Gateway to Baseball Heaven: A St. Louis Cardinals Podcast

GTBH 4/7/24: A Much Better Week

Every week, two of the Best Fans in Baseball (TM) bring you all the news and analysis you need about the St. Louis Cardinals. Even though they lost Sunday's game against the Marlins, there's plenty in the last week that encourages Daniel (@C70) and David (@iPopEditor). Things haven't clicked on all cylinders but people like Sonny Gray and Lars Nootbaar should be returning soon. How does the roster look then? Do the Cardinals have one of those "good problem to have" at catcher? What's up with Nolan Arenado? All this and much more!

Duration:: 31m
Broadcast on:: 07 Apr 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Good evening and welcome into another edition of Gateway to baseball heaven. I'm your host, danishop.atc70. With me, as always, David Jones, @ipopeditor. Thank you on Sunday night after the Cardinals dropped a series finale again. But, David, compared to last week when we were bemoaning the use of John King at the wrong times, this has been a pretty good week. - Yeah, you know, I will take it. It felt like last year, every time we recorded the Cardinals had a terrible week, but then they'd win on Sunday, just to kind of like put, I don't know, a cherry on top of a bunch of junk. But this week, it's kind of been the opposite. Cardinals take two series. They do drop the Sunday series and it wasn't even close, which is kind of sad because it would have been nice to celebrate a win. But when you're coming off a series win in San Diego and then coming off a series win against the Marlins, even though their records are not great, I think you take both of those. And at this point, I think we can be happy the teams at 500. It's kind of funny because if you looked at the other divisions in baseball, the Cardinals would actually probably be like second or third in most of them. But somehow the central is very hot. So the Cardinals are sitting at the bottom of the basement. But I think it's okay for where things are right now. - Yeah, I think what was after yesterday's game, they were still last, but they were a game over 500. So if your whole division is above 500, you're, you know, what are you gonna do? Especially with this division, which everybody is, is this division going to be significantly better than everybody thought? Like is everybody gonna, all these teams that we said, well, they could be good, but probably they got weaknesses. Are they gonna like hit their 100th percentile projections or is this just, hey, it's 10 days? - I think it's more of it's just 10 days. Milwaukee has only played three games on the road. The Cubs have only played three games on the road. Cincinnati has only played three games on the road. The Cardinals have played seven, and the Cardinals had the West Coast series. So a lot of these teams have played at home. They're starting their games at home. They gotta hit those road trips. Now Pittsburgh on the other hand, they're six and one away from Pittsburgh, which is pretty impressive. They just had a series against the Orioles where they should have dropped two games, and they came back and won both of those. But we see this a lot with Pittsburgh. They start out strong, and then they just don't have the depth to keep it going. Once injuries happen, once slumps happen, I think they're better than they have been, but I just don't see it happening. So I'm not freaking out at this point. I was kind of worried that the Cardinals might have like two or three wins at this point, but they've kind of weathered the storm. Yes, three games back in the central, but because of the way things had to start, I'm okay with where they are. I don't love it, but I'm not hating it. I'm not as pessimistic as I was at this point last year when we were just begging for this team to get to 500 at this point. Yeah, and something that they never actually did. Yeah, I think that if you said in spring training that the Cardinals can go five and five against the Dodgers, the Padres, and the Marlins, you're probably taking that, right? I mean, especially with two of those series being out in on the West Coast. And I think everybody expected the Marlins to be better than they were. It's always frustrating when a team loses a significant number to start the year and then they beat your team, right, which is what they did today. But to some degree, that's baseball, right? There's not too many teams that are going to go 0 and 10 or longer. So if they hadn't by now, they were kind of due to break out and they took it out on Kyle Gibson. Yeah. If you take the Tony Looser approach where you try to just win this series, then the Cardinals have accomplished what they have needed to accomplish since leaving LA. And if they end up winning that Sunday night game, which they really should have, the record looks even better right now. And I know that's playing what if, but they were very, very close to being two games over 500 at this point. And that makes things look a lot different. I think now comes the real test because the schedule gets, I guess you could say normal going forward because you and I had actually talked off air, but the Cardinals have had 10 games so far. They have yet to play a game in that six to seven, 15 window at St. Louis time, central standard time, which is really weird. 