Latest / The Philadelphia Sports Table | Philly Sports News & Views / OPPOSITION TERRITORY: St. Louis Cardinals

Transcript

OPPOSITION TERRITORY: St. Louis Cardinals · The Philadelphia Sports Table | Philly Sports News & Views

0:00
Hey there, everybody, it's Jeff. We wanted to let you know we
0:03
recorded this podcast episode on Tuesday, April sixteenth, twenty twenty four. By
0:07
the time you hear this, some things may have changed here or there,
0:10
but we hope you enjoy the show. All right, folks, welcome to
0:29
Opposition Territory here at the Philadelphia Sports Table podcast show, the longest running weekly
0:33
Philly sports podcast show in the world. That's right, eleven years strong.
0:37
This week, longtime listeners, we appreciate you. If you're new to the
0:41
show, we appreciate you as well. Our Opposition Territory show here we focus
0:46
on a team outside the world of Philly sports, and this week we got
0:50
a great conversation and discussion coming your way. We're gonna be getting into the
0:53
Saint Louis Cardinals, actually the first time we've been talking about the Cardinals here
0:57
on Opposition Territory. So why don't we just get to that conversation right now.
1:00
And it is great to have on the show for the first time.
1:03
Coming to us from Viva Elbertos dot com. Yes, you know we love
1:07
our spdation sites. Here at the PSD podcast show, he covers Saint Louis
1:12
Cardinals, and quite frankly, it's the first time we are getting into the
1:15
Cardinals on our opposition territory podcast platform here. It is great to have Blake
1:22
Newberry with us. Blake Man, thanks for jumping on this week. Yeah,
1:25
thanks for having me on. It's always fun to talk baseball. I
1:27
know you do some other Cardinals writing as well out there. Tell folks where
1:32
they can find you on the interwebs. Yes, so you can find me
1:34
at Viva Albertos. Do a lot of work there, put two articles out
1:38
a week there, and then I do some writing for the Cardinal Nation dot
1:42
com, which is more of a minor leagu oorient in site where I do
1:44
a weekly podcast with the site creator and owner of Brian Walton, and cover
1:49
the draft and do the prospect rankings over there every year. Awesome, sounds
1:52
good. I do say. We love our espidation sites, and we have
1:55
for the eleven years we've been doing this podcast. But I gotta say I've
1:57
been all upset with sp Nation with the podcast stuff come out this past week.
2:01
I thought, I think a lot of folks are a little upset about
2:04
that. Yeah, definitely not great, not great at all. Not great
2:07
at all. But I'll tell you, I want to get into this Saint
2:12
Louis Cardinals team with you because you know, they're a team that, of
2:15
course I have always been following as a Philadelphia Phillies fan. It just seems
2:20
like there's this, you know, this kind of back and forth at times
2:23
when it comes to Cardinals fans, when it comes to Phillies fans, and
2:27
I thought it'd be really interesting to have this discussion with you, Blake.
2:30
And as of us recording this, the Cardinals they're at the bottom of the
2:34
Central Division, you know, they're below five hundred again as of us recording
2:38
this here on April sixteenth, and I'm wanting to kind of get our conversations
2:42
started here about you know, what the realistic expectations were for this team coming
2:46
into this season, and how the Cardinals fan base is feeling now that we're
2:52
here in mid April and there's still a lot of baseball left to play,
2:54
for sure. I mean, we've seen a lot of overreactions in Phillies Nation
2:59
in terms of where the Philly's team is that I'm wondering how are things within
3:02
Cardinals Nation and how folks are feeling there. I mean, within Cardinals Nation.
3:07
They're someone I would call overreactions, but there's definitely a lot of activity,
3:12
And I mean, to be fair, this is a team that won
3:14
seventy one games last year and is currently sitting in the bottom of the Anal
3:16
Central, So like I can understand where the negativity comes from. I think,
3:20
you know, a lot of people were hoping the Cardinals would do maybe
3:23
a little bit more in the off season than they did. Having to basically
3:25
overhaul their entire starting rotation. They decided to bring in Sonny Gray, which
3:30
was great, but then two kind of back end guys and Lancet. I
3:32
think how Gibson. I think a lot of fans probably being included, we're
3:36
hoping to see Sonny Gray and maybe somebody a little bit better than the other
3:39
two options they brought in. Kind of limited the upside there a little bit.
