Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Will The St. Louis Cardinals' New Approach Satisfy Their Loyal But Disappointed Fans?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Has the demise of the Cardinals organization been overestimated a little bit? John Mosea Lach sets the record straight 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 there, Cardinals fans. My name is J.D. Hafford and I'm your host for Lockdown Cardinals, part of the Lockdown podcast network covering your team every day. You can follow me on Twitter X at JD Sports Radio.

Starting point is 00:00:35 You can also follow the podcast at L0 underscore Cardinals. I want to thank those of you who make Locktown Cardinals your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get your podcast. And if you are a more visually stimulated fan, we are also available on YouTube. We're making a push for 11,000 subscribers. So if you haven't done that already, please stop on by, like, subscribe, and hit the notification comment or notification button,

Starting point is 00:00:59 I should say, so you don't miss a single episode. because this is a show serving Cardinal Nation and giving the best fans in baseball, all of the info about the birds on the bet. Today's episode being 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. There's fandle.com to get started.

Starting point is 00:01:24 So when the announcement came down that the Cardinals were going to be driving, dropping payroll. I think a lot of the stomachs dropped as well when it comes to how fans took that bit of information. The first thought for most fans was worst case scenario. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. They're going to start a rebuild, aren't they? They're going to start a rebuild, aren't they? But that was the R word that John Moselock and company used. Instead, they used the words reset. Reset was the word that they went with instead. But many fans responded with a, you can't fool me, John Moe-Zalak. How dare you, Mo? You can't fool me. That was the mentality that I picked up from a lot of people. You know, it was like, just because you're using a

Starting point is 00:02:23 different R-word doesn't mean you can sneak it past us. We know what you're doing. We're on to you, you're tearing things down, you're going cheaper, and you expect us to just bend over and take it, right? But if you remember, the fan base made it very well known that the last two years were not good enough and that they were fed up with the way things were going with the current model of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Starting point is 00:02:55 And they did that by not showing up anymore. you would go to the ballpark and it was something you just said most of us had never seen before where there were no fans around a lot of seats available you would hear watching telecast you would hear announcers from other teams go i have never seen it like this i mean this is weird this is bizarre cardinal fans not supporting the cardinals what what the hell is going on here. So why are we surprised then that the front office and Mo would change their mind about how they're doing things? You should be surprised right. This, right? Like, we should be shocked that they decided to go in a different direction. Why would they continue to do the same thing?

Starting point is 00:03:51 They got them where they are in the first place, where attendance is down, morale is down. No one would make a whole lot of sense, would it? They just kept trucking along and doing the same thing another year. You're not going to be pleased by that. So they switched it up. What they've been doing for many, many years now is basically they would throw money at the problem. Right. Whatever issues were going on with the roster, they would just throw money at it.

Starting point is 00:04:23 Lineup needs more pop. Let's make a trade for some high-priced talent. We'll bring in Nolan Arnato and Paul Goldschmidt. Very expensive players, mind you. you. They made deals to go get them. Very good deals, mind you. I can't think of anybody that they gave up that you're all that upset about these days. I don't think. Well, Luke Weaver, I guess, doing pretty good things with the Yankees now. But come on. You got to admit, they won the Aronado and Paul Goldsmith trades. All right. Those were good ones. But they had to throw money at the problem. They had to pay them. Pitching was the problem in 2023. So they signed a handful of new pitchers. Sunny Gray, Kyle Gibson, Land. cancel in. Keenan Middleton. Got some new bullpen arms and stuff. Whatever part of the team wasn't up to par in the previous season, they went and paid or traded for someone that they can pay to try and fix it. And what it reminded me of is you've seen the cartoons before, right? Where, you know,

Starting point is 00:05:25 the character's like, oh my gosh, the dam is starting to break. Okay, there's a leak. And they would put their finger in the hole or, you know, and then another leak would pop open and they would stick another finger in there. And then another one pops out and they'd stick the toe in there. You've seen this before, I'm sure. Over and over and over, they try to hold it all back until finally the damn breaks, flood ensues. We got problems, right? So instead of doing this again, the front office has made the choice that with the new Heim Bloom regime coming in and taken over following this upcoming 25 season, that this is where they're just going to stop trying to plug the polls. We're going to stop doing it and start using younger players, younger guys that have to work

Starting point is 00:06:19 and on the ability to, to, what I'm trying to say here is they're going to rely on these younger players and work on their ability to develop more younger players and better younger players in the future so they don't get stuck in this model again. All right. Is that making sense? I'm trying to say it eloquently for you, but they're just done overpaying to put band-aids over all these holes. Okay? They're like, hold on.

