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St. Louis Cardinals shake up their spring training roster as Joshua Baez, the team's hottest hitter in camp, gets sent down despite leading the club in home runs and OPS. Why is Baez heading to AAA after outperforming veteran options, and could his absence impact Opening Day lineups?
JD Hafron and Thomas Gauvain dissect the Cardinals' outfield battle, spotlighting Nelson Velasquez, Nathan Church, and Thomas Saggese, plus the rookie speculation tied to Lars Nootbaar’s injury status. The hosts analyze Matthew Liberatore’s impressive pitching mechanics, bullpen depth, and breakout performances from J.J. Wetherholt and Chase Davis. Concerns linger over slow starts from Nolan Gorman, Jordan Walker, and Victor Scott. With insider insight on the club’s long-term strategy, the episode explores whether patient prospect development pays off—and who truly deserves the left field job when the season begins.
00:00
Left Field Competition Update
10:04
Cardinals Spring Games Recap
23:40
Oh-Yeahs & Uh-Ohs: Spring Standouts and Concerns
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Joshua Baez has been one of the best hitters in campus spring for the Cardinals.
So why has he already been sent down?
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On today's show, we're going to be talking about some of the best and worst showings at
Spring Training so far, who we've been impressed with, who we have not been.
Cardinal said split squad games on Monday, winning one and losing one, so we'll touch on those
results.
But we're going to start today talking about what exactly is going on in left field.
And to help make sense of it all, we've gone to the bullpen ourselves.
We've got Thomas Govane from RedmondRance.com joining us here to talk it through.
Thomas, great to see you again, buddy.
How are things so far in your world during Spring Training here in 2026?
Yeah, that's going real well.
We've got baseball everywhere.
We'll baseball classics, Spring Training's kicking in the higher gear.
It's a good time to be a fan.
Yeah, absolutely.
And better soak it in now, because who knows what's going to happen in 2027, but let's
talk about what's going on with the cardinal specifically in left field.
Let's start here.
We knew that the left field position was something that we were going to monitor when
camp began doing large part to the heel surgery or surgeries.
We should say that large new par had to go through in this offseason, which was going
to make his availability for opening day suspect.
And from all accounts, Newt is on track rehabs doing fine, safe to say he probably won't
be ready for opening day, though, but he's going to be back at some point.
This doesn't feel like flashbacks from PTSD from the Tommy Edmond time when, oh, it's
just a resting, a little no big deal.
And then we never saw him again, like that's that what appears to be happening here.
Newt should be back, which people will be happy about, but with him on the men, the
cardinals were going to have to figure out how to get through while he was rehabbing.
Who's going to be in left field to start things off?
Who's going to absorb some of these innings with newt out?
You have utility guys, Jose, for me and Thomas, who's been with team Italy and the WBC,
in case you were wondering why you haven't heard much about him.
Free agent signing Nelson Velazquez, the team's 23rd ranked prospect, Nathan Church, and
then tap 100 prospect, number four in the system, according to MLB pipeline, Joshua
Bayez.
Those were like the most notable names getting reps.
So I'm going to run through these numbers real quick offensive vise because that's what
we're more concerned with.
That's not so much worried about the defense.
We know it's a big deal, but numbers they need offense.
They need that.
So for me, leads the team with 25 plate appearances this spring.
And after getting off to a nice start, those first couple of games, he is cold down considerably.
Just four for 25.
He's hitting 160.
No home runs.
One RBI, on base percentage of 250, Velazquez, 21 appearances.
And after a chilly start, because he didn't do much early on, he's now seven for 21, he's
been heating up.
He's hitting 333 with a home run, two ribs, four walks, only two strikeouts, which is
a big deal for me, and the OBP of 440.
So JC was three for nine, hitting 333.
No home runs in an RBI before he left for the WBC, 0 for five with team Italy, where he's
been playing shortstop.
Nathan Church offers the most upside defensively by a long shot.
He's been a phenomenal offensive player in the minor leagues, speed, great arm, four for
17 this spring.
He's hitting 235, one home run, three ribs, the OBP at 409.