'Cause that's when you play the overwhelming majority of your games and they have yet to have a game in that time slot. So who knows what this has been like for them having to play a bunch of games out in California, come home, you play day game, you have a day off, then you play another day game, then you play another day game, it's got to mess up schedules. And baseball players are all about routine. So that's why I'm satisfied with five and five. Not complacent with five and five and I'd love to see it be better. But I think that is acceptable out of the gate and now we're gonna see what this team is made of. - Yeah, and it's interesting the way the Cardinals have done this, right? We're talking Sunny Gray should make his debut on Tuesday, but he hasn't pitched for this team yet. The entire outfield has been hurt and none of them have come back although large new bar could return maybe as early as tomorrow. It's not like the Cardinals are necessarily at 100% and doing this either, right? They're getting by with what they've had and we've seen some players kind of blossom a little bit without what's the playing time. But they're not running out their A line up every day and they're not running out every, the rotation they thought they would be. So I mean, again, you're right. To be where they're at with all these other, it sounds like you're making excuses for them, but I don't think that's the truth. I think it's like, look, this team is this way. And then when things start to get normal, when the people start to get back, I'm not saying that they're gonna be a 650 win, a winning percentage type club, but it makes you feel better about the fact that this team should be competitive most of the year. - Yeah, absolutely. And if you're a glass half full or glass half 50 person, that's gonna determine how you see what I'm about to say. But in some ways, this team is lucky to be five and five. The key number here is 22. And what I mean by that is this offense is 22nd and OPS and on base percentage, not good at all. The pitching staff is 22nd and ERA, not good at all. And so when those are your numbers, that's pretty bad. On top of that, they're 20th at average. This team has only hit seven home runs. And that was five before Nolan Gorman hit two today and kind of a meaningless game. But that's 25th in baseball. So this team is really not producing. I think the bullpen has done a pretty good job, but they're not producing offensively. You hope that Newt's return can kind of help that a little bit. The pitching, especially the starting pitching, hasn't quite been what you want, although it's shown some good flashes. The team only has two stolen bases as well. Who would have thought a team with Victor Scott on it would only have two stolen bases, but you have to get on base, the steel bases. And right now, that's just not happening. So I think they may be lucky to be five and five and you can look at that positively and say, well, yeah, thank goodness, 'cause this team's gonna improve or you could be negative with it and say, this team could be a lot worse, they've just gotten lucky, but hey, they're five and five. And as some say, you are what your record says you are. - Yeah, yeah, again, we're looking at, you know, what, less than 10% see. I mean, we're very, very limited sample size here. So it's difficult to say that, you know, this means a whole lot of anything, but it's better than a lot of the different alternatives that we can see. Me and Victor Scott went over three today, hitting 083. Again, a large new bar may come back tomorrow and this was a discussion that Kelsey Bird and I had on Me and Me and Mutual. Well, good discussion that a lot of people have had, so what do you do when new bar comes back? Who is the one that goes to Memphis? Is it, is it Victor Scott or is it Michael Ciani? - I think it comes down to who can play center field. And that's, and what I mean by that, I know that Ciani and Scott can both play center, but do you feel comfortable with Newt playing center? Are his ribs feeling good enough or he can play center? Because if he plays, he's gonna be starting when he's out there. And so if he is comfortable playing center, I think that you probably send Victor Scott down because you're not gonna have Ciani in the everyday lineup. So if Newt is not comfortable playing center, you have to start Ciani pretty much every game. I just don't think you wanna do that. But like you said, Victor Scott, his average is very low right now. If you're not getting on base, you can't steal bases, you can't run the bases. And so that is an issue. And so that's where I think the Cardinals, they're really gonna have to make a decision on who's going to be, I guess, the extended short-term center fielder. And if Newt can do it, because we have not heard an update really on Dylan Carlson in a while, but it doesn't sound like he's coming back tomorrow. It sounds like it could still probably be weeks before he's back. And Tommy Edmond, it's still going to be weeks, possibly months. So yeah, I think it really comes down to where Newt is going to play. Scott, he's showing why guys need time in the minors. He definitely is. He's showing why he needs time at either more time in