Tom Ackerman joins from Spring Training, and Felicette the space cat!- h4

That's 405 on DGS.

Got Rachel Simmerman, Andrew Stolls, Kevin Wheeler with you in studio.

And obviously Dave Glover is down in Jupiter, which is where my buddy Tom Ackerman is.

Tom, I know you have fun when you're down there.

But you're down there working.

Dave is down there fun and we appreciate you, buddy.

How you doing?

Hey, any time, man, I am on 95.

Oh, no, what's that?

I said, oh, no, that's the worst part about being down there is I 90.

Yeah, well, you're from here.

You want to pull down there.

So I was going to say I'm on 95.

I'm looking at Northbound 95 as I travel southbound and get off here.

Donald Ross, bro, drop off my buddy.

Stephanie Carey at the ballpark.

And going north on 95 is bumper to bumper.

Yeah, we are just flying free here at a town and head back into Jupiter.

Nice, nice.

Well, obviously, you know, the game today was important seeing Lucy.

I don't know that there's anything overly good or bad to get excited about today.

But if there's anything you thought stood out, feel free to throw it out there.

It was an ugly game.

And they had a BDRC lineup about there because they played split squad games and they're,

you know, resting some guys.

They put some guys out there back to back days, like Chase Davis, he had three whiffs.

I'll tell you the highlights, definitely Nelson Velasquez, and he had an absolute tape

measure shot in the first inning.

And that put the Cardinals up and nothing, but that's the last time they scored a run.

They had one run on three hits.

You know, the other disappointing thing was Riley O'Brien, and he'll brush it off, but

he was just off today.

I was not down in the clubhouse to ask him what happened, but he walked for through

a wild pitch, tough day for him.

Otherwise, you know, they played a ball, get him in Porte, Lucy, they got through it.

Velasquez hit a home run, Vic had a double, Victor Scott also walked and got on base, got

caught stealing.

You know, he was the lead off guy, they're trying to get him going here, get some offense

going.

This is going to be all about over these next two weeks.

The battle in the outfield is definitely something to watch.

And certainly what this rotation ends up being, is it a five man six man rotation?

What's the bullpen look like?

There's some really intriguing things to follow here the last couple weeks.

Yeah, I would agree.

In fact, let's stick with Velasquez for a second, Tom, because, you know, you mentioned

that outfield being up for grabs.

I think, I think it's going to, I don't think we're going to see a change with Walker

and Scott before opening day.

I would think they're going to have to play their way out of the lineup in the regular

season, not in spring, but left field open while newt is out.

We talked about Nathan Church yesterday.

Boy, and I know they're going to have a right handed compliment for those guys for Scott

and for church.

So JC would be an option.

Obviously for me has played left and center so far.

But boy, Velasquez is that big right handed power bat.

He's not going to play center.

That's not really what he's built for.

But that's an interesting guy.

Do you get the sense since you've been down there that that's a realistic possibility?

Because it does.

It's an interesting bench that isn't going to be made less complicated if you're keeping

a guy like that.

It's going to be a little more complicated if he's around.

Yes.

And I think I want to see the next couple of games, how much run they give him and how much

of a long look they give him, that'll be it.

There we go.

We got you back.

Tommy lost you for about two seconds.

Well, you know, I'm driving in this busy travel.

There's only so many so many cell phones can get signal, but anyway, I'm pulling into

the complex.

We should have some strong information from the Cardinals.

But I think that Nelson Velasquez, I don't know how much you heard me say, but I want

to see how much run he gets over the next few days.

How many times does he get trotted out there and how long of a look is it?

I think it's a realistic possibility that if Nelson Velasquez bashes home runs over

the next week, he could be playing in left field, maybe even on an opening day.

But he is definitely a right-handed bat that you could bring off the bench with some

thump and start occasionally.

You mentioned to JC, of course, really like that possibility.

I certainly like Firmin's versatility, and they played him in center field here recently.

So I think they are just taking a look at how many places they can play him and move him

around.

But Nathan Church is the guy that pops for me.

He played center field.

We talked about this yesterday.

He's got that big cannon.

He can play, you know, multiple positions in the outfield.

I think he's going to be on the team as an outfielder, whether he's starting an opening

day, I don't know.

But I get to vibe from him that he has not officially made the team yet, but you can pretty

much pencil there.

Yeah.

I would think so when you're given, when you're looking at the other certainties, uncertainties,

I should say it makes sense.

I mean, we know Newt's going to open the year on the injured list.

So you're going to need somebody in left field and he's a left-handed bat and a great defender.