And then there's Joshua Bias, Thomas, seven for 21, hitting 333, leads the club with
three home runs after hitting another tank on Monday.
He's second on the team in RBI's with five.
He's got a stolen base, the OBP is at 417, he's slugging 762, he's got an OPS of 1.179.
By all accounts, if this was a competition, you would have one hands down winner.
You would be Joshua Bias.
But after the game yesterday, the team made the announcement that they've reduced the
spring training roster to 46 players, five guys going to minor league camp.
They optioned Cooper Jersey, who's still coming back, Bryce and Mott's, Nick Raquet,
Quinn Matthews is going back to minor league camp, and outfielder, Joshua Bias has been
sent down.
He's down to Memphis, triple A roster.
Bartles now have 30 major league roster players, 69 roster invitees.
This was not completely unexpected, thanks to recent dialogue that Heimbloom had over
the airwaves on Sunday that you wrote about recently.
But can you shed some light on this for people who may not understand why this is happening?
When in the past, they're going to bring up Albert Poole holes, yeah.
He barely played a triple A.
Recently, Jordan Walker did not play triple A.
Those guys came up despite being young and not having the time, service time down there.
They were allowed to have sent to the major leagues while the Cardinals are taking the patient
approach with Joshua Bias, explain it to us, Thomas, because we want to know why the guy
who looks like he's the best hitter is it going to be on the team?
When it comes to Albert Poole, I think we need to really recognize that he's a special
guy.
He's the Albert Poole and your farm system, even every 20, 25 years.
That's the unique case.
I think we've also recognized that Jordan Walker's promotion was a mistake, and that's
probably leaning into why Bias is staying where he is right now.
I'm Bloom even mentioned that in his quotes with Tom Ackerman on Sunday.
He talked very briefly about Jordan Walker and his potentially premature promotion.
Bias has only had 273 at bats in double A, 79 games.
He could probably use some more seasoning, just to show that what he showed last year wasn't
to fluke.
You got to remember that before 2025, he was not living up to his prospect type.
He was fine offensively, but his strikeout rate was off the charts.
He wasn't showing what he showed last year with the speeders, defense necessarily, so then
to continue what he showed last year and to trick away this year, that's more of a proof
of, yeah, this guy's legit.
It wasn't a fluke, he's 20, 25 season.
He is who we thought he would be.
Yeah, all of that makes sense, and it was funny yesterday, because after he hit the
home run, I posted the video of the home run, I was like, are we sure he shouldn't be
in left?
Oh, boy, because Cardinal fans are smart for the most part.
Casual fans are going to be like, wait, hold on, I don't understand, but most of the Cardinal
fans understood it, and oh, man, I was getting hammered as if that's why I forgot to put
like the little wink emoji at the end of it, because I understand why, you will understand
why.
Most of the Cardinal fans get it as well, that there's no rush here for getting Bayez up,
and I'll throw this one out too, with Newt Healing, because that's going to be his job
when he comes back for the most part, it's going to be a large job in left field.
You don't want a Joshua Bayez getting a little taste of the majors and then shipping
them back down and making them feel bad if things didn't go quite the way you wanted
it to.
Plus, you're not sure that you want him starting right away, and you don't want him
in a platoon role.
You want him to go down there and get all the advance and all of the playing time he
possibly can, so that makes a lot of sense.
Now, another thing that's been brought up is the Rookie of the Year chatter, so when
you bring a guy up, and if he wins Rookie of the Year, you end up getting that extra
draft pick, which is something people are hoping will happen this year with J.G.
Weather Hold, and I also got some pushback there, and they're like, well, we need him for
the Rookie of the Year possibility in 2027.
Do you think that should affect anything to get that draft pick after the first round?
Maybe five percent of this, I mean, it's not going to be something that times like this
is going to hold them back, but it's definitely something that's crossed his mind, I would
imagine to get assuming J.J. goes off the way we expect him to, and he beats out like
Conor Griffith and Nolan to claim that other guys, and we get the draft pick for him, and
then to repeat that again next year with Joshua Baez, I think that'd be, it's definitely
crossed his mind, but it's definitely not a major factor.