3:43
So I think that kind of brought the expectations down a tier coming into
3:47
the year, probably looking at a low eighties, maybe pushing mid to upper
3:52
eighties win team this year, which to be fair, in the now,
3:54
Central could win the division, yeah, because Central is not that strong,
3:59
although it's just going to be competitive. Yeah, So I think coming into
4:01
the season, I was expecting the Cardinals, but just from basically a projection
4:04
standpoint, fiftieth percentile outcome to be the best team in the division, and
4:10
that would put them right abound like eighty three eighty four wins. I personally
4:12
don't think eighty three or eighty four wins wins the division. Some team is
4:15
going to exceed their fiftieth percent chile expectation. I'm hoping selfishly as a Cardinals
4:19
fan, that it's the Cardinals, but it could very easy be the Brewers
4:21
or the Cubs or I mean even the Piers and the Reds are interesting this
4:25
year. Yeah, absolutely, you know, I think it's going to be
4:28
an interesting division to watch. And like you said, you know, I
4:30
go back to and this is years and years ago, where the Cardinals were
4:33
the team to beat. I mean, they were the team to beat out
4:36
there. But things have changed a lot, and I have a feeling that
4:39
really deals with the farm system and what's been happening in the miners, and
4:43
we're certainly going to get to that in a little bit for folks. I
4:46
guess a little teaser right there, but I wanted to talk about next as
4:48
we're moving along here about a piece that you recently wrote titled the Cardinals are
4:55
throwing fewer fastballs? And I wanted to dive into this piece that you wrote
4:59
a little bit more here, Blake, because you talked about how pitchers over
5:01
all in Major League Baseball are throwing less fastballs these days, and you also
5:05
really dove into how the Cardinals, you know, again with that whole new
5:09
pitching staff this year that you just mentioned, aren't really utilizing the fastball too
5:14
too much. I'm wondering, can you talk about this trend league wide and
5:17
why you think the Cardinals pitching staff has kind of been, you know,
5:21
moving away from fastball's usage this season. What are your thoughts? Yeah,
5:27
So, I think the fastball usage question is an interesting one and all boils
5:30
down to one simple premise, and it's the fastballs tend to perform worse than
5:34
non fastball right when you look at it across a league wide perspective. Statistically,
5:40
like, hitters put up three forty eight WILBA against fastballs, which is
5:44
basically just a way to vers upon base percentage, and against all other pitch
5:46
types it's two ninety one like every other pitch, just over a large scale
5:50
performs better than fastballs. I think teams are seeing that and starting to say,
5:55
Okay, if that's the case, why are we throwing our worst pitches
5:58
more often? Right? Teams across the league now have and this has been
6:01
a thing that's been going on for probably a decade, if not a little
6:04
bit longer, where teams have really started to dempsize the fastball, start throwing
6:08
more sliders, cutters, change ups, so whatever it is. And it's
6:12
interesting to me that the Cardinals have not followed that trend up until this year.
6:15
Pretty much for the last six years, they've been sitting right around that
6:18
fifty two to fifty four percent fastball mark. Well, the league has continually
6:21
trended lower and lower and lower, getting below fifty percent for like the last
6:26
two or three seasons. But this year that's really flipped. Whereas in twenty
6:30
twenty three, the Cardinals who the second most fastballs in the league, this
6:32
year they're at the seventeenth most. They now into the bottom half of the
6:36
league in terms of fastball usage, which is a big change, and some
6:39
of that can be associated with them bringing in new pitchers like Kyle Gibson and
6:44
Sonny Gray, who liked it those sweepers and maybe not their fastballs as much.
6:47
Well, we've still seen it with pitchers who were on the team last
6:49
year are throwing more sliders and fewer fastballs. And the slider thing is big
6:56
too, because with the Cardinals throwing fewer fastballs, they're now throwing the second
6:59
most slider in baseball. Yeah, so it's huge to just see them finally
7:03
coming around to kind of a modern style of pitching. And I think this
7:06
is something we're going to see continue happening. I think even the Red Sox
7:10
this year are sitting that like twenty or thirty percent fastball. You're seen something
7:13
absurdly love. They're just not throwing any of them. It's just amazing to
7:16
me how over the years, whether it's talking about baseball or whether it's talking
7:20
about football, basketball, hockey, soccer, whatever the case is, how
7:24
different sports evolve, and in certain ways, the evolution of pitching in Major
7:29
League Baseball it's fascinating to me. I mean, what you were just talking
7:32
about, the fact that the fastball that was meant to absolutely kill batters isn't
7:38
necessarily the type of pitch that you're thinking is going to be the killer again
7:44
for certain pitchers, and I just think it's fascinating how this particular aspect of
7:48
the game of baseball has really evolved over the years. Yeah, I agree,
7:53
and I mean I think now it's something where the ball's kind of been
7:55
the headers court now to adjust and realize that they can't just sit fastball.
7:59
You're going to have learned to hit the off spite stuff. Because when you
8:01
look at pitching strategy, typically it's you throw a fastball on the zone,
8:05
get ahead in the count, try to throw a breaking ball down in the
8:07
way out of the zone, get the hitter to chase. Now, if
8:09
you're throwing majority non fastballs, you have to be able to throw that slider
8:13
in for a strike. You have to be able to throw that curvebon for
8:16
a strike. A hitter can't just sit there and take it and get behind
8:18
in the count. He's going to have to learn how to now adjust And
8:22
maybe you see that that slider that maybe hangs on the glove side a little
8:24
bit and you turn on it. You don't just sit on it and wait
8:26
for a fastball. So it's gonna be fascinating to see what the counter reaction
8:30
is. Again, folks talking to Blake Newberry from Viva Elbertos dot com and
8:35
he's doing some good stuff over at the Cardinals Nation dot com as well.
8:39
Follow him on Twitter slash x if you are not already at BT underscore Newberry.
8:45
He is a great great follow and sticking with the pitching here as we
8:50
are moving along Jojo Romero, I gotta say, you know, it's certainly
8:54
a bright spot when it comes to the bullpen. Wish the Phillies had a
8:58
guy like Joe Romira. I wish Jojo Romero was on the Philadelphia Phillies.
9:03
But I'm wondering, Blake, like, what are some of the pros and
9:07
cons to the Cardinals bullpen so far that you have been seeing this season?
9:11
What are your thoughts here? So I think the Cardinals actually did a really
9:15
good job of rebuilding the bullpen in the off season. A lot of the
9:18
attention that was put on them by the media was surrounding the rotation, which
9:22
makes sense, it's a big part of your team. But how they built
9:24
the bullpen I think was really smart. They ended up they traded like Richie
9:26
Pelasios to the Rays for Andrew Kittridge and then got Riley O'Brien from the Mariners
9:33
for cash and signed Keenan Middleton, and they've brought in just a number of
9:35
really interesting guys without spending a lot of money on the bullpen, and it's
9:39
panned out really well. They have a lot of guys who have really good
9:43
off speed pitches who really like to emphasize them, like we've already discussed,
9:46
and I mean that has left the Cardinals bullpen. I think they're currently right
9:50
now sitting second in strikeout rate and top ten walk right like they're missing bats
9:54
and they're doing in the lay where they're not giving out free passes and that's
9:56
huge for them. And this is a I think even bigger for the Cardinals
10:01
because the rotation is a little iffy, and I think if you can maybe
10:05
let a guy go five strong innings and then pull him and not maybe let
10:09
him get hammered the third time through the order, and then bring in that
10:11
quality bullpen, it kind of helps make up for what the starting rotation might
10:16
lack. I think we're seeing some similarities when it comes to the Cardinals and
10:20
the Phillies in a lot of different ways. I mean, we've seen we've
10:22
been seeing some great stuff from the Phillies bullpen for most of this season.
10:26
Again, you know, it's an early season here in twenty twenty four,
10:31
but like like I said, I think we're seeing some similarities with regard to
10:33
the Cardinals with regard to the Phillies, because in another area in terms of
10:37
similarities, some of the bats this year have been really slow to start the
10:43
season. They certainly have in Philadelphia, and they're you know, the Cardinals,
10:48
they're slow here as well. I mean Victor Scott, he's been doing
10:52
absolutely nothing for the Cardinals really this year. Nolan Arnatto, he's been struggling.
10:58
Paul Goldschmidt, he's been having challenges this year at the plate as well.
