Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 304 | St. Louis Cardinals | Profile & Projection

Episode Date: March 17, 2021

You guys ranked the St. Louis Cardinals the 10th-best team in baseball! Jomboy, Jake, & Plouffe are previewing their season! Presented by DraftKings Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Oh yeah, welcome back to talking baseball. It's another team profile and projection. We are doing the St. Louis Cardinals, as always brought to you by Draft Kings. The cards, the redbirds, the birds, the baseball cardinals, formerly known as the St. Louis Brownstockings. Jake, they had a rough season last year. A lot of COVID, a lot of delay. They got through it somehow. Did they make any big changes?

Weird year last year for the Cardinals. They lost a lot of guys you're familiar with. Colon Wong, who's been so good at second base for them. He's heading up to Milowah K. Dexter Fowler out of town. He's with the Angels. Treves Brad Miller, backyard Brad, he calls him. He's with the Phillies, Austin Gomer, John Brebio was a piece for them in the bullpen.

Some other guys down there. But the big piece they added. Nolan Aeronado, all world third baseman, pair him and Goldie up on the corners. Boogity, boogity, boogity. Johann Kezada is coming to town as well. So not sure where he'll fit in. I think we'll focus on Nolan Aeronado, you know, arguably the biggest move this postseason and brought the Cardinals to be

kind of the favorites in the NL Central, Trev. What's that lineup even look like nowadays? I think everyone kind of knows what the lineup is going to look like. I think there's a few spots. Maybe we have some competition, but catcher, guess what, Yadi's back.

I don't think it was ever really a question. He wanted to play. Cardinals are the team he wanted to play for, and he's back. First base, you know who's there, Goldie's our guy. Second base,

I think this is where the competition comes in. Tom Yedman slated to go, according to fan grass. But I think also I heard that they were talking about Carpenter making a run trying to win a job. job at second base. Should be interesting. Shortstop, Paul Dijon.

Dillon? Third base, you ever heard of Nolan? Nolan Aeronado? Because he's over there now. Then left field, my guy, the Canadian crusher, Tyler O'Neill, short king, masher.

Centerfield, Harrison, Bader, another short king. They got it going on in the outfield for you guys in right field, Dylan Carlson. Now for my favorite part of the Cardinals, Jim, will you please tell us who's in the rotation. Well, our good friend Jay Flair, Jack Flaherty, is the dude. For the Cardinals, he will be the ace of the staff.

Quang Yun Kim came over last year, turned some heads. Not enough, in my opinion. Adam Wainwright, Waino will be there, Carlos Martinez, you know him, Miles. Michaelis, Michaelis will be there, Lizard King. You know those guys. So it's the same exact as last year, basically. Yeah? Maybe some injuries that I'm forgetting about.

Gomer pitched for them. He was part of the Aeronado trade, but. Gomer, we say that wrong a lot, everyone says. Sure. Gombor. I think you pronounced the game. Sumber about it. In the bullpen, you got Reyes, Galegos, Miller.

We ran across another guy recently, that I was like, if you would have asked me if I thought I was in baseball, or I was Chris Davis for the Orioles. I easily would have been like, yeah, maybe that guy's not around anymore. Miller, still there. Jordan Hicks is making his return. He wasn't around last year. They're the favorite in their division.

IMO are not really changes. Changes things. You want to talk a little bit about that, Jake? Is that what you guys want to start? I can. I mean, it feels like Nolan's the guy. This Cardinals, like you guys alluded. to kind of the pitching's been the thing.