Yeah, and we know that this year is not about wins and losses.
Of course, everybody wants to win more games than they lose, but you've heard the same
verbiage from Heimblum over and over, no short cuts, no short cuts.
We're not going to take short cuts this year.
We have a long-term goal.
We got a plan for all of these guys.
We know what we're doing, but we're not going to just skip over things just because it's
going to appease a certain portion of the fan base, or because so and so had a good two
weeks of baseball.
Like, they're just not going to overreact the stuff, just the same way that they're probably
not overreacting to some of the guys who are struggling so far this spring.
They're not going to overreact with what Joshua Baez.
They're happy about it.
They love it, and everybody's happy about it, but I think the smart move, and you agree,
is that he needs to go down to Memphis and continue his journey to get to the Major League's
full time, because when you do bring him up, you're hopeful that you bring him up for
good, and that's the last time you ever have to worry about that.
So quick, starting left fielder for the Cardinals on opening day, who you think it's going
to be, and who you want it to be, if Newt is out.
We're going to say Newt's out.
Who do you think it'll be there on the 26th?
I think it'll be Nathan Church.
There's been a lot of chatter about them throughout campus, and the beat reporters
have seen his name cover on the lot.
He's got a lot of tools, as speed is there, as defense has been really good throughout
his career.
And he seems to be hitting.
You mentioned the 80-80 LPS, once again, spring training, take that for its worth.
But the fact that he is showing that he has a competent bat is nice.
So I'll just assume they'll go with Nathan Church, who I want would be Thomas J.C., just
to see if he can adapt into that Brendan Nott of it, or Tommy had been role as the Supreme
Toyota guy.
Yeah.
And I think he's going to get his looks.
If I were to pick what I think the bench is going to kind of be like right now, I think
you're going to see like a church to J.C., for me an imposo type of set up there on the
bench.
You know, some guys who have the ability to go to multiple places, utility type of roles
with for me and to J.C., you got Poso, who can be that third-toucher D.H., little first
base, the right-handed bat there coming off the bench.
And then you got church.
He's got the defense, the speed.
And then when Newt's back, he's a guy that can still come off the bench and take over
for Jordan Walker in the right field if you want to, but him and Victor Scott, running
around out there together, I kind of like that, you know, if that's something I'm excited
about that I got those guys roaming around out there and chasing fly balls down.
Coming up next, we're going to discuss the games from Monday, which included another
strong start from Matthew Libertor.
He's been pretty impressive.
We'll talk about all of it coming up next on Lockdown Cardinals.
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Thomas Govane from Redbird Ranch.com is with us today.
Let's get into the games on Monday real quick, because we had our one and only sports
squad scheduled, I believe, that's the only one that they're doing this spring.
One half was at Roger Dean to face Baltimore, the other half was on the road to face the Astros.
One team got the W-7-2 away team lost 10-3.
Let's start with what we saw from Matthew Libertor, because this was the game that was
actually televised, so we got to watch it, which was lovely, better to have these games
on TV than no offense to the radio side of things, but visual is always going to win.
But he had another nice day, Thomas, five innings, two runs, five fits, seven k's, the
spring year array, now at 2.70.
What are some things that you've noticed about Matthew Libertor that you like and has
led to his success this spring?
Especially this most recent start, it's about his change up.
He was locating it away and down against Ridesden, Thoret against lefties, obviously, but
his change up location has been exceptional.
He's never going to have that blowaway velocity of the 97 and the 98 that we see from Aces.
Most typically in staffs, but he's got the deeper repertoire, he's got the control,
he's got the command, his location has always been pretty strong.
And I think we've seen something different from him this spring, just from a personality
perspective too.
The Cardinals pushed him out on their nest on YouTube, they've had him more as a front-facing
guy.
I think that they're really trying to make him the face of the rotation.
That's not to say that he's going to be a top-temperature baseball next year, but he could
be very well the leader of the Cardinals rotation for this year, maybe even next year as well.
