Gateway to Baseball Heaven: A St. Louis Cardinals Podcast

GTBH 3/17/24: The Blarney Stone

Every week, two of the Best Fans in Baseball (TM) bring you all the news and information you need about the St. Louis Cardinals. It's St. Patrick's Day and the Cardinals could use a little luck of the Irish to keep everyone in one piece. Keynan Middleton went down this week, a troubling injury in an area where the Cards actually have some depth. Oli Marmol found a pot of gold mid-week as the Cardinals extended him for two years. Is this really a big deal and does it change much of anything? And do spring training stats start counting now that there are just 10 days left? Daniel (@C70) and David (@iPopEditor) are wearing the green and talking the red!

Duration:: 35m
Broadcast on:: 17 Mar 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Good evening and welcome into another edition of Gateway to baseball heaven. I'm your host Daniel shop at C70. I've got David Jones as always over there. I pop editor and David was kind enough this week to send a message to me in the middle of the week about Wednesday or so and say, "Hey, man, "it's been a quiet week. "I don't know what we're gonna talk about." And then everything went to pot, depending on your point of view. So David, thanks for that. - Yeah, you know, I think that you kind of cause some of this too because you do some writing and every time you put out your expectations for the Cardinals roster, they go and sign somebody or trade for somebody. So I'm just doing my part to mess things up like you do with your writing and just if we can cause board chaos. - That's right. Unfortunately, I wrote yesterday and they did not do anything today. So I don't know. - It's not over yet. - I mean, that's true. They're probably just waiting for the show to get out. 'Cause that is the other thing, right? We do the show and we say something and they're like Monday, something else happens. So that's pro. Whatever we come down hard on today will be changed tomorrow, but whatever the club does, most likely. And what the club did this week most proactively, I kind of came out of the blue, I think, for most people. The Cardinals signed Ollie Marmal to a two-year extension, which meant that a very large section of online fan base checked their torches to make sure they had enough oil and that the pitchforks were sharpened and then took to the streets. It's weird. It's a little bit strange. But what are you thinking about Ollie being in another two years? - Well, I had two things that really confused me this weekend. One is why do teenage guys keep getting perms and shaving around their ears on their hair? It looks really weird. I saw that all over the place. Why are we bringing the mullets back for teenagers? So that was one thought. That has nothing to do with baseball, but it's on my mind. So that was one thought I had this weekend. I can't figure that out. The other thing I can't figure out is why people are losing their minds over this issue. Is it because we just don't have actual baseball to complain about? But I don't think this is a big deal. To me, it is just, I saw it and I went, "Okay, it's a little surprising. The timing of this is especially, but not a big deal." And part of that for me is for one thing of all the major sports, I think we overrate the impact that a manager has on a team. Now, his job is important, sure. But as far as wins and losses go, people have tried to quantify it and it's probably not as much as you think. The other reason is I don't think you want your manager to have to manage as though someone's looking over his shoulder 24/7. You don't want to manage from a place of fear. Now, some people may say, "Well, that's how he should be." He should be scared every single game he goes into think he could lose his job. You know what? No. Nobody works better when they're managing or working out of fear. If your boss came and looked over your shoulder the whole time you were doing your job, you're probably not going to do as good of a job. So I understand giving him a little room because they have a really brutal schedule coming up to start the season and you don't want this guy having to manage out of fear. So you give him a little bit of a cushion. Now, this doesn't mean he's going to be around for the next two or three years. If the Cardinals finish 20 games under 500 this year, he's gone. It just means there's going to be a little more of a payout on there and for where things are going. But to me, I just don't feel like this is that big of a deal for people to get all upset about. The Cardinals did not just trade Jordan Walker for a middle reliever. We're talking about the manager getting some years at it to his contract and it doesn't guarantee he's going to be around next year. It doesn't guarantee he's going to be here in August. So for me, just not that big of a deal. But maybe I'm not looking at it from the right angle. Have you gotten your pitch forks out yet? Are you getting on Twitter and cussing up a storm because you're so upset over this? You know me. You know how I do. And just to be fair, I want people to know that if Jordan Walker gets treated tomorrow for middle reliever, this is all on David. But I don't, I don't, I get, I get the frustration and I get the upset because we as fans have been talking about accountability for this organization for a long time, right? I mean, this probably goes back to maybe even the Methini era when Methini kept, you know, he kept going to the playoffs. But then when he stopped and he wasn't any good as a manager, he was still getting to stick around. And it was really only into when he completely lost the clubhouse and, you know, Bud Norris is going after Jordan Hicks and stuff like that that they finally made a move. So I think that there's this idea of nothing matters. That plays a little bit into this. That, hey, you know, we, again, we've talked about it right this winter. We thought the Cardinals would be aggressive and they kind of were. But more than anything, they felt like that was an aberration. It's not going to happen again instead of maybe doing a soul searching. So I can understand that people are upset because it doesn't look good. It looks and has the optics are terrible if you want to put it that way. But overall, yeah, I agree. I mean, I'd think that, first of all, he said all the right things this winter about, you know, he needs the, he likes the pressure. He's managed with the pressure and he still has that pressure, right? He's even admitted. You know, this is not going to win over Cardinal fans and the fan base expects to win and this city expects to win and he, you know, that that's still there. But it is. I think more than anything, the timing is surprising to me. I just don't know why they didn't, you know, you know, this is an organization that signed Mike Methini to the extension right after the Cubs win the World Series. They know about terrible timing. But I'm just surprised they didn't do that like after the season last year or after they signed the pitchers in November and give him that security that they expect. They obviously thought he was going to need, but this winter, they've kind of talked about hey, he needs to win and hey, you know, nothing's guaranteed and we like him. But you know, there's all this if it ends and, you know, trying to kind of keep that pressure on. And then they just kind of reversed course because Sunny Gray isn't going to start the season and Lars new bar isn't going to start the season. And they're afraid that Ali might come back into St. Louis, you know, two and six. And yeah, I didn't really know might be on a plane by then. So I get the frustration and I get it's a little bit weird. But I don't think it's, you know, like you said, he's not going to be here for the two years or three years or whatever. If things go badly, it's just more money that that build a way to have to shell out for somebody that's not there. Yeah, as far as I know, he's not going to be suiting up and taking the field for the team. Yeah, that would be about the age though. Oh, you're not wrong on that. But you know, MLB contracts are different from other sports. But with managers, that's not necessarily the case. You know, when the Cardinals sign miles Michael is to an extension, it means either he's sticking around all those years, you're paying him for all those years, even if it doesn't play or you're trading him somewhere else. And that's kind of how we think about managers sometimes. If you sign a guy to it, basically a three year deal, he's going to stick around all three years, but no, for managers, it's a little bit more like the NFL contracts. You may sign a guy to a three year contract, but he may only be around one year because you can release them essentially. Now, baseball, you're going to have to pay out that money. But for managers, we're talking, I don't, not much. And it's not going to actually affect the 40 man number. So yes, the timing was a little bit weird on this. I think we were all thinking, okay, is this a Goldschmidt extension? Maybe? Is this a Jordan Walker extension? Could it be Ryan Hellsley? And I was very certain it was Paul Goldschmidt. And part of that goes back to the conversation that you had with Katie Wu on your other podcast where she said she would be shocked if that didn't happen. So I thought, okay, this is definitely where this is going. And I'm already starting to play around with numbers about what that should look like. You know, are they going to give him maybe a signing bonus this year that bumps up his pay because they have a little extra money and it would actually decrease it next year. I was already in that mode. So when I heard that it was Paul and I thought, really? Like, are we really doing this? But there was no great time to do with this off season because you're either doing it right after you're coming off one of your worst seasons in a very long time or you're doing it. You're almost trying to hide it behind the signing of some pitchers or you're doing it now. And so some would say if there's no good time to do it, you probably shouldn't do it. And I get that. But again, it's just not that big of a deal. And if this maybe gives him a little cushion and how he manages and helps him manage better, okay, I'm for it. But this is no guarantee that he is around next year. But if he manages his lights out and this team is great, which I'm not banking on, but if this team is great, then hey, you've got this guy locked up for a while. Yeah, I mean, I was just a little bit surprised. And again, again, there's, there's as much internal politics about this kind of move than it is about, you know, signing and security and stuff like that. I was a little bit surprised. I didn't just do one more year, which could even, you know, guarantee him through this year and 2025 with the idea that if he had a good, this, if this season was successful, they'd probably add a couple of years to that, you know, going into it. Because I don't think, I don't think Ollie Marmal is going to get to that point, especially not after your like last year without a lot of years. A lot more experience going to be that kind of Craig Council hits the free agent market type of guy, right? Yeah, everybody wants him and people ever try to hire him away and stuff like that. I don't think that's, you know, he might get to that. I'm not saying he won't. I'm just saying I don't think he's there yet and I don't think he'd be there after a couple years. I think they could have added on this coming winter with, you know, not a whole lot of bump necessary. I mean, if he won the World Series, well, heck, if he wins the World Series, I'll probably give him an extension anyway, right? I mean, it's not going to really matter. So I think it was just a little bit surprising that they decided to commit that much to him. Like I said, the details are a little bit weird. I mean, I mean, it's not going to be a little bit surprising for the years, but the idea is not. And again, I think, you know, we've talked about it quite often. I feel like on various platforms or whatever that, you know, we focus a lot about the fact that they lost 91 games last year, but the 193 the year before, right? I mean, he is like, I've been already pointed out on, on, on mutual this week, when he was on with me, you know, Ollie still has a net positive career last year. So I think there's potential in Marmal. I think that the club thinks that there is and he's a guy that could be around for some time. So, you know, again, doing it is, it's not a big deal. Like you said, but it's just a little bit strange, except for them to go at it this way. You know, maybe that kind of brings up something, though, we were talking about in a, in a discord that, you know, when they have this conference and I'm generally like, says something to the point of, you know, after a year, like last year, people probably wanted both of us gone. You know, him and Ollie and, and Bill DeWitt pops up and says, you know, or something about, we all three had a bad year or something like that. Somebody asked, you know, what does a bad year for Paula? What's a bad year for Bill DeWitt? I feel like that means that there's some money that Mo asked for this past winter in, not in 20, 20, 20, not 23, 24, but 22, 23, but he didn't authorize and maybe kind of wishes he had. It's very possible. You know, I mentioned it last week that the Cardinals can't afford a snow or Montgomery right now, but you wonder, do they have that extra 10 or $20 million left that you pair that with what you paid either Gibson or Linda? You could pick him up and maybe that's the case. I don't know the fact that those two guys still have not signed, which I'll just go ahead and admit that I'm wrong again on that. But that does say something. So maybe that's even a possibility. But yeah, it's, it's nice for the owner to take ownership of what's gone wrong and to take responsibility. But you hope that there's actually some action behind that. And I think a lot of fans would argue that they haven't taken enough action this year with the on the field play with what's going to happen to actually make a big enough difference. And we're hoping for more. I don't want to say you just hope that they're better because just being better this year doesn't get you in the playoffs, but you hope this team has taken a significant jump forward that they actually can be back in the playoffs, which is, it's, it's sad that that's kind of the bar to get to now. But yeah, I would be, I don't want to say I'm happy just getting in the playoffs, but if they get in the playoffs, I would be happy. Even if they're a wildcard team at this point. I'm getting to the playoffs has taken a few beatings. This went to the spring. We talked last week about the uncertainty around Tommy Edmond, which just continues to grow. We talked about large new bar and his crack ribs, although that seems to be doing well. I mean, again, he's going to miss the beginning of the season, but it does sound like maybe, maybe mid April is a reasonable possibility for him. And we've talked about Sonny Gray, whose hamstring is not good enough that he's going to be opening day starter because now that's Miles Mike list. But isn't necessarily as bad that he's going to be on the injured list. So I think that's a little interesting dynamic, right? Yeah. I think with Gray, we're talking at the most he misses two starts. He might miss one. And if you actually just kind of look at them shuffling the rotation, he might not miss anything. So that's been, that's been a plus, especially when you hear about like what's going on with Garrett Cole, where he may be shut down for weeks, possibly months. Gileto being out for the season. We will take Sonny Gray's injury with it being very insignificant, at least to what it seems. So that has been a bright spot. The newt stuff seems to be getting maybe a little bit better. And so that could actually solve some problems and some of the discussion about the outfield. But it definitely seems like Tommy Edmond, just when you continually get shut down and can't do anything. I'm not sure we see him. I think we see him before the all-star break. But if you told me right now that we wouldn't, I wouldn't be shocked. Yeah, I'm kind of that way too, right? I mean, even, even going into spring, just the way things were and just the way that injuries happened with the Cardinals. I honestly didn't necessarily expect him to make the opening door roster and was kind of starting to think about many anyway. The more and more that this happens, you're right. It's really starting to feel like June, maybe July. And that gives opportunities to people. And we saw that we've seen that a little bit today. You know, Dylan Carlson has a game tying double and then he breaks the tie with a home run. He actually leads the team in home runs this spring, with two, which is probably not great, but it's something. You know, we talked, we've talked about it. This gives him that runway. If the club is willing to let him take it and willing to let him write it out a little bit. Yeah, and I've tried to watch as many of us at bats as I could this year. Early on, I felt like in spring, he was hitting the ball hard and hitting it well, but hitting it right at guys, which can be very frustrating for a player who's trying to come out and prove himself. But I felt like he was doing really well. And then it just seemed like something changed. And he was getting fooled with pitches, striking out, not looking good. And now it looks like he's gotten back to where he's on the ball again, driving the ball with home runs. He had a double today. There's something about his swing that just looks different. He's changed it up just a little bit in the way he's driving it. And so he's got a great chance of going out there and playing. I don't think the question is if Carlson should be starting the beginning of the year. And I know some people have talked about how Scott should be in there instead. My issue comes down to is the defense going to be good enough with possibly having Burleson and Walker both out there. And we've talked about that many times. I think you could see possibly Carlson and Victor Scott. If they go with Scott, I don't think they will, but if they do. But I think Carlson has shown enough right now that I have no issue with him starting opening day in center field or possibly left field if that's where he is. But he is starting to show some things. And you just hope he can carry it through. I know he's had some springs in the past where he's hit the ball really well in the season started and he looked terrible. But you just hope that finally something's clicking and he can carry this through. And maybe all the work you put in the off season starts paying off. Hopefully so. And I don't know. I didn't notice this week. I can't remember if I read about it or what. But they were going to try Brendan Donovan in the outfield, which is, again, not necessarily ideal, but he's played out there. And there's like odds on chance. He's better at it than Alec Berlson is, right? Even though Berlson made a nice catch today. You still don't want him and Walker on, you know, the corners and Walker's not going anywhere, right? So, I mean, that's an option as well as they try to juggle around. I know we've heard a lot of talk from, especially from media types about how the club doesn't want to, you know, risk their defense again, which does tend to lean towards Scott. But I still feel like, again, you're hopeful that, you know, by, you know, probably not by the home opener, but soon after, you know, that second West Coast trip, maybe you've got large new car back. And that will, that'll fix a lot of defensive issues in the off field. Yeah, absolutely. Although right now it is tough to keep Alec Berlson off the field because he is hitting the ball really well. His strikeout rate is so low right now. He just doesn't strike out. And when he was coming up through the minors, that was kind of the big thing with him. The guy is a contact hitter. He has a great hit tool. You were just waiting for the power to develop. And it did develop in the minors, but we quite haven't seen it in the majors. But his bat seems good enough to be in the lineup every day. The problem is he just doesn't have the defense. And then the other problem is you also have a guy like Nolan Goldman, who probably needs to be the DH. So yeah, I'm not sure exactly how they're going to do that with those guys. It doesn't help. They also hit from the same side of the plate. But yeah, Brendan Donovan is an interesting person to put out there at, because I don't think the arm is completely, I don't think he's fully healed right now. But we've seen the Cardinals do weird stuff before. They've put guys in the outfield that couldn't even throw the ball and had to basically lateral it to another outfielder to get thrown back on the infield. So who knows? Who knows what they might try? You know, whose bat has shown up this spring though. That's Matt Carpenter's, which is not something I expected to ever say. You just hear right, but you know, he's sitting three, 16 this spring. He's got three doubles. He's got a home run. Great catch to the other day. And I don't say that sarcastically. No, it was really good catch. It was a catch that you probably shouldn't be making a spring training game, but you can make when you know you're only going to be sitting on the bench most of this season anyway. Nine strikeouts a little high for him and the walk rate's not where you expected, but you know, it's, it's nice to know that there's a little bit of something still left in there. Now, whether that'll translate to when you actually, you know, get into the games, especially since, you know, as a lady, you know, he's a guy that's going to be pitch hitting and stuff. He's going to face some significant relievers and things of that nature instead of, you know, maybe triple A guys, but you know, he's, he started a few games. He's, he's held his own. So I don't think we're going to see like, you know, carpenter of 2018, but, you know, if we see something that approaches passable, that's probably better than we thought when he gets on. Yeah, I mean, if that 435 on base percentage sticks, I think he's going to do just fine. But I don't expect it to, but I was thinking today, you know, we talked about a couple of weeks ago. It's been several weeks. It was right after he assigned it. The team almost kind of made it sound like he was going to have to earn his way onto the roster and play his way on. And I think we both agreed, no, he's on the roster no matter what you and Katie talked about that as well. He was making the roster even if he came out and hit 115. But he has shown enough that even if he was a guy having to make it, I think he would have made it. And so that is good to see. It doesn't feel like the Cardinals are just bringing him on just for leadership, even though I'm sure that's a big part of it. He actually has played his self onto where he needs to be. So that's good to see. I don't know how long it'll last, how long his body will hold up. But hey, if he can do something of this level for the first several weeks, we'll take it, especially with the injuries that this team starting the season with. Yeah, and another injury that did pop up later this week is Kenyon Middleton, who, you know, again, Mo goes out and he acquires his bullpen in various ways. And then he makes one major league signing, and that's the guy who gets hurt. So it's forearm strain, which is not great, right? I mean, I think that's the idea. It's not another hamstrings. It's obviously not elbow or anything like that. And they say, oh, we caught it in time. It's a good thing we caught it now. We'll shut him down and hit me. It's just forearm strain feels like one of those things that rest helps for a while, and then it doesn't. And I get a little bit concerned that this is going to be, if not a long term problem, at least a recurring one. Yeah, when I saw that they were shutting him down for throwing for at least 10 days, that didn't sound good to me. Because if a guy can't throw for 10 days, that's not just 10 day IL. That is something much longer than that. And so I know they're talking about him not being available the first couple weeks of the season. This is one of those injuries where like you just have to sit back and wait and hope it heals. And maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't. And maybe it seems like it does. And he throws again, and there's pain or soreness or something there. It's not good. I don't think it's like a missed first half of the season type, but I think it is one of those where you have no idea when he's going to be back at this point. Yeah, the optimism about catching it early was kind of, I don't want to say laughable because I don't want to laugh at a guy's injury, but yeah, that's great, but he still may be out a month, maybe two months. And I fear that it's one of those things that we could see him with a 4.6 ERA in September and kind of here at the end of the year that he never felt 100% never got on track. And then we're talking about next year about hopefully he's back to 100%. The Cardinals finally can see what he does, but I wouldn't bank on a whole lot from him, at least the first half of the season. One positive is that this is an area of depth for the Cardinals. Now, they don't have a lot of guys that have his level of potential, but they do have a good bullpen that I think can make up for this. Yeah, that is, of course, it's the Cardinals wanted to extend that club option that they have on Middleton, if he gets hurt, that may be an interesting thing. But yeah, I think you're right. I mean, a guy like Nick Robertson has had a fairly decent spring from what I, I mean, I don't remember hearing his name much, but I think the times I've looked up. You know, he's pitched in seven innings. He's got 386 ERA's eight strikeouts in those 70s. He's not necessarily letting the world up. I heard he's doing enough that it's a little bit, you know, reasonable for him to go north and I don't think there was a spot for him, but that opens up a possibility for him right there. You know, same with some of the other guys that, you know, maybe, you know, and then it's like, okay, we still don't know. We haven't heard anything more about this idea of opening with six starters. If they don't, does that Thompson go to the bullpen? Does he go to Memphis to be the long starter? What are they doing with Matthew Lebittor? I think that there's a lot of different permutations of what the bullpen can do when you take a guy like Middleton out that had a guaranteed spot. Yeah, this is going to allow them to be a little bit more creative and what they do, and especially because of how the season starts, they're going to have to be. And so I am curious to see what happens. You know, we thought a guy like Palante was probably going to make the team. But there was that little bit of if he is because of some options still being available. I think he's shown himself capable. And so because of the way he's pitched in spring, it makes you feel a little bit better about the Middleton injury. I do wonder about like John King, because if the Cardinals really are taking their best players to St. Louis, or I guess, in this case to LA, King does not make this roster. And if King does not make this roster, it does open the door for Lebittor, possibly a Zach Thompson, maybe both of them, because you are going to need that lefty in there in addition to Romero, who also has not been at his best. So there are some potential people there that could possibly step in. I'm curious about Ryan Fernandez a little bit. He has not been great lately. But as we know, he kind of has to stick on the roster because of the whole rule five thing. And I think because of Middleton's injury, there's a much more likely chance that he does, even though I don't think he's shown enough at this point. He could actually be a liability in the bullpen, but I think there's probably a good chance that he does make the bullpen because of that injury. How much do you say that about John King? And I don't disagree with you, but I just wanted to pull it up and look. You know, the last two outings, he's thrown two scoreless innings. How much do you factor in how these guys finish spring? You know, like you said with Ryan Fernandez, you know, he had started off pretty well. Maybe he's struggling. You know, maybe King struggle, especially when you're talking about such small small innings, small sample sizes. Do you think that the club should or could look at, you know, what they've done in the last 10 days, two weeks of spring versus what they've done the whole whole spring. Yeah, potentially. And I think a lot of that has to do with some more internal information that we will never know about. We don't know if King was trying out a new pitch or a new grip or where he was standing on the mound or the rubber, you know, there could be stuff like that in his early starts that he just trying some things out wasn't quite comfortable. And now he's kind of locked in. I always try to look at two like, were they giving up hits in those outings, were they striking guys out, you know, what happened. And you're right, his last two outings, March 13th, one inning, he gave up one hit, but he got through the inning and only seven pitches. And then he pitched March 15th, one inning, I believe it was a perfect inning, only through 10 pitches in that inning. He seems to be throwing a lot more strikes. And so if he can finish strong and because he's only pitching an inning here and there, he should probably throw at least, I would guess two or three more innings before things are over. Then maybe yeah, then maybe things look good. The Cardinals know, okay, he's locked in. He's kind of figured out some things. But if he starts getting shelled, then yeah, that's, you kind of start got a, you got to think, okay, maybe this guy needs to start Memphis figures some things out. So, I think he's one of the guys that's probably on the hot seat for the next couple outings. I say that, but I don't know because he's with the team last year, maybe they just go, they're going to take him no matter what I don't know. Do you do you think he's a given to be on the roster to start the year or do you think he's actually fighting for his spot. I don't think there's necessarily any particular given, yes, he did play for the team last year and he did pitch pretty well. But, you know, again, they went out and got a lot of different arms in a lot of different ways. And if he's one of those arms, you know, he's a guy that's probably going to go up and down no matter because I believe he still has options. So, no, one left. Yeah, so this is the year you could do it. I, again, he could start the year. I read the last few times I've written a roster projection. I haven't included him, but I think, you know, it's easily possible that he could beat somebody else out for that. But I do think they're going to be kind of churning those last couple spots pretty regularly anyway. Yeah, I don't know, I also don't know a guy like Matthew Lebertor is watching the game today and gives up three runs in the first and doesn't finish it, but then, because of its frame training gets to come back out and he pitches what two or three more innings and looks all right, you know, you sent me a message earlier that the race, if you as it were between Thompson and Lebertor has effectively been decided. But, you know, again, if they want Thompson to be a starter, he may wind up in Memphis fall and Lebertor goes north because they're going to use him as a reliever. Yeah, very true. Thompson has been a superior pitcher this spring by far, but because of usage, that may be different, or maybe Thompson's with the team for the first two weeks and then he's back down to Memphis. Let's hope that the team doesn't send mixed signals again this year where starter reliever starter reliever. That was such a mess last year where he looked really good out of the bullpen. It was like, okay, we're going to send him down to Memphis and we're going to stretch him out so he can be a starter next year, and we're all like, wait, what's going on here? Like, are they already giving up? So hopefully they do have a designated role for him. But at this point, it doesn't really seem like they do yet. At least we haven't been told that. The lefties in the bullpen is really where I'm curious because we talked about King. Romero's numbers overall don't look good, but he's very similar to King. His last two outings, one inning pitched, no runs, but then you go to the start before the game before that, one inning pitched, five hits, four runs, hit a batter. The game before that, one inning pitched, one hit, no runs. So he has had his struggles, but he's also had his really great games. It's kind of like Libertor. Some innings, he looks great. Some innings, he looks terrible. So, yeah, I'm very curious how they're going to deal with lefties in the pen, especially because I don't think Thompson will be in the pen to start the year. So that could kind of be an issue. And then at the same time, you wonder, do they use Palante with his reverse splits in some of those places if they can't trust one of those guys. Yeah, I think there's a good chance that they do that. They seem to be very just the usage of Palante over the last couple of years makes me feel like he's got an inside track. And I think Romero does too. I mean, we talked about, you know, King, but Romero had a little bit stronger into the season last year. And he has that strikeout capability that the Cardinals have been looking for. So I think I'm not saying that he's guaranteed a spot, but he's got a farmer hold on one, I think, then, then King does. But again, you know, a guy with options, a guy that can be rotated. And if he struggles in the first couple of weeks, especially, you know, with Middleton out and things of that nature that they were some of those roles. You know, it was that he might have been the, he might have been the sixth inning guy. Now he's the seventh inning guy. That kind of thing. If that doesn't work, there's a good chance that he's, you know, back down to Memphis anyway. Yeah, it's going to be. We really came into this to the spring. Not having too many competitions, but this has been one that we knew was going to happen. And I think it is going to come down really to the last week. And I think even after all the spring games are over, we're going to be debating what the bullpen is going to look like and what the Cardinals may end up doing, maybe completely different from what we expect. It's hard to believe that what it is about here, right? We've got this one full week of spring training. By the time we talk next week, we'll have that two game set with the Cubs in Arizona. So they'll be done in Florida by the time we talk again. And then opening day. In fact, we've got, we've got actual baseball games this week with the Dodgers and Padres have just half the world away. But, you know, if you want to get up at six o'clock and watch some baseball, then you can. Yeah, I did that during the lockdown when the KBO was playing. That was always fun to wake up in the morning before work and actually watch a couple innings. But I don't think I'm going to quite do that with these teams. I mean, if it is where I'm up anyway and waiting on my daughter to get ready for school, I might put it on for a few minutes, but yeah, I'm not going to make an extra effort to go around and actually now I think about it. That's this week and they're all spring break. So that probably isn't going to happen. So anyway, but yeah, it is. We're getting good until that time getting close. And maybe we'll have some interesting, maybe, you know, who knows, maybe, you know, two or three weeks from now we're talking or two weeks from now we're talking about the Cardinals have just swept the Dodgers and they're going to go 162 though. Sounds good to me. I'll take that. And that might be the second biggest miracle to ever happen on an Easter Sunday. Anyway, until next week. Preaching. Anyway, so for David, I'm Daniel. We'll talk to you next week. Night. - Yeah.