Starting point is 00:06:49 There's a better way to go about this. And fans aren't going to love it. They're not going to love it because for years they've shown up in droves to buy tickets to go see the Cardinals and buy. and buy the hot dogs and buy the beers and the ice cream for the kids. You know how expensive it is? Take like a family of four to a Cardinal game. It ain't cheap. There's parking, jerseys, hats, all the stuff that you've got to get for everybody to have a great time.

Starting point is 00:07:15 It ain't cheap. It ain't cheap to do it. And fans would do it anyway, though, because they were hoping that the money they're spending to support the team would contribute to them winning more ball games. would help them compete for a championship and for a while it worked until it didn't anymore. And the reality was that unless you want to have a payroll that's 200 million plus and will continue to escalate year after year after year, you have to develop your own talent. You just can't keep doing it this way.

Starting point is 00:07:57 Some teams don't care about that. But the majority of teams do. I mean, even the Dodgers, you know, they went out and bought themselves a championship, so to speak. You know, they went and bought Shoheotani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Freddie Freeman and Teosker Hernandez. Among others, there's other guys they've paid. They made trades to go get mooky bets, Tyler Glassnow, Tommy Edmund, Jack Flaherty, and so forth. But remember, they still drafted and developed prospects to make those deals, right? They still had to have good enough prospects to trade with those other teams who were trying to dump those salaries.

Starting point is 00:08:36 And then they took salaries on. They've also drafted and developed a lot of good players on their own. Clayton Kershaw, three-time-side Young Award winner, Walker Bueller, until the injuries got him, was excellent. New guys like Gavin Stone, Will Smith is one of their draft picks, Gavin Lux, and so forth. So they have had to do it. And they're always considered to have a very nice pool of process. prospects, very, very good organization. And that's why people do deals with them, because they develop very, very well. And you just can't win without developing your own guys. You just can't.

Starting point is 00:09:17 And that's what the Cardinals are going to try to get back to. And it's how they used to win a lot of ball games back in the day. Develop your own talent and nucleus. And then you fill in the gaps with free agency, not the other way around where you're relying on all of these free agents. You to keep buying everybody. And then you fill in the gaps with guys that are just, eh, all right, that you developed. So McCartos are tired of seeing young talent that they draft find success elsewhere in exchange for letting these high-priced veterans that they keep trying to buy

Starting point is 00:09:49 and have them stick around. And it's not working. So they're going in a different direction, a more economic direction, yes, but also in a direction that's going to allow the franchise, hopefully, so you continue to compete year and year out again and not be handcuffed by these outrageous seven to 10 year deals for guys who will never live up to the money that they're signing for. Maybe one or two of them well. But not many of them, not many of them, most of them will go the way things went with Paul Goldschmidt and no one are not aware in the back end of these deals.

Starting point is 00:10:27 the production starts to deteriorate, and now you're paying a crap lot of money for a guy who's not giving you the production that you're paying for anymore. And they don't want to do that. They don't want to do that anymore. So this is why there is change. And Katie Wu from The Athletic just wrote a piece, which included a lot of quotes from John Moseylock. And one of the things that they're saying is this is not a tank. ink job. And I'm going to tell you what he had to say about all of it coming up next on Locked

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Starting point is 00:13:20 going to hijack the whole story. You should go check it out for yourself. But she's got a lot of really good quotes from president of baseball operations and GM, John Moseilak about what is happening with the team and the roster moving forward. So in simple terms, they are deciding to let the kids play. All right. That's the phrase. Let the kids play. See what they can do. And it's not like they're, they're relying on a bunch of, like, low-level prospects, you know. These are the guys that they want to be the core of this team and the nucleus of this team outside of some of the veterans like Wilson Contreras and Sunny Gray, you know, if no one aren't out of sticks around. If Miles Michael is and Stephen Matt's stick around, you know, outside of those guys,

Starting point is 00:14:09 because these guys that they want to be the future of this team are a lot of higher round draft picks. Some of these guys are first round picks who were drafted with the idea that they would become the leaders of the St. Louis Cardinals at some point. Michael McGreevy, first rounder. Jordan Walker, first rounder. You got Nolan Gorman, first rounder. Mason, Wynn, Alec Berluson, Lars Newpar, Brandon Donovan, Michael Siani, although not drafted by the Cardinals, was a high draft pick from the Reds.

Starting point is 00:14:40 Victor Scott, Andre Palante, Ryan Helsley for now while he's still here. Jack Thompson, Gordon Grosso, none of these guys I'm listing for you were drafted below the eighth round. They're all upper level draft picks. And now is the time that the Cardinals are going to sink or swim with them. talking about the years leading up to this reset. Here's one of the quotes from Mo. I can get a picture of them.