And with that, I'm a big believer in body language when I'm watching athletes
out there on the field, and boy, does he look confident?
It doesn't look like he's searching or questioning what's going on with his mechanics or what
he's going to throw.
He's in bulldog mode out there so far this spring where he's like, I know what I'm doing
and let's go.
And he's attacking hitters and he's filling up the zone.
I've been super impressed.
This looks like a totally different guy than we saw last year who was for the first time
in his career at the Major League level was a full-time starter, remember?
And it was like kind of late in spring and they're like, yeah, he's going to the rotation.
And I don't know if he ever got fully comfortable being there, but he knew that that was going
to be his role coming into the season and he just looks like he's in command and knows
exactly what he wants to do and how he wants to do it.
So I've been thoroughly impressed with Matthew Libertor so far this spring, which is great
news for the Cardinals moving forward.
Open-wise, very good against Baltimore's Matt Fonson and Ryan Fernandez, Chris Roy
Kroff, George Soriano, they all threw up zeros.
Fernandez, the guy that I've kicked around in the show a couple of times for good reason
because he hasn't been very good at that really rough start in the first experience of the
spring.
But since then, Ryan Fernandez has been pretty good.
You know, more like the guy we saw in 2024 hasn't given up a run since.
He's walked a couple guys here and there, but you know, we'll get by the fact that he hasn't
been getting knocked around the park.
Positive.
Fonson 2Ks, Fernandez 2Ks, our buddy, Chris Roy Kroff, another guy that we like to use
as a punching bag on this show from time to time still has not given up a run yet in
the spring.
So good for him.
And then Soriano strikes out too.
He still hasn't given up a run.
So competition in the bullpen has been very impressive, I think, so far.
Would you agree?
I do.
Yeah.
The right-handed depth is crazy.
And it's not like superstar ride, how's the right-handed depth?
But you go from my little Brian, Sonson, Stannick, Pusher, Soriano, Grasepho, Tink Hens, who
was just optioned as a choice too, Chris Roy Kroff, Ryan Fernandez.
There's so much right-handed relief depth, which is nice as you go through the season.
These guys can be plucked, moved up and down for an extra day off, some rest, whatever
they need.
Yeah.
And you know, we always got to be ready for the injury possibility, you know, we always
talk about last year where the Cardinals were basically unscathed last year.
You know, John King was the only dude that really had any injury issues, which is very bizarre.
That does not happen normally.
And one of the things that Heimblum targeted was like, do we need pitching depth?
Because that's probably not going to happen again.
Rotation, bullpen depth.
And that's something that I think so far, we've seen that they've got that available,
at least so far here in the spring.
You'll see when they really start mattering in March, or later in March, how that affects
things when they have to face all big league hitters, but that's later on down the road.
Offensively, our buddy, JJ Weatherholz, another solid day, Opotaka home run, which is always
cool to see his power to the opposite field has been very impressive ever since he's become
a professional.
His second of the spring, we mentioned Baez, hit his third.
Chase Davis though.
Thomas.
Two taters.
Drove in three.
Nice to see the former first round pick put in bat on ball because that's really, then
his biggest problem.
The strikeouts were really, really high.
They are this spring again.
I think he leads the team with nine of them, but you see the gap she can do and how he can
be a dangerous hitter when he's putting the ball in play.
Absolutely.
The two home runs yesterday was huge for him.
I'd love to see more walks, especially after last year with the strikeout right the way
it was.
Spring training.
That's fine.
It feels like a guy who I would have wanted to see a heavy focus on the walks.
He's got this slug.
He's always pretty much had that.
I don't think there's a more beautiful swing in the Cardinals camp than it is as well, but
I'd like to see a focus now on the walks for him these next couple of weeks.
He will probably get sent out a majorly camp very soon once they make the next round of
cuts, but if he can start showing some advancements in his play to pro, play to discipline in
a approach, I think that'd be huge for him.
Yeah.
He's another guy that has a made it to Memphis.