So that's a good thing to fall back on.

But I mean, Tom, what he did last year at the double and triple A level doesn't happen

by accident.

You don't hit 330 combined at those two levels with real power.

I don't mean like 35 home or power, but he was double digits in doubles, home runs,

stolen bases.

I get 20 steals.

He might have been close to double digits and triples too.

And all of that was in less than 90 games.

Yes.

And he has, again, the ability to play multiple spots out there.

I mean, especially center field.

I mean, he's a Nathan Church is a good defensive player.

Oh my God, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, that's a combo.

You don't just toss away.

If he can hit and he can defend, he's going to play.

And I think Victor Scott needs to get the bat going.

I mean, I love Victor Scott.

I don't know that at this very moment on March 10th, he's in jeopardy of losing his job.

But he's got to get it going a little bit and show that he's been able to carry over

whatever they've shown him that he can make it work at the plate.

I mean, it just is what it is.

He laced a double late the game today.

That's good.

Hopefully that can carry in it tomorrow.

Absolutely.

All right.

So speaking of the bullpen, Tom, I mean, I think it's just a speaking of Riley O'Brien

because this brings me to a topic about the bullpen.

I'm guessing, and I've heard Ollie talk about it a little bit, so I don't think he's

going to commit to anything until you're, until you're, you know, seeing it in games.

But obviously they have a bunch of guys that can finish games in the back end of the bullpen.

Riley O'Brien finished last year in that job, kind of the guy that's going to pitch the

ninth inning.

Do you get the sense that if he's healthy and all goes well between now and opening

day that he's probably going to be in that kind of a role to begin with?

Even though I think it's fair to assume that they'll probably have three or four guys get

saves this year.

Yeah.

And, you know, the other thing is, and I don't know that again, I don't know if he said

anything about this after the game, I don't think so, but he is still eligible to pitch

for Team Korea in the WBC.

Okay.

Riley is still on the roster.

So, you know, does he end up pitching for Team Korea now that they've advanced?

Right.

And what does that mean?

It's most likely, Riley is going to be a seventh inning, maybe eighth inning set up guy

from the right side.

He's too good not to be, but I'm not putting him in as the closer.

And I think right now that leading candidate is Matt Swanson.

Beyond that, I'm looking at, I'll tell you who I really like is Ryan Stannick.

Yeah.

He's been good, hasn't he?

He throws the heck out of the ball, dude.

I mean, he has a fastball that can drop on you, low in the zone.

He throws that fastball slider combo and that same arm angle and he brings, I mean, he's

a veteran.

He's got some nasty, tough stuff, man.

That's hard to hit.

I think that I was impressed today with just going over to the left side real quick.

Backing out and ripped through an inning today in short order.

And that kind of jumped out of me because I think, you know, I've been looking at

Bruell.

Obviously, you know, you look from the left hand side, it's JoJo were narrow leading

the way.

By the way, JoJo is a decent, closer candidate in the middle of the world.

Yeah, I bet he gets some saves, but you know, when you have one real known commodity

as a lefty, you probably need him for whenever it's necessary.

Yeah.

And backing out and, you know, the real estate agent, I mean, he just made himself visible

today.

I thought and that's, that's nice.

So there's some good competition here.

The challenge, of course, is finding innings for everybody and making sure that you get

everybody out there.

Let's just cross their fingers that you have nice weather every day.

You can play games every day and everything goes as scheduled and you can get innings

for everyone.

But it's going to be fun.

I think that the bullpen is actually a strength of this team.

I don't want to go so far yet to say that the rotation is.

I think the rotation is better and the rotation is really good.

They don't get me wrong down here, but let's just, you know, I want to hold the horses

here a little bit until we see them in the first month of the season facing the best

of the best every single time.

But I think the bullpen's got a chance to be decent.

Yeah.

I agree.

In fact, Bernie and I were talking about the rotation yesterday, Tom, on, on Red Bull

Rush hour.

We're, we both agree with you.

We think that the rotation will be better than it was last year, in part because of how badly

Fettie and Michael has struggled for a lot of the year and how badly Palante struggled.

But if Palante doesn't get better, they have options where last year they didn't.

And when's the last time the Cardinals had a starting pitcher throw in 97, 98 consistently

like Dustin May and Richard Fitts have so far?

That's no while.

Yeah.

I mean, was it Carlos?

Like, and that young Carlos was doing that probably like more veteran Carlos was probably

more like 94 95, but yeah, young Carlos was in the 98 range for sure.

Yeah.

And he was right.