Starting point is 00:15:12 There he is. Mo said, it's been a good run. And I know this is a what have you done for me now kind of business. But when you look at this as a whole, there's been a lot of success from the franchise. And we did it trying to be innovative, trying to be cutting edge. Now, first thing I'm going to say about this is he's got to stop talking about the past.

Starting point is 00:15:33 Cool. All right. You won a lot of games back in the day. All right. Last couple of years have not been good. It's not like this is the first year where things haven't gone well. Like we haven't won a playoff game in a long time. So he's got to stop bringing that up. All right. We know you guys were good way back when he brings up,

Starting point is 00:15:54 what have you done for me lately? Yeah. What have you done for me in the last five years is what we're saying? We're not talking about just in the last six months. So he's got to quit doing that. to continue with most quotes. I think the last few years, maybe we weren't focused on where we can squeeze a little more out of the fruit. And instead, we were trying to squeeze a little more for payroll.

Starting point is 00:16:17 Loves his fruit references, by the way, doesn't he? He continues. Over the past couple of years, the timing of my situation, it's now that time to hit the reset and try to reposition ourselves to have another great run, which is great. They're thinking about the future. They're thinking about not only next year in 2025, but down the road, they want to set something up nice for Heinbloom and the rest of the people that he's going to bring in. And people are nervous that this new approach is going to destroy any chance of the Cardinals building off what was an 83-win season this past year. That's what people are nervous about.

Starting point is 00:16:57 They don't want to be bottom feeders. They don't want to be the Marlins or the White Sox. or the athletics and all of these other guys that just they can't get over the hump and win. But Mo doesn't feel that way at all. You know, you got Wilson Contreras coming back. You got Sunny Gray wanting to stay as well. And Mo continued saying our team is not going to look all that different as we navigate the next four to eight weeks. It is going to be how can we better our club or how can we better our future?

Starting point is 00:17:29 What does that look like? We are going to find pathways to give our younger. your players a chance to play and see what they can do. Now, Katie points out that in years past, the team would find a weakness and try to fix it with the free agent, much like I brought up in the opening segment. She gave center field and second base as examples where this past year, younger guys like Victor Scott and Michael Ciani and Nolan Gorman, they struggled tremendously offensively. This year, the team is going to take a different approach to that with most saying in the past,

Starting point is 00:18:03 We couldn't keep trying. We'd have to go out and address those needs. Now what we're saying is we're going to let the players go play and find out if they can make those adjustments. Let's see if they can do it for us instead of us giving up on them and now they're doing it for someone else. We were always rushing to find the next better thing. Now we're going to say we're going to give this time to see what we really have. And of course, that's going to make people think about his favorite phrase and, the history of John Moseylock, and that is patience.

Starting point is 00:18:36 From our patience, a little bit of patience, plus as a little patience. So just be patient, being patient about this and too patient. I'll really just ask for people's patience and all of this. And ask for, from our fan base right now is a little bit of patience. Yeah, okay, we got it. But they're going to be more patient with their younger players. You know, what's been one of the biggest complaints over the years? We keep watching former Cardinals, do great.

Starting point is 00:19:04 things for other teams. Randy Orozarena kind of started this trend in a lot of people's eyes. And then there was Sandy Alcantra and Zach Gallin and Adolings Garcia. Then Lane Thomas. Ramona Rias with the Baltimore Orioles. People forget that he was in the Cardinals farm system and was a good player and they DF8 him. We don't want a gold glove with the Orioles of 2022. People forget that. Waniupas. Solid control. in Washington this year. We watched Jack Flaherty. Finally, stay healthy and he moves on and thrives with the Tigers and then the Dodgers. Tyler O'Neill, monster year with the Boston Red Sox, right? Finally stayed healthy as another guy. Luke Weaver, as I mentioned earlier, found a home with the

Starting point is 00:19:54 Yankees in their bullpen. It seems like almost wherever you go in any team you look at, There seems to be like a former Cardinal prospect doing positive things for their team while the Cardinals are left just kind of scratching their heads wondering how the hell did we let another one get away. And they don't want to see this happen anymore. The fans don't want to see it happen anymore. I don't want to see it happen anymore. It sucks. It's been this vicious cycle to watch as not only do the young guys get away and flourish, but you see other guys who wore the Cardinal uniform do great things like Jordan, Montgomery getting traded and then stars for the Texas Rangers in their World Series run.

Starting point is 00:20:35 That was kind of painful, wasn't it? Watch the Tommy Edmund scorched the ball and play all over the place, almost the MVP for the whole postseason for the Dodgers during this year's run. Another punch to the gut. Jury is still out on like Dylan Carlson. Will his career turn around wearing someone else's colors? We don't know yet. But this is not going to be a tank job. It's not a tank job.

Starting point is 00:20:59 The Cardinals aren't selling off pieces simply for financial reasons. They're not trying to sell the team. They weren't winning with these guys anyway. Like, why do you want to keep them around anyhow? You know, like, let's try something different. Let's see what else we can do because this ain't working. And you know it's not working. It's a change in philosophy that when you step back and you look at it,

Starting point is 00:21:25 overdue. It was overdue. We're going to close things out next with a quick rundown. of the Diamond Sport Agreement with Amazon Prime. This was big news. We'll do that next on Locked on Cardinals. Get ready to tackle the NFL action with Fandall, America's number one sportsbook,

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Starting point is 00:22:45 You'll be all set and ready to go. You'll get started with $150 of bonus bets bets if you win your first $5 bet. That's fandle.com, never waste a hunch and make every moment more with Fandle, an official sportsbook partner of the NFL. Thank you for making Lockton, Cartnell's your first listen today for your second listen. Find Lockton MLB baseball guru Sully bringing to you a daily blog. of humor in baseball, keeping you updated to all the teams during this offseason, the chase for Juan Soto and Corbyn Burns and Blake Snell and Max Fried and Willie Adamas,

Starting point is 00:23:25 all these big money-free agents. He's got you covered on the latest of what's going on with them. Obviously, we'll talk about it here on Lockdown Cardinals as well, but you can find Lockdown, MLB on YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcast. So this next chunk of information that I want to share with you comes courtesy. of MLB.com's John Denton, who covers the Cardinals, in regards to the new deal that was struck between Diamond Sports and Amazon Prime Video, which will, quote,

Starting point is 00:23:52 enable direct to consumer access to Diamond's Fandual Sports Networks, 16 regional sports networks serving fans in 31 states. If you remember, the Cardinals reached a deal with Diamond last week to provide streaming services to fans. I'll be it there, you know, they had to take a pay cut around 25% less than what they were originally supposed to get in the previous deal. But at least we have some answers and it's not like so uncertain of like, okay, where's the rest of this money coming from? They had to take a pay cut and it is what it is, but at least it's not like there's nothing.

Starting point is 00:24:33 So under the terms of the agreement, and I'm going to put this up on the page for you guys to read along with me if you want on YouTube. Fandil Sports Network RSNs will be available via Prime Video as an add-on subscription for customer living within each team's designated geographic area. More details will be announced to the later date. Customers will be able to subscribe to and watch their local Fandual Sports Network content, including live games and pre-and-post game programming directly through Prime Video. Amazon will market the availability of Fandual Sports Network content on Prime Video, fans who watch local games through Prime Video will enjoy a seamless and customized viewing experience as Prime Video allows them to subscribe, manage, and watch their favorite streaming services and sports content in one place.

Starting point is 00:25:23 So for fans in the Cardinals geographic area, this is how you will be able to watch the team next year. All right? So it's all set up and ready to go for people outside of the geographic. area, you'll have to use, you know, the MLB packages that you've been using, like MLB TV. All right. So that's what you'll have to do. I know people have a lot of questions about price-wise. We have heard reports that it's probably going to be about $20 a month for those in the

Starting point is 00:25:56 geographic area. But that is not for certain yet. So don't bank on that. But that's just kind of what we're hearing is that it's going to be how it is like for the blues right now where it's like 20 bucks a month. So hopefully you have the means to be able to do that and pay for that. And that way you're watching the Cardinals next year as this youth movement takes over. And hopefully has great success.

Starting point is 00:26:24 So that is what we're looking for and hoping for in 2025. So thank you for making Locked on Cardinals your first list in every day. If you haven't already, please give us a follow on Twitter X at L0 underscore Cardinals and the JD Sports Radio. You can like and subscribe on YouTube to help our channel and love for the Cardinals grow. Again, we're pushing for 11,000 subscribers. We're less than 100 away right now, at least the last check.

Starting point is 00:26:48 And that would be a big milestone. And I hope it happens. And I appreciate all of you for sticking with us. I know the offseason is difficult time because there's just not a, especially right now with the Cardinals, because there's not a whole lot of news coming out of camp until these winter meetings go on. and maybe some guys like Housley or Arnato get traded or Michaelis or Matt's or somebody else.

Starting point is 00:27:12 There's really not a whole lot to report on at the moment. But we're going to continue looking at things, looking at possible trade scenarios, and a whole lot more. So stay with us. You are the best fans in baseball for a reason. And I will see you next time on Lockdown Cardinals.

Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Will The St. Louis Cardinals' New Approach Satisfy Their Loyal But Disappointed Fans?

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