He had, he was part of the Springfield team last year was a major part of the winning
that they did at Springfield and you mentioned that swing and we're always going to have our
eyes are always going to be towards the lefties and how pretty their swings can be him and
Colton lead better have been the two swings that I'm like, and I've been calling him Colton
lead butter because his swing is like butter, Thomas, very impressive stuff.
So it was nice to see Chase Davis putting him on the board last night or yesterday I should
say.
Now, against Houston, let's jump over to the other game we had Richard Fitz getting
his second start.
The first one went really, really well.
Everybody was like, all right, put him in the rotation.
He's God's gift of pitching.
And then yesterday he got roughed up a little bit, two and two thirds innings.
He started off really nice in the game, but then two and two thirds innings.
He allows four runs on six hits, one dinger strikes out three.
He still be low wise, pop a 97, which obviously is going to open up some eyes, but what have
been your impressions of Richard Fitz so far?
And do you think he should be in this rotation?
You know, I know that obviously we're a few weeks away from picking all of that, but do
you think he deserves a shot to be in that rotation over, say Andre Palante at this point?
I was about to say his name if you didn't, but I would imagine Fitz starts in triple
play.
Just to work out some of those kinks.
His名lo is there.
It looks like that's going to hold over these last couple of starts as he continues into
the regular season.
His location could use some work.
He needs a little bit more of a touch against left handed batters.
I would suspect they put him in triple play just to get these kinks out.
And then, I mean, honestly, fantastic depth.
If you've got a call on the guy for an injury or if after the month of May, you still
see Kyle Leahy or Andre Palante struggling to have Richard Fitz ready to go, I'm perfectly
fine with that.
It's much better than what we've seen the last three years as far as backup goes.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Having him and Hunter Davins, who was on his way back from the knee injury quit Matthews
too.
You got him.
Yeah.
So there, there's again, we're talking about depth at Heimblum has gotten the Cardinals
where when things go sideways, you don't have to watch a guy continue to struggle over
and over and over and give credit to Andre Palante hasn't had a bad spring whatsoever.
And, you know, if he earns that spot, then, then so be it.
Like, and I keep telling people, don't freak out just because of the opening day roster.
I was like, this thing is fluid.
All season like people are going to go up and down and people are going to get hurt.
So don't just freak out over who the people are just on opening day.
All right.
There's plenty of time for things to change that have been left to Andrew Zimmerman had
a rough day.
Last year day, he only lasted an inning and a 30, a lot of five runs on six pitch.
And that's when, you know, the game kind of got really out of control against the Astros
offensively.
Nathan Church, one for two with the walk Nelson Velasquez, two for three with an RBI.
Jordan Walker was one for four, but also struck out three times.
So not a ton of brag about in this one as far as the offense who did work seven walks,
but they also struck out 13 times.
So any other takeaways from that particular game that you want to, you want to hit on?
Uh, Gorman and Walker, please, but I think we're just amazing though.
Yeah.
There we go.
We're about to jump into a new segment.
And it's because I've been watching for whatever reason, Thomas.
I've been watching more WWE wrestling on YouTube and on Netflix and the macho man kept
popping up.
And I'm, I was like, oh, yeah.
And I was like, ooh, that sounds like a segment.
So the oh, yeah, as an uh-ohs of spring training so far, that is our next segment.
We'll get into with Thomas Govane from reberdrands.com, unlocked on Cardinals.
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Thanks again for making lots on Carlos.
Your first listen of the day.
Thank you for making a lockdown.
The number one sports podcast network, Thomas Govain from RedBirdRants.com is with us.
The OES and the O's first off.
Do you have a Macho Man Randy Savage impersonation, Thomas?
This is important.
You're still on mute.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
During the commercial break.
Thank you.
Thank you me out.
I was like, oh my gosh.
Oh no.
It doesn't happen.
No, that's mine.
No, that's mine.
I try to, there's sounds in the background during the commercials.
I wanted to be all, you know, professional.
Right?
That's what we're doing here.
It's all good.
No, I do not.
I do not watch WWE.
So that's, yeah.
I'm sorry.
Oh.
Yeah.
