many times do we have to say it? Like, not everybody comes up and just hits 500, you know, when they first get their first taste of Major League Baseball. And there's a track record of Mason Wynn, no matter what level he goes to first, his first month and a half usually are pretty slow.

And now that he got that taste of Major League Baseball, what it's like to be in the show last year, I think that's going to go a long way for how he ends up starting the season here in 2024 where he's the man. The Brandon Crawford signing is not something where, well, if Mason struggles, at least we got, that's not the idea here. You know, that's not. The idea is that he is the backup. Mason win is the man, and they're hoping to get 145 to 150 games out of him this year. Yeah, and you have to take into account the feel of the team. I mean, when he came up last year, the season was over.

Now it's the beginning. It's exciting. He'll fit right in. Absolutely. All right. One more name out of the list. again, you can read this at Redbirdrance.com. He's got six guys that he's pointed out that thinks poised for a big year in

2024. This one, I couldn't agree more with you. And we're talking about second baseman, D.H. Nolan Gorman. What is it about Gorman that excites you about 2024? It's got to start with his bat. He has the potential to hit 30 home runs in a full slate of games. He walks at a decent amount. Strikeouts are a little bit higher than what you'd want. but the home run and the double power offsets that to me,

the most surprising thing about him has been his defense. He was worth minus 12 outs above average his rookie year, and he brought that all the way to negative two. Still a negative defender, but to improve by that much is pretty significant, even if he gets just a little bit better, he's automatically a plus defender at second base, which is something that we've been searching for after Colton Long left.

So it all starts with his power, and then it continues on with his growth defensively. Now, one thing that Gorman has dealt with was the back issues last year. How concerned are you? So far, at spring training, things have been okay. But again, we're not in the grind of what the season is going to be where they're expecting them out there, you know, six days a week. So how concerned are you about his back issues so far?

I'm not overly concerned. I don't know if you've read much. I'm not fully familiar, but I know he's changed his off-season workouts and his in-season and workout plans as well to put less stress on his back. So hopefully that helps alleviate some of the longstanding pain that he felt throughout the season last year. And he's also made some changes to the diet. Apparently popcorn was the problem.

He never said what brand it was, but he said that popcorn was an issue with him. And he's hoping that him cutting back on that said he shedded about 10 pounds already leading into spring training by just kind of sweep. switching brands and switching because anybody who works out knows that like popcorn's one of those filler snacks that, you know, it's always available and it's cheap and you can just keep loading up on it. But if you're eating the bad stuff, not so good for you. If you're going cracker jack style with caramel and stuff on it, bad news. But there's plenty of other ways to go about it. So hopefully that makes a difference. I don't know if it will, but it would be hilarious if

popcorn was the reason why his back was having as many issues as it did the last couple of years. And this was something apparently he's been struggling with since high school, which I actually did not know until that was reported this year that these are things that have been a problem all the time. It's not like it just popped up in the last year. And it's all the Cardinals training staff's fault. Yeah, right. Must have been butter lovers popcorn. There you go. Yeah, that could be it.

I don't know which one it was. I'm sure he's not going to, you know, drag him through the mud, whoever it was. But, yeah, advertising contact. I'm glad he's taking the steps to switch up the diet a little bit, and hopefully it'll help him out this year. So far, no home runs for Gorman yet this year. But if you had to make a guesstimate, where do you think he lands this year? Let's say he plays 135 games this year.

Where do you think he lands home run-wise? I'll give him 32. If he plays that full slate games, I'll go into 32 home runs. I can live with that. I can live with that. It's going to be a lot of strikeouts. That's just part of it, you know, people who like love Kyle Schwerber and look at the power. How can we don't have him or whatever.

And like you got to remember you got to take all the good with the bad too where Gorber is, you know, he's an outfield and he's D.H. Well, we're Gorman. I'm excited about the fact where Gorman is going to be able to do not only second base in D.H. But, you know, you're probably going to see him over at third base a little bit this year when they try to give Nato a little bit more rest this season as he continues to get older. and he was dealing with some back issues last year. So keeping Gorman Healthy is going to be very, very important to this team. Once again, RedfordRance.com, and you can read about all six of the players that Thomas chose

as guys he thinks are poised to break out here in 2024 and have big seasons. All right. So coming up next, we did this week a couple of prediction episodes, if you will. I went over the pitching staff, specifically the bullpen. of who I thought was going to make it. But with the Brandon Crawford signing, which has been very fresh in everybody's mind, I want to get your thoughts on what you think that means

for the Cardinals position players, who's going to make it and who's going to be the benchbats? We're going to have more with Thomas Govain from Redbirdrance.com. Coming up next on Locked on Cardinals. Once again, Lockdown has launched 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. Find Locked on Sports Today right now available on the Free Fire TV channels app. Thomas Govain from Redwood Rants.com joining us here today talking some ball. And with the Brandon Crawford signing, which we touched on a little bit earlier in the show, it's another bench bat. It's another spot on the bench that is now. gone where when we first started talking about spring training, we hadn't had a Matt Carpenter,

we hadn't had a Brandon Crawford. So talking about who was going to be on the bench for the Cardinals was a big question mark. We didn't know. We didn't know what they were going to do for these bats. And now a couple of those spots are taken. And you couple that up with the Tommy Edmund injury news, which I would assume you're like me where the way things are shaping up, he's not going to be ready for opening day. Would you agree with that? I would, especially if he doesn't get started in games anytime soon. Yeah, and it's okay.

I'm totally fine with them. If he needs to skip the end of March and April and come back fully healthy in May, I'm okay with that because you've got guys like Dylan Carlson, who you should be able to plug in and he can be a starter. You should be able to do that. But it makes you wonder what they're going to do with the benchbats now that you've got Matt Carpenter and Brandon Crawford. So my prediction, I think it was in yesterday's show.

I get them confused now, but this is what I thought. I got Wilson Gattrera and Yvonne Herrera at Catcher. We know that's what it's going to be. You're starting infield normally, Goldie, Donovan, Nato, Mason, Win. Outfield, without Edmund, New Barton left, Dylan Carlson and center, Jordan Walker, and right, Nolan Gorman, your DH. And when he plays second,

you know, Donovan will be the DH. That's probably what we're looking at. Would you agree? I would. Yeah. Okay. Let's go to the bench. Mind you, no Tommy Edmund here.

You need 13 guys because I would assume they're going to go with 13 pitchers to start the season because they've already talked about possibly the six-man rotation. They're going to want an extra arm in there. It just makes a lot of sense for them with the early grind, the early travels, stuff that they got going on in the beginning of the season. So that leaves three spots on the bench with admin out.

Who are you giving those three spots to? Do you dare? Thomas Govane cut future Cardinals Hall of Famer Matt Carpenter. They won't. Would I? Probably. But I don't, they won't. It'll be Brandon Crawford, Matt Carpenter, and then Alec Berluson.

So unexciting, positionally. strange, but it seems to me that those are the three who are going to fit. Now, what do you say to people who will be like, so all three are going to be left-handed? We're not going to have a single right-handed bat on the bench. What would be your comeback to them of why the Cardinals would choose to do things, something like that? I don't have much of a comeback for that one, actually. Yeah, I don't know.

I think that those three are chosen more so because A, Matt Carpenter is the veteran voice they've been looking for. Alex Berlinson deserves it at this point. I mean, he's done his time in the minor leagues. He has the ability to hit in the majors more than likely. And then Brandon Crawford's the backup shortstop, which everybody needs. So, yes, they're all three left-handed vats. And yes, they're all bench players, but it just seems to be that's the best route to the team.

And I pointed out in our episode yesterday that one of the things that maybe everybody should maybe we should have added this to one of your, hey, relax everybody when it comes to all the left-handed batters, is that a lot of, you know, the left-handed special, it's not really a thing anymore because you've got to get three outs, you know, so our three-hitter rule, not outs, but three-hitter rule. And the majority, what is it, like 70-something percent of pitchers in major league, they're right-handed anyway. So you've got most of your arreides are going to be in the lineup every day as is. So having these guys available off the bench as the alternate to somebody who's throwing right-handed, not a bad idea, right? And Brandon Crawford splits really aren't that far apart versus lefties and right.

I think it's maybe 30, 40 points in his OPS, so nothing too major. Now let's talk about when Tommy Edmund gets back, whether it's opening day, whether it's later on in the month. What happens then? Because now Dylan Carlson goes down to a bench roll. and that means somebody's got to go. Now, unless they end up getting rid of a pitcher and going to 12 pitchers, which is a distinct possibility,

but that's not a lot of fun for this discussion, Thomas. So now you've got to get rid of somebody. Out of those three that you kept, what are you going to do? In a wild world that I imagined last week, I think that Matt Carpenter gets the boot come May, joins the coaching staff, and is one of the first players in a while,

at least from what I could find in my research, to retire and then immediately, like within a week or two, become a coach on the same major league team. So I think in a wild case, Matt Carpenter would get cut. You'd have Crawford, Carlson, Burleson, and then Herrera on the bench. If Matt Carpenter is not cut, then you lose Burley on the bench and you keep Matt Carpenter on the roster. Yeah, I pointed out like if Burleson does get the boot back to Memphis, which not the worst thing in the world for him to get him at bats every day and let him play all the time. But I was talking about like, dude, the Memphis lineup's kind of sick. If you put Burley down there along with Victor Scott, Lucan Baker, Thomas A J.C., Cesar Preeto, Moises Gomez, Jose Fermin, Michael Cian. That's not so bad.

It's a lot of experience and talent. Yeah. And it's there when and if injuries do happen because we know it'll happen. So one thing that the Cardinals do have going for them is they've got a lot of depth available guys who have been to the major leagues and you would trust to be a bench roll guy. If somebody were to go down in the starting lineup, you plug whoever it is that was on your bench, you bring them into the starting lineup. And then you have one of these guys where you're not like, I don't know who that guy is. You know who all these guys are. They've been up there for the part, most of them. And you're familiar with them. So I think the Cardinals have put themselves in a pretty good position depth-wise throughout the lineup.

Like I'm talking about position players and in the bullpen because they were able to accumulate so many arms this offseason that if one or two of them go down, it's not going to be end-of-the-world type of things the way it was last year, which it really handcuffed them. Yep. And I know fan graphs just came out with the depth piece and the Cardinals had like the second best winning percentage with their depth guys in the league. Yes, yes.

Because they were saying like if like say. top 10, I think. Like Aranaana goes down or Goldschmidt goes down, that the Cardinals, it wouldn't be like catastrophe if something like that happened that they've got enough guys that they'll be able to plug them in and they wouldn't lose all that much, which is great. It's great news because we know how the injury bug likes to find its way to St. Louis each and every year. All right. Once again, Redbird rants.com is where you're going to find Thomas Covey. What are some other stories that you got out there right now that the people ought to be on the lookout for? I just did a fun one where I took the five guys that we added, Lance Lynn, Sunny Gray, Brandon Crawford, Matt Carpenter, and I took a time machine and put us back in 2015 to see that we would have the best infield and the best starting rotation with all those guys, but it's

2024. But it's still fun to go down the road and that is like that, like what if type of scenarios. So always good stuff there. So make sure you check out Thomas on Twitter, X, as well as at. Redbirdrance.com, fresh new stuff coming out each and every day from him and all of the other talented writers that are there like our buddy Josh Jacobs and company at Redbirdrance.com. So Thomas, as always, thank you so much for stopping in today. Have a great weekend, my friend.

All right, you too, JD. Thank you. And thank you guys for making Lockdown Cardinals your first listen every day. If you haven't already, give us a follow on Twitter X at L.O. underscore Cardinals at JD Sports Radio. And like and subscribe on YouTube so you can help our channel and our love for the Cardinals grow. You guys are the best fans in baseball for a reason. We'll see you next time.

The Locked on Cardinals.