Springfield or needs time at Memphis, because he looks overmatched right now. And it seems like teams are the way they're pitching him, they're making sure he can't even hit the ball on the ground. They're making him hit it in the air, and he just doesn't have the pop to get it on the park. So he needs that time to develop. I have been fine with his defense out there. And so I think you're okay having that weak link if a guy's playing defense that good, at least temporarily, but if Newt is comfortable with center, I think I'd rather see him at center, but I don't know. It's such a demanding position on a guy's body that I'm not sure if the Cardinals will do that. - You know, I kind of thought along the same lines that you're doing, whereas if you're going to have to have somebody play center all the time, then you'd leave Victor Scott out there and you'd see him see on me down. But you're just kind of looking at things. You start to wonder is that, I mean, Cianni's defense is right up there with Victor Scott. We've seen some really good plays, and that's why Cianni's still on this roster, right? I mean, the reason he made it through the winner on the 40-man and all this is his defense. And so you're not really losing anything defensively, and you're not necessarily losing anything, maybe gaining a little bit offensively. I don't know. I mean, maybe in theory, you could win Cianni out there. If you just think, look, Victor Scott needs this time in Memphis, and I don't know that they are, and I'm just saying that if they think that, they may be starting to hamper his development up here. They may just say, look, we'd rather have two weeks, whatever, of Michael Cianni playing center, and then three years of Victor Scott, and then, you know, to run the risk of damaging him for the short term. So I don't know. I think that you could make an argument probably either way, in any way you wanted to go with it, and it's gonna be kind of interesting to see what the Cardinals do. - Yeah, it definitely is. Because right now, both guys are struggling at the plate. I mean, I guess Cianni's shown a little bit more, but we're talking about 0.83 versus 1.76, so it's not exactly like-- - And Cianni's had, you know, seven at bats versus-- - Right. - Victor Scott's 36, so that's part of it. - Yeah, and I think the way you look at it, too, is you know that Victor Scott has the higher upside and the better future and the faster feet. And so you want to use that if you can, but it just may not be happening. He just may not be ready. I don't love Cianni being rushed out there every day to play center field, just because I think your lineup doesn't look that good that way, but maybe it's one of those things that he plays center two or three times a week and Newt can take it the rest of the way. I'm not sure. I need to look back and see how much Newt has actually played center. I know he's played at some, but it hasn't been like an everyday thing for him at some point. So yeah, this is where you really hope that some other guys are going to get healthy soon and you hope no more injuries come. I don't think Alec Burleson's going to be put in center by any chance, but-- - Adam, has Burleson even played outfield this year? - I'm trying to think. It seems like he's only DH. I might be wrong, but-- - You know, I'm not sure because when I'm watching the games on my phone sometimes and I'm watching from a distance, I can't tell the difference in the hair between Donovan and Burleson on a small phone. So I'm not sure who's catching those fly balls sometimes. - I almost say Newt last year played 73 games, started 67 in center. - Oh, I didn't realize it was that many. - Yeah, I didn't quite either, that's pulling up baseball reference here and that's what it's indicating. He played about, it looks like he played 12 games there the year before. So I mean, again, I don't know that that's his best position and I don't know how comfortable you are, especially again, you know, what does that outfit look like? Is it Donovan, Newt Barr, and Walker? I mean, that's not bad. It's not like a Walker Burleson type of outfield, but it's not necessarily perfect either. So, you know, is the defense of that worth the trade-off of having a defense of Newt Barr, Scott, and Walker instead? And is that better? You know, I don't know. I think they can go a lot of different ways. - Yeah, and it may come down to how much does it hurt when he throws or does it hurt at all? Are they worried about him diving and possibly hurting those ribs again or is everything completely healed? Because the center fielder has to do a lot more than a left fielder or a right fielder. And so that could play a role. If they're bringing him up, I don't think he's a guy that's going to have to be a designated hitter. I think if he's still that banked up, then you don't, you don't break him up, but at the same time, he wouldn't be playing out in the field in Memphis. So yeah, I think it just comes down to his comfort level and how healed he is. And he may be a hundred percent. If he's a hundred percent, I think you probably put him in center field day one, but really only him and the doctors know that at this point, probably. - Yeah, yeah, I would think so. Talking about the DH and stuff like that, we have had an