You can't give me that.
I cannot.
No, it's going to be clipped.
And I'm going to, you know, someone's going to quit it.
I know you can give me some OES and O's from camp so far.
So I'll let you decide what path you want to start on.
You want to go with the OES, which is the good stuff or do you want to go with the O's?
I'm starting to hear myself and I sound more like the Kool-Aid man than I do.
Yeah, there you go.
I'm just putting that out there.
But which path do you want to go to?
I'll start with the No Yeah and I'll start with the Enfield.
I'll give it to Alex Burlson right away.
He's got 294, 294, 455, 471, slash line, a home run to his name.
He's just producing the way that we needed him to in spring.
He's, I feel like he's kind of flown under the radar, like you've heard all the prospect
names.
You've heard a lot of focus on the pictures, rightly so.
But Burlis just out there doing his job exactly what we need him to do right now in spring.
Yeah, I, because we do a locked on top 100 list and nobody from the Cardinals made the
list.
Which was sad, but it wasn't totally unexpected.
But I'm like, there's a silver slugger guy on the, in the, in this lineup that you'd
every day.
And he's finally got a position he can call home and just gets no love whatsoever.
So completely under the radar coming into 2026 and hopefully Burlis will open up some
eyes and we'll get a little bit more attention this year.
All right.
Who else you got?
Oh, Josh Baez, but he's, he's an obvious candidate there as well.
I'll, I'll also go.
I don't know.
Okay.
So I'm trying to build up some good move here.
We'll go to Al Pozo.
Why not?
Hey.
Let's, let's get me on block here 1141 or 1143 LPS.
He has not struck out yet.
He's got his three walks.
So his plate discipline is there.
He came into camp.
Everybody's been saying he's looking fit.
Looking better than he ever has.
I know you always hear that.
But like for him, where he's going to be flexing around first base, I would be surprised
if we see an outfield game or two thrown in there as well.
I've been impressed with, with Joel Al Pozo's makeup this spring.
Yeah.
Coming in camp, 30 down, 30 pounds down, looking light, looking fit.
And, you know, and he's one of those guys too, the clubhouse loves, you know, he's an
energy guy that everybody feeds off of.
So you can totally see just by doing what he's done offensively, but why they want him
around and, you know, it appears that he's going to make that opening day roster after
Jimmy Crookes got pushed down.
And I'll bring up JJ Weatherholt, you know, obviously we're expecting big things out
of JJ.
Hot start, cooled off a little bit, hits the dinger on Monday and, you know, it's second
basis, his job and a chance to win the NL rookie of the year coming up in 2026.
And I want to give some love to just the pitching overall.
Yeah.
See some wacky scores so far this spring.
A lot of it's out west, but you've seen some wacky scores.
And for the Cardinals pitching staff to, and I know it's spring, and you're not supposed
to get overly excited, but I can't help but feel positive about what we've seen at Camp
So Far from the guys that are supposed to be competing for spots.
You know, you're going to see the minor league or struggle here and there, but for the
most part, it's been pretty impressive what the rotation and these both the norms have
been able to do.
All right, let's switch it up and go to the, uh oh, who are some guys that you're worried
about that you've seen at Camp So Far and you're like, buddy, you better pick it up.
I was going to go with Gorman as like the big, uh oh, I don't know if it's as big as we
might be thinking.
He's got three walks and three strikeouts, which is, it's good to see his slugging percentages
for a nine, which I'll take out of him.
I'd love another home runner to maybe at some point, but it's not that bad.
I think what we're seeing from him is similar what we saw from June to August last year, where
he focused more on the on base and the approach, not necessarily the batting average.
I mean, he's hitting 136, which is pretty, uh, gizmo, but he's still got those three walks
in there that helps his OVP a little bit.
It's only 240.
You need a 300s there.
But I think Gorman struggles might be a little bit overblown when looking at at the underneath
stuff.
Yeah, I haven't been totally upset with him when I, when I have seen him in game action.
He's looked pretty good over a third base too, which is, yeah, that's the other thing
he's going to be at his, you know, ultimate power.