I mean, he or young Carlos, I'm not mistaken, could rise that thing up to 100.

He did as a reliever.

He for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, but consistently as a starter, sure, upper 90s.

Yeah, the big redheads going tomorrow.

I'm going to have that game.

Yeah, that's your guy.

We're going to have him tomorrow against the Nationals down in West Palm.

So that would be my first time seeing him as a Cardinal.

So I'm really looking forward to that.

And yeah, I think the rotation is good.

I mean, Matthew Libertor has not been officially announced as the opening day starter, but

that's what he's going to be.

Yeah, say it's all lined up for that.

Yeah.

You know, you're looking at McGreevy and whatever order may McGreevy.

I think fits and Kyle Leahy, who through four perfect dennings is going to have a say here.

But if you go to a six man rotation, you put Palante in there.

Palante was good on Sunday.

Yeah.

And, you know, you want to, he has this, he just, he seems different to me.

He has a very good attitude about what he's doing.

I think he feels really good about, he has a wide assortment of pitches that he can

get people out.

He's tough on lefties.

We know that, which is good for a right-hander to find some of those trick pitches that he

can get out on.

But mostly he told me with lefties, it's his fastball that he can get, he can get, you

know, down and in and stuff.

But we'll see, we'll see where it goes.

I'm bullish on the rotation.

I just want to not get too far ahead of my shirt on them.

Yeah, I mean, look, it's going to be, it's going to be, to me anyway, and again, we'll

just close on this time and, and it's kind of peeking ahead to April.

To me, at least early in the year, assuming, you know, relative health, because we know

injuries will come up, but just like relatively good health.

The pitching side feels a lot more stable than the offensive side, and it's going to be

a lot of low scoring games, at least early, until we see if Victor Scott and Jordan

Walker can make significant improvements, I think you need maybe more moderate improvement

from Nolan Garmin, because for as much as we worry about what he hasn't done, he's been

a league average hitter as a major leagueer, and that's playable.

But this team needs him to be more than that moving forward.

But I think he's a little bit more of a sure thing than the others.

But boy, you know, with Pahase, when he plays, they're going to be days where the line-ups

not going to be that great.

They're going to need the pitching to be pretty decent.

Absolutely, you know, Stefan and I just dropped him off at the ballpark during our conversation.

He's not in the car now, but we were, you know, just to kill time, he said, okay, give

me your starting line-up, but opening day.

And I said, you want line-up or you want batting order?

He goes batting order.

So, leading off in playing second base, J.J.

Weatherall.

Amen.

Batting second and playing shortstop, Mason win.

Batting third and playing first base, Alec Borosin, and he was right here with me the

whole time.

Batting fourth, the designated hitter, Ivana Rera, he goes on with you all the way.

I said batting fifth, and I paused, and he goes, say it, I know you want to say it, you

got to say it.

And I said, playing third base, he goes, yep, I said, Nolan Gorman.

Yeah.

And he has to be, I mean, he has to be, he's got to deliver this year, and the number five

hitter has got to break in big situations and has to be able to drive in runs, and hopefully

that's the case.

This is the year for Nolan Gorman, it's also the year for Jordan Walker, but Nolan Gorman

is a good hitter and has got to show it, he can be.

Looking forward to it, buddy.

Have a good night down there.

We'll talk to you soon.

Thank you.

See you later.

We're not.

I teach us on a Tuesday, Rachel Andrew Kevin Hanging out, they blow her down and Jupiter

back on Monday of next week.

Rachel got something.

I want to talk about this cat that went to space in the 60s.

Oh, in the 60s, I was like, I didn't know a cat went to space recently.

Yeah, I just learned about this on Twitter last night.

The cat's name is Philly Shet.

Okay.

And she's French.

All right.

We launched into space on the 18th of October, 1963 as part of the French space program,

and she was chosen for the mission because she was so calm and resilient, which, you know,

cats can get a little nervous.

So a calm cat would be key when it comes to being shot into space, I would think.

She weighed just five and a half pounds, so she was a tiny little thing.

And she was the first and only cat to travel to space.

So props.

Yeah.

But her story is actually really tragic.

I hate to know I figured it would be none of them are like this, but just two months after

her mission, which was successful, they euthanized her so they could study the effects of space

travel on her body.

Yeah.

This, of course, yielded little scientific insight.

So they killed her for no reason, horrible.

But they did do a statue for her in 2019, and it depicts her gazing towards the stars.

She's probably probably thinking, don't send me out there.

It's so terrible.

Justice for fully shed.

Yeah.

That's brutal.

Poor kitty cat.