interesting week in the catching department, I guess, if you will. Cardinals did run Victor Wilson Contreras in the DH spot one day with Herrera as the actual catcher. I don't know if it was baseball retaliating in general for that kind of move, but that was the game that Contreras got hit on the hand and has not played again. What do you think? I mean, we've seen Herrera play well, right? He hit a homerun in the opener, the home opener he had two hits yesterday. Is this the situation where he's kind of pushing to eclipse Contreras in the regular playing time? - That's a great question. And I don't know. - One thing that I did wonder, this is just me talking out loud, or thinking out loud, I should say, but you wonder if internally the Cardinals are going, huh? Maybe if we would have just waited one year instead of signing Contreras, maybe this guy was actually more ready than we thought. Maybe not, I don't know. But he looks the part right now and maybe he's just getting off to a hot start, but he looks really good. And he's one of the bright spots of this team so far, especially when the guy's hitting home runs, because we're not seeing that very often, but he does not look overmatched. He does not look like a guy who is just out of his element. I'm sure coming up last year helped him some, but I'm liking what I'm seeing. Now, I'd love to see some metrics on how he's handling the pitching staff, and I'd love to be a fly on the wall to know what they think about his game calling and stuff like that. But he looks really good right now, and I like the way he's hitting the ball to the opposite field. Now, Contreras out in San Diego, he was probably the reason they won one of those games, for sure. So it's not a bad thing to have two guys who can catch and also hit the ball really well. But yeah, you start wondering if maybe we're seeing the catcher of the future today, even though the Cardinals signed the catcher of the future last year. Yeah, we've discussed it probably at the time, and it did make a little bit of, it was very interesting signing with a guy like Herrera there. I mean, you know, Andrew Kissner, fine, he can be a backup, that's okay. But when you've got a guy like Herrera, who you know, was expected to be a bat first, but a very good bat for a catcher to take, you know, to kind of push him off. I don't know, I was very interesting to see that, but they've done that, at least for right now. I mean, there's no guarantee that Wilson Cartreras finishes his contract in St. Louis. But you wonder, I don't know, I think it's very interesting to see how they're gonna use these guys going forward. Because I don't think you want Wilson Cartreras as your DH all that often. He's definitely got a very good bat. But when you've got guys like Burleson and Gorman, and you know, and other things like that, if Matt Carpenter ever, you know, when he gets healthy and has to have some days, there are a lot of different options in that DH spot that if you use Contreras there too much, you're kind of blocking off some options for other people. - Absolutely. He makes sense if you need a right-handed bat there, but you're not gonna see a ton of left-handed starters in baseball. It's just, that's just not the case. I mean, maybe what 20, 25% of starters are left-handed. And so you're gonna wanna use that slot for a lefty most of the time. And sure, it works, it works when it works, but I agree. I don't think you want both of those guys in the lineup every single day. Now, if they're both crushing the ball, sure. That's how you want it. But you wanna have a little more flexibility where you're not feeling like you just have to put this guy in there every single day because he has to be in there and you don't have another place for him. You wanna be able to put your best players in the lineup every single day. - Yeah. Yeah, and that's, again, we've talked about how this roster works and sometimes how it doesn't. And I think it's a very interesting situation to watch. I don't, you know, again, you know, Herrera may not be the best defensive catcher, but obviously World Swing Tarras isn't either, right? I mean, we had that discussion last year. And hopefully, you know, they figure out some sort of timeshare that works back there or they eventually, and I think that's something, not as much for this year, but maybe this winter or sometime next year, you start, you know, maybe you start hearing the rumors about a trade or something of that nature. I don't know. I think it's just very interesting. Of course, you know, Cardinals and their way of dealing with depth is always interesting and to be able to hold on to people well beyond that they need to. So I don't know what they'll do, but it's an interesting situation and hopefully Herrera continues to hit and maybe he doesn't and that answers the question, but, you know, like you said, right now, and given what he did this winter in the Dominican balls or everything like that, it really looks like he's going to continue what he's up to. - Yeah, I hope so. I like what I'm saying. I think if you go back and listen to previous podcasts, I may have been one to say that maybe the Cardinals should use him as a trade chip if they could and maybe keep Kizzner. Kizzner has four at bats on the season right now. He's just not playing for Texas. So I think I was wrong on that and I am glad I'm wrong. I think Herrera's the guy. I wanna ask you a question. I'm gonna throw out an uncomfortable one to you, especially for you, 'cause I know you're a fan. Are you worried about Nolan Arendado? And the reason I ask, he has no home runs on the season. His last home run was actually August 19th. He didn't play through the end of the season, but he did play until September 21st. So his last home run was August 19th. No home runs this year, no walks this year, has two doubles and no other extra extra base hits. Is this an area of concern or is this him just trying to figure things out and getting off to a slow start again? - Well, I don't know. I think it's definitely an area of concern. Is it a situation where things aren't gonna turn around? I don't know about that, but yeah, I think the no walks thing is really frustrating, right? 'Cause that makes it seem like he's trying to do way too much. Like he's trying to hit a home run every time he's up there. And you know, he's had some good games. He had three hits, what, in the home opener for a total base. That's where he had one of the doubles. But yeah, it's just not quite what you expect, especially for a angry Nolan as a motivated Nolan and all the stuff that we were hearing this winter. And it just, it hasn't clicked yet. And so it's been not necessarily the best, I mean, Dodger Stadium, San Diego, St. Louis, not the best hitting ball parts. And it's not like anybody else on this team is hitting home runs except for apparently Nolan Gorman now. But I would think that you would like to see in a little bit more consistency and a little bit more power from him. I don't know, I mean, he has got what? Looks like now he's got a hitting streak of about, well, he's got about an eight game hitting streak. So getting hits, it just doesn't have the pop behind it. And yeah, I think that's a little bit, maybe he's just trying to find his groove and maybe he's just trying to get things going. But no power, no walks. It's not what you want to see at an all and are not. - No, not at all. And Jeff Jones tweeted earlier today that he is the only player in MLB with at least 40 played appearances in zero walks. He only has five strikeouts. So it's not like he's just getting overpowered at the plate, but he's hitting a lot of ground balls. He's driving some of them, but we're not seeing that lift on the ball like we've seen. I know a couple of people have pointed out a couple of his swings. It looked like he was almost just chopping at the ball. Like a kid playing little league baseball. Like he just, he wasn't sure if he was going to swing or not. And then just kind of chopped at it the last second and it looked really awkward. We had some of that last year too. And so just, I don't know, it hasn't looked right. Early, early in the season, yes, but right now his OPS would be a career low by far, not anywhere close. Slugging would be a career low. It just, it has not been great. He does seem to be getting on base a little bit, but it's only through the bat and it's only through singles. So hopefully it'll turn around. I know as soon as I say this, he may go off and hit five home runs in the next week and be crushing the ball against the wall, but I don't know, it just hasn't happened yet. And maybe some warmer weather will help him. - Yeah, I mean, it's kind of pulling up. I was trying to decide what you said it may be feel like he's probably swinging earlier in the count. If he's not walking, he's not striking out. Is he trying to jump on like the first pitch or something like that? And you're getting a lot of, I can't really tell that from my limited searching here, but it was interesting to pull up baseball, so see, you know, I just played this and played numbers. And some of those look, you know, even better than they did last year. I mean, granted small sample size and all that, but it doesn't feel like he's lost at the plate, right? But he's just not doing what we're used to Nolan or not doing. And I think that's at least somewhat or encouraging in the fact that he doesn't look like, this is a guy that we don't even recognize. This is just not the Nolan we're used to. - Yeah, I'm looking at NLP right now. His ground out to air out right now is 1.0, which for him, that is just, that just doesn't happen. It's usually for him around like 0.6. And so it, I don't know if his swing is just a little bit off launch angles a little bit different or something, but we're not seeing the typical swing, the typical contact that we're used to seeing. If anybody is going to figure it out and get it turned around, it's going to be him. So I'm not overly concerned if we're talking in three weeks and it still looks like this and it still doesn't happen home run, then yeah, that's probably going to be an issue. Hopefully it's just some early season things, but there's other guys on the team too that fall in this boat. Before today, I would have put Gorman in the category of what's going on. Paul Goldschmidt started off the year great, now he's kind of fallen off too. So a lot of guys aren't showing their potential. Jordan Walker would be in there as well. So hopefully it's just kind of some early season jitters with again, the schedule being messed up, not getting into routine, being on the road. Hopefully they settle in with the rest of this homestand and we see the true numbers come out. - Yeah, I mean, just pulling up the box score, looking at it and if you just want to judge by adding average, which is of course a terrible thing to do, but you know, just as a shorthand type of thing, you know, Brendan Donovan's hitting 313, Mason wins hitting 308. And I think Mason when has been a bit of a surprise, right? This year we've, he's done pretty well in the early going and a little bit more than we thought. And that's good. I mean, hopefully he continues it. Donovan's probably in line with what we would have expected. But if that's it, you know, I mean, Herrera's hitting 300, but very again, limited time. Really just this weekend. It's a struggle. And that's very interesting that the Cardinals are five and five with an offense that hasn't really clicked yet. And maybe facing, well, facing Philadelphia and, you know, Zach Wheeler coming in. Probably not going to help that much, but maybe going out to Arizona in a place where the ball does tend to fly a little bit more. Maybe that'll help them get on track. And then facing Oakland, who I think is throwing a couple of guys that were in the Little League World Series last year, they may have been too expensive, I'm not sure. But, you know, hopefully that helps them get somewhat on track. And once they get there, then they can stay there. - Let's hope so. Let's, that's really hope so. I haven't seen the full rotation for Philadelphia. Last I looked for Game 3. They were throwing TBD. - Yeah, she's tough. - Oh, yes. So TBD, typically Lefty throwing about 88, look for a no hitter against the Cardinals. So yeah, his name could end up being NOLA by the end of that. I don't know, but Philadelphia is probably not off the start they want either. So this is a good chance for the Cardinals to really gain some ground, especially like you said, playing against the local community college known as Oakland at some point. Hopefully, we'll see true Cardinals baseball. - Yeah, unfortunately, they're going to Oakland this year not next year when they'd be playing in a minor league stadium. And then you'd really feel like maybe the ball would have a chance for them. But anyway, anyway, it's in string. And again, like it's a lot more fun to talk about this team than last year when we were starting to wonder if those holes in the sky were actually the, you know, actually there or not they were. I don't think we're looking at the sky falling right now. And that's nice to be back to that kind of normal. - It is. I still have concerns about the starting pitching. It's just not been what you want. Now, it feels like each guy, also each of the four, the four guys who should be in the rotation have thrown games that you would kind of say, okay, we'll take that. Little worried about Lynn not keeping the ball in the ballpark. He kind of did some Houdini acts in his first start and probably his stat line looked better than it should have. And then he's struggling a second. But each pitcher has thrown a game that we will take every time. And they've probably each thrown a game that we will say, no, thank you. Let's throw that out and not think about it again with the exception of bats. I should say that he has looked really good in both of the starts. - Yeah, he just isn't able to go quite as long as we would like. And that's in its by design. And I'm not, you know, there's no faulting there because there is a make sense of that. But, you know, that is the downside, right? If you're going to get that kind of outing, you'd like it to be over 100 pitchers rather than 80. But, you know, maybe at some point in time, as he builds up, we'll see a little bit more of that. - Yeah, hopefully so. Let's just hope he can stay healthy because what he's shown us so far has kind of looked like the mats who started dominating in a portion of the year last year. So hopefully he stays healthy. Hopefully the mechanics stay where they're at. He could look like a bargain still with the contract he has. It is still possible. So I'm looking forward to seeing him pitch a little bit more. - Yeah, yeah, it should be fun. So all right, good, hopefully another good week of Cardinal baseball and we cannot be depressed the next week when we do this. In fact, if they want to lose only on Sunday for the rest of the year, I'm fine with that, I think. I think I would take that sacrifice, right? If they want to win the rest of the week and just lose on Sundays, I'm willing, I'm good for that. - I think that would be a pretty good record by the end of the season. I'm no mathematician, but I would feel pretty confident in their chances both in the regular season and in the playoffs too. - Yeah, yeah, especially since they don't play a lot of games on Sunday in the playoffs because of football. So World Series doesn't play. Well, there's a Saturday, anyway, we'll take it. Anyway, I think it's time to quit. We will be with you next week and until then, for Daniel. I'm Daniel. Good night. (crowd cheering) - Time run at second base. (crowd cheering) In the air, the right center. This game is time. Going to third as pools and it's nine-nine. (crowd cheering) They just won't go away.