He's low average high, high power and obviously the strikeouts are going to come, but you just
want that OVP.
You want him to be all the walk?
I always compare him to, to Max Muncie from the Dodgers.
That's kind of style.
I need him to be, you know, I'm not expecting him to hit 250.
I'm expecting him to sit around 225.
I need OVP and I need the, the danger ability of his power.
So we'll see if that comes from fruition this year.
You mentioned Jordan Walker.
I know you got something you want to get out for chest about Jordan and when he's done
so far.
So let him have it, Thomas.
What's up with J.D.
Good hit, man.
I mean, this, I mean, this is his hero.
He needs to show that he could hit baseball, especially high fastballs and breaking balls
down in a way and he is currently hitting 217-282-17.
No extra base hits for 97 OPS, eight strikeouts to two walks.
I just don't know if he's seeing the baseball right now and he very well could be working
on some stuff and other areas, but you would hope that the thing he's trying to work on
in spring training is the high fastballs and breaking balls down in a way and I'm not
sure if he's making those adjustments yet.
He's got the time and he's got 23 at bats.
He's new the top of the team in that bat, so at least.
Yeah, they're not hiding him by any means.
One thing I saw the great birdie, Nicholas, who I used to read, he posted a spatch growing
up and obviously still covers the cardinals in a number of different ways.
But he had a stats and I'm trying to remember where he put it.
I know it was on X, but I don't know.
He was talking about the ground ball rates and stuff of Jordan Walker so far this spring
and it's like 60%.
Yeah, here it is.
This is a tweet.
32% strikeout rate and according to fan graphs, 80% of his batty balls in play are ground
balls or infield pops up, pop ups, ground ball rate at 60%.
I mean, none of this is what we were hoping to see this spring after hearing about all
the hard work he put into the off season.
We're still rooting for Jordan Walker again.
You can't overreact to all the good things and then overreact all the bad things either.
So you got to kind of say even keel, but certainly we're hoping for more from Walker and another
name I'll put out there is Victor Scott, I wanted to see more from him.
He had another stolen base on Monday, so he's got three of this spring, but six strikeouts.
The walks are there.
He's got four of those, but we just need him to be on base more so we can be that weapon
as the stolen base machine that we know that he's capable of being.
Any other O's that you're worried about this spring or is that really kind of wrap it
up for you?
That's pretty much it.
On the heading side, I think you touched well on the pitchers.
The ones we needed to see have performed pretty well.
I think if Matt Pusherd is one of those back end right hand or the deep in the bullpen
guys, I think I'd like to see a little bit more out of him, but once again, it's only
through him three things.
So it's getting some time.
Yeah.
All right, guys.
Well, let us know in the comments section who are some of your Oyas and O's that you've
been impressed with at camp so far, and which ones are you disappointed in?
But yeah, the the Gorman Walker Victor Scath is kind of the three guys that you know,
you're really hoping to see production from in the spring just to give you some good vibes
going into the season.
They're going to be on the team.
It's not that they're not going to be, but you're just hoping that there'd be some positive
stuff going, some positive juju heading into opening day and so far it's been it's been
limited at best.
I think that's the nicest way to say it.
So, but yeah, let us know in the comments section your thoughts on this stuff.
Thomas, anything you're working on for RedburnRants.com that our listeners should be aware of.
Little by little, I'm shipping away at ranking our nine starting pitching options for next
year.
I might take me a couple days, but then otherwise just some news and notes that I come up
with throughout the week.
All right.
Well, give Thomas a follow at Thomas Govane on X and obviously go read his work at RedburnRants.com.
Thank you guys for making locked-on-carnels.
First listen every day.
If you haven't already, give us a follow as well on X at L on her score, Cardinals and
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Make your second-lost in locked-on and it will be with Sully.
Thomas, always great.
Catch it up with your brother and thanks for hanging out with us here today.
Absolutely.
Thank you for having me.
You guys are the best fans of baseball for a reason.
We'll see you next time on Locked-on-Carnels.
Yeah.

Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals

Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals

Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals
