St. Louis Cardinals’ Offense CRASHES Before Late HEROICS — Is Trouble Ahead?

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A Cardinals victory, camp cuts, and Ali Marmal extension backlash all on today's episode

of Lockdown Cardinals.

You are Lockdown Cardinals.

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every day.

Hey, there, Cardinals fans.

I'm JD Halford, a former national radio sports anchor born and raised in St. Louis

in a lifetime Cardinals fan and welcome to another episode of Lockdown Cardinals, part

of the Lockdown podcast network.

Now the number one sports podcast network, thank you to our every dayers who continue to

be here with us through the thick and the fun for the newcomers.

Welcome in.

Let's talk some ball.

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On today's show, we got a ton of stuff to get to the Ali Marmal extension backlash continues

to be a hot topic that people want to talk about.

So I want to share some more feedback, both negative and positive, because there's people

on both sides of that fence.

We got our first cuts of camp to talk about, but we're going to start with the game in

hand on Monday, a picture's door, if you will, between the Cardinals and the Marlins.

Cardinals come out on top of this one by a score of three to two.

And one of the most pivotal at bats in this game involved rookie Joshua Baez and the ABS

challenge system.

And it was capped off by a walkoff head from one of the newer Cardinals that came over

this off season.

So let's get into the three stars of the game.

I number one star.

And I'm going to go with Joshua Baez on this one.

And I'm going to do that despite him getting picked off at one point in this game got picked

off at first base, which is obviously a big no no.

I realize that he's young.

I'll asleep over there at first base got picked off, but there wasn't a whole lot really

to get excited about in this game.

And I got to pick somebody.

So he still went one from one from two in the game, also had that all important walk that

I was talking about, which was one of the few highlights in this game as the Cardinals

offense really had a tough tough day for the most part coming off that one hit effort

on Sunday.

Didn't have much going on here either.

Didn't record their first hit until the fifth inning.

It was just crickets in that first half.

So if you happen to not off at some point while listening to this game on KMLX because

it wasn't on TV yet again, don't beat yourself up about it.

It's okay.

I was actually at the gym listening and I think I heard more about the weather than things

actually about what was going on in this game because things were so dull.

Really, it was it was kind of boring.

There's no need to sugar code it.

Bottom of the fifth inning after Nelson Velasquez got the first hit of the game for St. Louis.

It was bias who got hit number two on an infield single.

Yay.

But then with Brody Moore up in two wild to the two of count bias gets picked off by the

catcher to end the ending.

Boo.

Don't like that.

But as I've said before, when it comes to these younger players, when you've got guys

who are as inexperienced as the Cardinals roster is, they're going to make some dumb mistakes.

It's going to happen to the regular season two and you're going to be like, so frustrated

about it all.

But you'd rather see them trying to learn from this now before the game's actually count.

And hopefully that's what this is for bias.

It's a learning experience.

Then in the seventh with the score two, one runners on first and second and one out bias

falls behind one, two.

And now once, but twice gets called out on strikes only to tap the helmet challenge

both calls and then have them overturned and turned into balls.

And here's the thing.

And these were not egregious calls either.

It's not like the ump was, you know, pulling an angel Hernandez and they were like seven,

eight inches off the plate and was ringing them up.

They were right there.

They were very, very close.

Normally, these would be what we'd call pitchers pitches and they would go in favor of

the pitcher and you wouldn't really argue with it.

The first pitch ends up missing by one tenth of an inch, second one missed by three tenths

of an inch borderline calls, but the zone is the zone and they were overturned by as

eventually worked to seven pitch walk instead of striking out.

So that worked out huge.

That worked out huge.

You got the fans excited and help the Cardinals load the bases for Jeremy Rivas who does

his job hits that sack fly to tie things up at two.

This ABS thing, it's going to be a lot of fun.

I think it's going to be a lot of fun in the big leagues this year.

We've had, you know, the challenges on the calls at bases, you know, plays at first base,

stolen bases, you know, we've had these challenges for a couple of years now.

And obviously, those are very excited for fans because there's that anticipation.

You're like, OK, and we're watching the play on the scoreboard and you're like, OK, what's

it going to be?

I think he's out.

What do you think?

You know, because there's a gray area in those plays where, well, there wasn't enough evidence

to overturn the call or whatever.

So, you know, there's this gray area where, you know, the call could still be messed up.

There's still the possibility of them screwing it up.

Here the computer is telling you exactly who's right and who's wrong.

So it's going to amp things up even more for the crowd.

There's no, well, it kind of looks like a strike.

No, it either is a strike or it is not.

And home played umpire, John Bacon, who was the home played umpire in this game on

Monday, actually had four of the five challenges overturned in favor of the players.

So these guys are going to be held accountable this year.

Boys, you better get your ish together.

I cannot wait to see some of the more familiar home played umpires that we've had issues

with over the years, the CB Buccners and Las Diases and 100 window stets and rob

drinks of the umpiring world.

I cannot wait to see them get their cheeks smacked with overturned calls and their ability

to ruin games at times like that's not going to happen this year.

Every umpire is going to miss calls.

I get that.

It's okay.

I understand it.

You're a human.

I get that.

But the guys that are notoriously bad like the guys I just listed are about to get

theirs.

That's for sure.

So that's going to be a lot of fun.

I cannot wait.

And then you know, you can't argue balls and strikes if you're a you're a player or

or a manager or anything like that.

So maybe that gets taken out and guys aren't ejected as much this year.

So what are these guys going to do?

Well, what CB Buccner going to do when he gets all worked up because he's not he's

getting stuff overturned all the time.

So it's going to be interesting.

A second start of the game is going to go to Colson lead better who drove in the winning

run with his walkoff hit at the bottom of the ninth inning and what an excellent bad

it was for Colton.

Eight pitches long for foul balls before he laces that base hit to right field.

Do you score a guy Mike Antico lead better came over from the race as part of that three

team trade that sent Brandon Donovan to the Seattle Mariners.

He's only had five at that so far this spring, but he's now three for five.

So he said 600 and he's got one pretty little swing.

If you haven't gotten a chance to see any of his at bats because there hasn't been many.

But when he gets in there, man, that thing, that thing is nice.

It's nice.

Colton lead butter is what I'm calling him because that swing is butter.

It's beautiful.

I can see where the Cardinals were attracted to him as winning him as part of this deal with

the race and the Mariners.

So third star of the game is going to go to Joelle Posa who drove in the first run of

the game.

Posa's had a good spring guys continues to swing the bat quite well.

He's now batting 364.

One home run for our guys got an on base percentage of 500 OPS now at 1.227.

We know who most of the players at the big league level are already going to be, but

those bench spots.

Those are still kind of a dog fight right now and Posa put in the work this off season.

Give this guy credit put in the work this off season.

He dropped 30 pounds.

He looks much healthier.

He looks better and he's putting up numbers this spring and he ain't going down without

a fight.

Like, you know, we keep talking about how well do we need all of these freaking catchers.

We got a bunch of them.

He can play a little bit of first base as well.

He could D H as well.

You liked him off the bench last year.

He was pretty good at that job.

So, you know, Posa is, he's going to make it difficult to send him away.

I got more observations from today's game.

Plus, we got the first set of cuts like official cuts sending people back to minor league

camp.

So we'll get into all of that coming up next on locked on Cardinals.

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Some more observations from the Cardinals three to two victory against the Marlins on

Monday.

The latest start for mind during Palante, obviously something that we're all paying attention

to.

He went three innings.

He allowed one run on three hits, no walks.

He struck out to the Marlins lineup on Monday, not their best available, right?

This is this was not there every day lineup.

You know, we're all dealing with guys that are gone to the WBC now.

So think about that.

He still did all right.

I guess opponents are hitting just 167 against him over the five innings.

He's thrown so far.

He's going to continue to battle for a rotation spot hasn't done anything necessarily bad

yet.

But I was really stood out all that much either, you know, I feel like he's the odd man

out in this rotation this year when everybody is healthy.

He's not going to be off the team by any means.

I know some people are like, just get rid of this dude.

No, they're not going to do that.

Like he's going to be a part of this organization in some way, shape or form, whether it is

going to be in the rotation in the bullpen, I don't know about options or anything.

Like that at this point, but I would suspect he goes to the bullpen and can play that

role of long reliever, get you a couple of innings when you need it.

That's what I expect out of him.

But, you know, so far, not the worst, right, for Andre Palante.

But it's still we still have that bad taste in our mouth from last year.

We saw how bad things were.

So it hasn't gotten to that level by any means.

It's been good on Monday as well.

Bruce Zimmerman.

Now, there's a guy that I'm kind of interested in fire two more shut out innings, left handed

relievers.

We know they don't have a lot of them.

You know, you've got Justin, bro, you got Joe Joe Romero.

You know, who else are you trusting, Nick Rache?

Is that the other guy?

I don't know.

I guess you could use him.

Zimmerman's been around and he can, he can get you a couple of innings.

Could be a sneaky opening day roster ad.

Maybe take on that Steven Matt's role from the bullpen last year, just something to think

about.

I have not rolled him out.

I feel like he's a sneaky one at this point, backed about shut out innings for Ryan Fernandez,

who had that horrible first appearance where he just got lit up.

But last couple of appearances has been much better.

George Soriano, Scott Bluett, also had scoreless innings on Monday.

So you're impressed with what the bullpen was able to do on Monday.

And so far, this, this, you know, the guys that are really in line for spots at the major

leagues, they've been pretty good.

So far this spring.

So that's, that's good.

That's a positive offensively three runs on five hits, not until the fifth inning.

JG weather hold over two in this one, but you're in another walk.

He's got six of them so far in the spring, and just 16 played appearances as OBP is at

five, 63 of the spring.

Pretty quiet for the rest of the main guys in the game on Monday for mean, Burley Gorman,

Pahez, Victor Scott, combined to go over 10.

They got two walks, but over 10.

The team is batting just 226th of spring, which is the fourth worst average.

Among all teams, they've got just eight home runs, which is third worst.

They're slugging.

341, which is, excuse me, third worst, and the OPS of 665, third worst, a lot of work

to be done.

A lot of work to be done.

That is for sure when it comes to the offense for the Cardinals, if there is something

that you're going into the season, and you're really concerned about, you know, other than

the fact that the team is so young, and we just don't know how good or bad they're going

to be.

Most people think they're going to be bad, but offensively, we're like, where are they

going to get runs from?

Who's going to provide the pop in this lineup?

You think, Alex Burleson's going to be fine.

You expect Yvonne Herrera to be fine, but where else is it coming from?

JJ has been outstanding this spring.

For me, it seems like he's going to be your lead-off guide just at the top of the order.

I need the walks.

I need the on-base percentage.

So, you know, there was this pipe dream at one point that Victor Scott made me could

do something at the top of the lineup, hasn't really shown that much so far this spring.

So I think he falls back down to the bottom of the order.

Mason Wynn, you've seen him bat lead off a few times, but I feel like it might do something

like a JJ, Mason Wynn, Burle Herrera is your top four.

So that's just where I'm at with things so far.

First round of cuts took place after the game.

Reducing their spring training roster to 57 players, 11 players moved to minor league

camp.

The team option, right handed pitchers, Koa Robi to Memphis, the triple A roster, he's

injured anyway.

So that's not a big deal.

They also reassigned non-roster pitchers, Durangel O'Saña, Pete Hanson, Eashon Henderson,

Austin Love, Hansel Rancone, Simerabrasa, Jared Schuster, Zach Thompson, catch a grace

in Tarlow, and our boy, I'll build your Mike Antico, went to minor league camp.

Doesn't it feel like Antico's going to be the guy that went in the Cardinals finally

cut ties with him and let him go see if he can find a spot in the major league somewhere

that he's going to do some good on somebody else's roster.

He just feels like that guy to me.

He's always involved in stuff, and apparently he's like one of the most favorite guys in

the clubhouse, and that's going to sting when he goes somewhere else and becomes productive

and the Cardinals couldn't find a role for him on the major league roster.

As far as the rest of that stuff, you know, Sanja, moving on, that sucks that we don't

get to see him again, but I don't know, they can still move guys around as far as I know,

but none of this stuff is all that surprising as far as like where are these guys going.

Cardinals currently have 39, major league roster players, 18 non-roster invitees in camp.

They'll get the day off here on Tuesday, and then they're going to play an exhibition

game against the Nicaragua team who's managed by Dusty Baker.

Is Dusty Baker from Nicaragua?

I had no idea.

I was looking at their roster just to see if there were some familiar names, not a lot

on there, and then there was Dusty Baker Jr. as the manager of Nicaragua.

I had no idea.

I had no idea.

That's what he was.

But anyway, that's what's going on with the Cardinals up next.

More feedback and backlash, both the second.

On the Oli Marmal extension, I'm going to be reading your thoughts on the Cardinals

extending Oli Marmal for two more years, Cardinal Confessions coming your way next, unlocked

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The alley marble extension as predicted has angered a lot of fans.

They don't like him.

They think he stinks.

They think he's a loser and they want us to know that.

So you will notice that when you go on to the comments section and you start going through

whether it's on this show, any show, right?

You're going to see familiar names saying the same stuff on all the different message boards

and whatnot.

And it's fine.

They want you to know how much they despise alley marble being here.

But that's what carnels can bet, carnal confessions is about.

It's about getting things off your chest, whether it's positive, whether it's negative.

So let's start with the unhappy folks.

Let's give them give them the floor once again.

And this is just randomly stuff.

This is stuff that I just, you know, in the comments from Monday show.

We're becoming the pirates, the St. Louis pirates.

You know, the pirates just thrown this out there real quick.

The pirates do have some fun guys and Pittsburgh now just putting it out there.

Paul Schien's obviously the headliner, but Conor Griffin, Boba Chandler, O'Neal Cruz

was hitting 538 this spring.

So look out for the buckos as a sneaky pick, because if you've got Boba Chandler, Schien's,

if Jared Jones is back, healthy, Mitch Keller, that's not bad, that's not bad at all.

And then they've added some offensive weapons this year.

And I don't know how they can send Conor Griffin down.

You got to have that dude up on the roster because he's a freak.

All right, more of these.

I wish I had a job that rewarded such little success and mostly failures and millions

of dollars.

Well, don't we all?

And that's kind of what sports is about where you see these guys making in every sport.

It's not just baseball, but in every sport, you know, you see guys, they're like suck,

and they're just banking.

And that's part of sports, man, should have been a better athlete, should have worked

harder at the gym, dude.

What surprises me is that attendance numbers are at record lows and firing marmos seem

to be at the top of most fan wish list, yet management opted to extend his tenure.

Stupid.

Now Yachty will go elsewhere and we lose a great manager.

It's awful.

He has not made the playoffs in three years.

The last two coaches we got rid of, barely missed two in a row.

And we fired them, but we're settling for Media Yoker with Holly.

Now again, and I know this show is a small percentage of the fan base,

but those who voted on the poll approved of the alley extension.

And despite some of the comments that we have, which I would say in the comments section,

I would say it's probably like 70% negative, which is fine.

You know, usually the angry people are the more vocal when it comes to things,

but not everyone is upset, not everyone's upset.

Some of the pro alley extension people, as an avid cardinal fan,

there was a huge dry spell from the late A's,

Tony LaRusa arriving in the 90s.

We even had Joe Tory as manager during that time.

He was fired.

Then he went to the Yankees and managed to dynasty.

I'm from the old school of thought pitching and defense wins.

And I believe we are on the correct path for a long run.

Funny story here, actually.

So that year the Joe Tory got fired, where it was like early on in the year.

Like it was like it was 40 all start break, I think.

But that year the Joe got canned and it was Mike Jorgensen,

who ended up taking over as the interim manager.

I had some connections.

My buddy, Mikey, happened to be related to somebody and got us into the clubhouse

during the final series of the season.

And we got to go in after the game and they had played the giants.

I could not tell you what the score of that game was, have no idea.

But back in the lower area of Old Bush Stadium,

we got to see the giants come out of their clubhouses.

They were going to their bus to take them to the airport.

And we got to see Barry Bonds, Matt Williams and Dion Sanders,

which was awesome.

And they all gave a shout out.

They were very nice to us as kids at the point at that time.

So that was awesome.

But when we talk about this, Joe Torrey is ragged with the Cardinals

over his tenure as manager.

As great as he was with the Yankees, 351 and 354 with Cardinals.

Was he a bad manager?

I don't think many would consider that Joe Torrey was a bad manager with the Cardinals.

He had I think three winning seasons while he was the manager of the team.

I think he did well with the talent he had, but that was his record.

He had a losing record as the manager for the Cardinals.

So was that all on Joe Torrey?

And I love looking at the old names.

And I love going to the old stats and stuff.

Let's look this up real quick.

So where are we at?

95, 20 and 27 when he got fired that year.

Yeah, three winning seasons did not go to the playoffs.

But his outfield that year in 95, Bernard Gilkey, Ray Langford,

and Brian Jordan, which is very good,

had pags behind the dish, who we love.

John Mayberry over in first base.

But the rest of that infield, Yikes.

Yikes.

Joseo Kendo in his 30s at the time hit 209,

playing second base, Trip Cromer.

OPS plus a 55, which was short-stop.

There's Havanaugh Z.

Patentville High School legend, my alma mater, Scott Cooper,

over at third base, had a war of negative 0.3.

That was tough.

Memory had started off so good for Scott Cooper too.

Memory had that first game at Bush.

And it was awesome.

And drove in the winning runs.

And it was great.

And it just never worked out for him, which was unfortunate.

Rotation.

Check out these names.

Mark Pekizek, Alan Watson, Donovan Osborne, Ken Hill,

Mike Morgan, and Danny Jackson.

We had Tom Hinkies the closer then.

I do remember him coming out of the clubhouse.

Super dad-look had the white T-shirt and jeans on

with the white shoes.

Tom Hinkie, man.

He was a stud through the cartels that year too.

And then he just retired.

Probably could have hung on for a couple more seasons.

I could do this all day, by the way.

Anyways, back to the Oli stuff.

At the end of the day, if Bloom believes Oli is the best person

to help the young guys develop, then I trust him.

Worst case scenario is Oli isn't good

and hopefully in two years, the players

have grown and Bloom decides to hire a new manager.

This just feels like a keep things constant type of move,

which I don't mind.

Yeah, continuity was something that Bill DeWitt

brought up at the press here.

They need some sort of continuity

and having leadership in place together,

moving forward with the same vision makes sense.

I don't understand me, Oli.

Hey, why do you himself couldn't have done better

with the roster and support staff that Mo gave him?

Let's get the guy a roster and enough people to support them

and see how he does.

I think he's done pretty good with what he has had.

First year, obviously, very good.

A lot of talent on that team, sparked by the Albert Pujols,

run to 700.

Second year was the train wreck.

Remember, we lose Yadi.

We lose Albert.

Adam Wainwrights hurt.

Nato and Gold Schmidt start their decline.

So things were really, really bad that season.

Third year, solid winning season.

Last year, below 500 again at 78 and 84,

now he's going to have this team of young guys

who are expected to be bad.

So we'll see how things progress.

This season, not going to be judged by wins and losses

in the eyes of management.

And I know fans, that's what we look at, wins and losses.

So if we're losing a bunch, you suck.

But that's not what the season's about.

So hopefully most people are understanding

when it comes to that.

We're just looking for what this core is going to be moving forward.

Who's coming with us?

Who's going to drop off?

We're going to find out.

You got a lockout possible in 2027.

And then in 2028, it's going to be the year where, literally,

I think it's make or break with Ali.

That'll be the year.

They're like, all right, buy 28.

We expect to be contending again.

And if you're a good manager, and we're winning,

and we're contending, then we're going to keep you around.

And if it's not working out, and things haven't progressed

the way we want them to, maybe we'll move on from that.

So we'll see.

Will it cost them yachty, or Albert is manager?

Probably.

I mean, are they going to wait around that long

to see whether or not the cartels will have an opening?

I doubt it.

Seems like someone would jump at the chance

to get them before that happens.

And they would jump at a chance to be a big league manager

somewhere else.

I get that.

That you're going to be upset when you see them jump ship

and go somewhere else.

And then Ali is still here.

But if we're winning, are you going to be that upset about it?

But if they're losing, I hate to be in charge.

But again, people could have had yachty and Albert

this offseason as their manager, and nobody took them.

Didn't happen this offseason.

So who knows?

Who knows what the future holds?

I can tell you this much.

Cardinals have an off day today.

And they'll face Team Nicaragua on Wednesday.

So we'll be talking about that game tomorrow.

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