Goldschmidt was their big move a couple years ago. It was a little lackluster. Last year he kicked back into gear. But yeah, you know, Matt Carpenter was a guy that used to compete for some big awards. He's falling off, so it's going to be interesting to see what he's got in the tank still. And some young outfielders competing. Oh, I like that. But Aeronado and Goldschmidt coming off the Oakland A's with Olson and Chapman,

I think this is my favorite corner infield in the sport, not necessarily a hot take. And yeah, man, I'm interested to see how it all comes together in this NL Central. Is the Central going to be a dogfight the whole year? Can one of the teams maybe, and everyone thinks these Cardinals get the leg up and kind of keep it there? I don't know. I do like when we talk about a team's winning formula, this one, pretty easy to figure out, especially come playoff time. You know, you've got the guys you like giving the pill to in a playoff game. They've got dudes. They love in the bullpen. And you got some star power

mixed in with guys coming up. The formula is there. I need to make an addendum. I said Tyler O'Neill is a short king. He is listed at 5-11. I don't know if I believe that. The only thing that could be throwing me off is he is so wide. Like, he's big boy. Like, maybe that kind of. You know, of like is playing tricks with my eyes. But when I played against him, I mean, he seems. Well, Trev, let me welcome you to the Short King world. Nobody in the world is 5-11, because if you're 5-11, you say you're 6-foot. So we could have a 5-9 and a half situation here with some spikes.

Oh, shots fired right away. That's not shots fired. That's a compliment. I'd kill for that. To be a liar? I'm in on this team. I'm also on record as saying that I think they are the best team in the division. Aeronado obviously helped that.

This is going to be one of my favorite divisions. I was thinking about it. The NLE East is going to be a dog fight. But I think the NL Central is just as murky. And maybe not like the quality of teams, but the parody is there. This team, in my opinion, has the ability to run away with it, but I just don't think that's going to happen. think this is going to be a dog fight to the very end.

And it's going to be an excellent season for Inessential fans. Huge. Should be fun. I mean, I think I tweeted out yesterday after the JBJ trade, I said, like, this is going be fun. Let's just Brewers, Cardinals, if the Cubs want to act like it for a little bit, maybe, but I don't see it really happening. If the Reds want to act like it a little bit.

But I think in the end, Brewers and the Cardinals, because there may not be a wild card coming from this division with the way. West guaranteeing two, basically, and the East being pretty stacked. It might be a pretty fun race between the Cardinals and the Brewers. I like the Brewers more as well. I mean, I like the Cardinals more as well, but there are some pieces here that you need to see do it, like that are getting, you know, like Tyler O'Neill, Dylan Carlson, like they've never been above average bats for a full season, right?

You know, and some, you know, Carson hasn't been given the chance. He made his debut last year. But I'm just saying there's some question marks with this Cardinals back end of the lineup. The pitching, Kim was so good last year. I've talked about it a lot. It's pretty interesting because all his peripherals don't say, like, should be as good. Came over from Korea. I mean, he pitched to a 162 ERA last year.

If Jack does his thing and Kim repeats this, And he's not going to repeat that. But if he's good as a two, like that's awesome. But, Jim, I want to pump you on Kim a little bit because I know you're a big fan of first time through the league. First time through the league. And we also did last year's hitting in the Central. Oh, it was awful. So I think when you put that all in the pot, I think that adds to what Kim did last year.

So it's just a matter of where do things truly land? Is he, you know, is a two ER? guy? I mean, that's an elite MLB pitcher. Is he mid-threes? Is he low-fours? I don't know. It's going to be interesting to see where he lands over a full season. Yeah, he only started eight games or he only started seven games. And one, two, four of those seven came against the pirates and the Reds who didn't know they didn't know they had a bat in their hands. So, yeah, but that's why I'm interested to see.

Like, I hope it doesn't fall apart. Maybe he's a three-two ERA. He was a three-five. still very good. But yeah, his stuff doesn't say like he'd be, like it doesn't get a lot of swing and misses. He doesn't have a put-away pitch. He doesn't have any pitch that sits in the 90s.

He got the funk, baby. Yeah. But I'm interested in that. What about Old Man Wayno? You like the rest of the rotation? How do you compare this rotation to the brewers who have Woodruff, Burns, and Lynn Blom?

Lindblom. Lynn Blum and suppressed a burp there. Oh. And Hauser. Houser. I wish he could have suppressed some puke. You like the debt. You like Jack Flaherty at the top.

You know, I'm not going to bet against that guy. I mean, the Brewers dudes are, you know, Woodruff's pitched in some big games. Burns, I think has the higher potential than Woodruff. But Jack Flaherty, I mean, as a mama, there goes that man again. Like on his best day, how good is your good? not many people can touch Jack Flaherty. Then I would say if we were combining rotations,

I would have Burns and Woodruff, and then I think Waino's still there just to fight, and then Kim probably for me. You like the depth of the Cardinals a little better. You know, some of the guys at the end of the Brewers' rotation are question marks. Miles McElice has a really good MLB season under his belt. Like if he's doing that from the five slot,

this team's dangerous and then Carlos Martinez. Hey, you guys are totally forgetting about Carlos Martinez. Yeah, talk about him, Trev. This guy could end up being the number two there. Like last year, tough year, who cares? 2020 was a weird year. I mean, for the one, two, three, four, five, six seasons before that, he was in the threes, a low three.

Yeah. This guy's a dude. Yeah. You can't forget about him. I love this rotation. I like, I mean, this is Jake's favorite word. They got a regular season rotation because there's depth there. They can get through all these games.

Then when they need to break it down into three starters, I think they can do that as well. Like, they have some guys that can go get it. So I like their rotation better than anybody else is an essential. It's kind of why I think they're the team. Yes, Aeronado help that out as well. But if these guys come together and they got Yachty to, to do that whole thing that he does. Jack takes that step, that huge leadership step.

I just, the potential here is outstanding. Yeah. Carlos Martinez's pitch mix chart is he found success in 2015, right? That's when he really started taking off. And he brought his four-seam fastball down a ton from before that. Then his pitch-mixed chart is kind of funny. He started throwing a slider in 2017. but last year the fastball came up

highest that it's ever been in the last like five years I'm guessing that's short season rest related and all that he became a fastball slider pitcher when back then he was he was throwing two different versions of a fastball and a curveball every now and then and the curveball is just completely scrapped as one of the funkier pitch mix charts I've seen in a while

it looks like he's always creating yeah he was in the bullpen I don't know what I think of. When I think about him, I think of like, I don't know what he throws. His ball kind of moves all over the place. And when you got a guy, he throws as hard as he does and can move the ball like that. And that's why he's been able to have the career that he's had. Yeah, it looks like his breaking ball was a curveball. And then on paper, baseball savant, just changed it to a slider. So we might have just changed the shape of the break because the curveball goes away and the slider comes in 17. So I don't really have any insight here. It's interesting.

No, I think he's the one that we'd say, hey, Cardinals fans, you guys know your team better than us. What's going on? Because, you know, he was their closer for 2019. And then last year in five starts, he just got rocked. So he's definitely got to be a spring training story down then because you're right, Trev. I mean, if he goes back to 2017, 2018, 26, like that, he could be your two in the playoffs and you could feel good about it. So they, and I think that's, we talked about this with Kim, Wayno, we're going to trust, because he's Wayno. Even Michael is like, if these guys have a good year, they're a guy you can trust in a

playoff game, which how many teams can you say that about five guys? Hmm. Probably five teams maybe. Three, maybe less. Threve. What's their order going to be? What's like the, how are they going to arrange the middle of that order? I think they want. The pitchers or the lineup? Line up. They want Carlson to be good. He's a big prospect. He's 22. He's 22. He's a He's a switch hitter where, you know, if you can get that switch hitter mixed in, that can split guys up. Tommy Edmund, he's done some things. I think this team's going to miss Wong a lot.

I think the analytics community right now is undervaluing. Like, a guy that can win a gold glove and get on base at a 350 clip, you know, he's been at the top of that lineup. Hopefully Tommy Edmund can fill that. No, I mean, you wish there was one more bet to. pair with Goldie and Aronado, so you could say, well, look at these three. What I was wondering is Aronado and Goldie are going to be back to back, right? Either, I don't know.

I don't know the Cardinals, do they do, do they put their best at two or two or they keep a three? Like, is it going to be two three, three, four? I feel like the NL, a lot of the NL teams still do three, four. Still do three, four? Okay. Yeah. Those guys mash fastballs. That's a tough two-up bats when you can't, you cannot make a mistake with a fastball.

Aronado slugged 509 on fastballs last year. He slugged 652 on fastballs in 2019, around 600 and 18, 662 and 17. And Goldie's the same thing. Slug 611 last year on fastballs, 493, 585, 670 on fastballs in 2017. Like pitchers facing those two guys back to back, your breaking stuff better be reliable enough that you can get a swing and miss or put it in the zone.

because if you just got to resort to a fastball at bat, you're having a rather unfun time. Bad times. Twice over. Bad times. Get on base ahead. Hey, if you're St. Louis Cardinal listening to this, you can get on base.

You're going to find yourself towards the top of the lineup. I think that we haven't really touched on it, but this bullpen can be elite. They have really, they have guys with top end type stuff. Jordan Hicks missed last year. He's back. We all know what he can do 100. and three-mile-hour bowling balls up there.

Ryan Helsley is a guy that I talked to Yelly about. He says he's, he had a homer off him in this about that I talked to him about, but he said, this is a guy who can be, you know, a back-end, back-end type of reliever than Alex Reyes last year was there kind of closer.

So they have guys with stuff, they have the rotation, they have the lineup. I mean, this is just a really good team. Yeah, man. No, that bullpen,

that bullpen's gross. Not a lot of the biggest names known around the league, but Gallegos was actually the guy they got for Luke Voight when that trade was looking tragic. Gallegos actually went on a monster streak of his own. I mean, I'm a big Genesis Cabrera guy, and right now he could start the year in AAA. So they've got pitching depth. That's what helps them win. And there's, you know, they're just good all around.

It's, man, Tyler O'Neill, Dylan Carlson, what's the other? Lane Thomas? Like, step up, and you're going to be a step up. You're going to be a part. You're going to be a big part of a contending team. And then you know, like we just talked about Martinez. If he doesn't work out in the rotation, he's already proven that he can do it in the pen.

That's another weapon in the pen. I mean, I love that they have guys like that that are able and willing to have different roles. Not everyone has that. Like that. It would be interesting to see. Looks like Carlos Martinez just got rocked in spring training. Oh, boy.

He did. His first start was bad. Oh, no. Against the Astros. Oh, no. First start, though. Wasn't Jacks a rough first start, too? It was.

I watched it. He looked really good, but I texted him afterwards. He goes, I was horrible. But the guys were just absolutely just swinging through his fastball. He couldn't low-kid and off-speed pitch.

I mean, that's exactly what you would expect. Spring training. A first spring training start. Okay. Sealing, first in the division. How bad can this team get? And if they get, is there a chance they get bad enough to sell? I don't think they will.

No. Yeah. Not the way this division's built. Yes. I agree. Yeah. Okay. I agree with that.

Do we have a- Is Paul the young underrated, overrated, not rated? Not rated. According to Jack, he's very underrated. I mean, he's a shortstop who you can almost pencil in for like 20 plus dingers. Like, there's a world when that didn't exist. I kind of don't know. Okay.

Solid defense. We love this team. Love this team. Great uniforms, too. We don't talk about that enough. When you focus on... When you really focus on the logo, it's weird.

Double birds. The double bird. We did this... Oh, you don't like it? We did this when we were re-watching World Series from the 70s on. the Cardinals are in there a lot and I started really honing in

on the fact that the bird on the left and the sea and cardinals looks like that bird caught a snake and is carrying it in its feet and then the bird on the right being so separated

in my head it seems like both the birds should be on the same side I just got a lot of questions about the bird placement on the jersey after really spending... I spent too much time looking at it. I got lost in it. I think you That quarantine brain going on.

Well, the sea still looks like a snake that the bird is caught or a worm that the bird has caught to me. Yeah. The sea's too loosey-goosey. I've got the two birds like holding the bat together. They're holding it up. They're not sitting on it? Well, how do birds stand and how do they sit? You know what I'm saying?

Well, I don't have them holding it up. Like birds can fly so they hold things with their feet. But not the full baseball bat. But they're strong birds. They can do that. that. I don't think that's what they're doing here. I think they're sitting on this back. Well, they flew. Now they're drifting down for the picture. Oh. Yeah. That's an excellent logo. I don't, I don't, I don't know. Bird photography. The seas. I don't like the way the birds are looking at me, I guess.

They're looking at each other. If you spend too much time looking at the birds, you'll get lost in some weird thoughts. They're not looking at each other, Jim. They're looking right at you. I don't know. They're like side eyeing you. Like, they're like, hey, you want some of this? Yeah. I don't know, man. The C weirds me out. It feels like it's a different font than the rest of it and doesn't match it all. They're very crisp.

I like the whiteness. Would you like the C if it went all the way under? Like, if it was an underline? No, I think it needs to stop at the end of the A. The fact it has that weird shaped tail underneath the R, I don't know what that's all about. Ooh, no, I like that, Jen. Okay. Just spend a lot of time looking at the uniform.

you'll think some things. Max is fun stat. The Cardinals were the only team to have multiple players in the top 10 in sprint speed last season. Outfielders Tyler O'Neill and Harrison Bader. I didn't know T.O. could run like that. It's fast. Okay.

Harry Bader, man. Talking baseball knows my love for defensive center fielder's and holy crap can he get it. 86 and a half wins. What was the Brewers line? It's like 82 and a half. 3, 2.5. So, yeah, over.

I don't know. See, I'm starting to get nervous because I think I picked the Cubs over. I think I pick the Brewers over. And now that's starting to get into a dangerous, dangerous NL Central territory. I don't remember anything that I picked. I don't remember anything I say on these. Every time it gets released and someone tweets me about it, I'm like, oh, my God, what did I say about the Cubs? I don't remember a single thing I said.

Then I'm like, they don't know the Cubs at all. I'm like, fuck, we open up every show telling you guys that. I'm taking the over. I think they're going to win a division. I think it's going to take more than 86 victories. I don't know. They just pitch. The Cubs can't pitch.

They hit. This team has the potential to win 90-plus games. Is that going to happen? I don't know. But I do think they win the division. Like I said, I think it's just going to take more than 86 wins. I'm out on the Reds. Sure, over.

I also might have taken all overs on the NL Central so that's besides the pirates I think or maybe I did take the over on the pirates I think I have all overs I think you went under on the Cubs what did I do? I believe you were under on the Cubs as well Jake was over I think they're over under because you're like they're going to sell everybody I was like you're probably right

all right cool I'm over on the Cardinals then I'm under I'm under. But it'll be tight. How about this? I'm going straight up mess. Brewers, Cubs, Cardinals. Everyone is 83 to 85 wins 10 in the year.

Got some really good uniforms in the NL Central, huh? Pirates, excellent. Cubs, excellent. Brew crew. Cardinals. I love the Brewers. Wow. Reds.

Horrible. Tough episode for the Reds. That's kind of a known thing, right? Is there any Reds uniform defenders out there? The old logo with the baseball, like, that's kind of fun. Yeah. I don't think they use that anymore. So.

Like, the away uniforms for the reds are nothing special. Yeah, I guess I kind of like the old, like, Pete Rose one you picture. But no, none of these are good. Yeah, pretty bad. Yeah, that's, I didn't know that. But yeah. You know what? They're regular gray with Cincinnati across the chest.

I mean, it's not bad, but it's not good. You don't need your away jersey to be flashy. Yeah. Like, I very much like that as an away jersey. All right. Okay. That's the episode. We're done.

Trev, I forget, do you have Jack winning the Sy Young this year? Baltimore. Yes. Okay. Done. Tie with Max Free. Tie. Out.