11:03
What are you seeing with this Cardinals offense here with the bats and how
11:07
they can potentially make some alterations here in mid April perhaps to their collective approach
11:11
at the plate. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I think the Cardinals
11:16
offense has been interesting this year. In fact, it has underperformed. And
11:18
I think this is the area of the Cardinals center are probably the most confident
11:22
and heading into the year because there are just so many guys in that lineup
11:24
who have proven themselves in the past to be really good hitters, and then
11:26
we're getting into the season some games are struggling to put up two or three
11:30
runs on the board. So it's definitely something that's gonna have to change,
11:33
especially if we think that starting rotation maybe isn't gonna be as good going on
11:37
going down the stretch. Here, you're gonna have a bad rotation and an
11:39
offense that can't put up runs and support. It's a bad combination. So
11:43
I do think it will get better. There have been a lot of injuries
11:46
that have kept some key players out of the lineup. Victor Scott frankly should
11:50
never have been in the major leagues, but injuries to the starting center and
11:54
then the backup center fielder kind of just forced the Cardinal's hand a little bit
11:58
to put them up to the majors. I think it's when as Tommy Edmund
12:00
Dylan Carlson comes back off the il, Victor Scotta get sent down. So
12:05
I think even that that's not the hat on Victor Scott, and I think
12:07
he can be a really solid player in the future. Yeah, that's kind
12:09
of by some traction there, just because you're getting the weakest link out of
12:13
your lineup with Victor Scott. I mean, I think I was looking at
12:16
some batting average. Is he batten at least like one thirty at least I
12:20
don't even know. He might not even be above be hindred, he might
12:22
not be above one hundred at this point. It's so bizarre. I mean,
12:26
you look at the Philadelphia Phillies too. You're Bryce Harper's, you know,
12:30
Trey Turner's, you know Nick Castillano's, for God's sake, and these
12:33
guys are just struggling this year. There are a lot of surprise struggles at
12:37
the in the batter's box throughout Major League Baseball this year. It's really it's
12:41
really astonishing to watch. But as we're moving along with our conversation here,
12:45
Blake, you know, from various articles that I've read over time, there
12:48
seems to be some frustration with the Cardinals fan base about how they're developing prospects.
12:54
And as I mentioned earlier, really wanted to kind of get into the
12:58
farm system with you a little bit here year and the miners. I'm wondering,
13:01
what are your thoughts on how the organization as a whole has been handling
13:05
their farm system and the talent pool within the miners as they really try to
13:09
develop that next generation of talent. So yeah, I think there we can
13:13
separate this out into kind of the hitting side and the pitching side of things.
13:16
I think the Cardin's done a much better job in terms of hitting development
13:18
than they have in pitching development. That's how they put out guys like Lars
13:22
Noopar and Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker, and the list goes on of players
13:24
who have come up and have proven to be good MLB hitters. I think
13:28
there's you can maybe debate they have they call players up too early, like
13:31
Jordan Walker last year, I Beger Scott this year. I'm certainly in that
13:33
camp. That's something that could be improved. But on the whole, they're
13:37
doing a good job of developing hitting prospects. The issue that we've seen in
13:41
the past, and it looks like it's getting better this year, but in
13:43
the past is with developing pitching prospects. And it's a two pronged problem here
13:48
where they're struggling to develop them, but they're also struggling to identify the right
13:50
talent to bring into the system. So we in the draft where they're maybe
13:54
going for those kind of control artists, groundball guys, basketball tops ninety two,
14:00
and they're just not developing those high ends starting pitching because they're just not
14:03
drafting guys who have high end starting pitching quality. Yeah, so there's that's
14:07
definitely one part of it. They need to kind of reframe how they think
14:09
about who they bring into the organization. But then the other part is just
14:13
how do you actually develop them. I think there are knowledge of things like
14:16
pitch shapes and grips on pitches and you know, using your off speed stuff
14:22
more than your fastballs when you have a bad fastball, Like the understandings of
14:26
those things that lie behind the modern pitching development system that we've seen with other
14:30
teams. So I really think that's the biggest area of growth for them,
14:33
and I think we've started to see some movement in the right direction this year.
14:37
But it's definitely the weakest link. Yeah, it absolutely is. I
14:39
mean, you look at where this team has been at over the course of
14:43
these that say, maybe past five years, you know, like it's you
14:48
go back to twenty nineteen, they were first in the Central, twenty twenty
14:52
second in the Central. They were second in the Central in twenty twenty one,
14:56
first in the Central in twenty twenty two last year, and there seems
15:01
to be and look, as we've talked about before, they're at the bottom
15:03
of the Central right now at this point. But it seems to me as
15:07
though this team really needs to start developing from from the miners, a more
15:13
concise foundation perhaps for the future. Maybe they are you're more of an expert
15:18
in that realm than I am, but I think this is an organization,
15:22
a team that's been used to be in first and second within the division for
15:26
years and years and years and kind of being toward the bottom of the barrel
15:30
kind of makes it seem as though, you know, there needs to be
15:33
a greater foundation set for the future with regard to Cardinals Nation, Yeah,
15:37
I agree. I think there's definitely just some modernization that needs to happen throughout
15:41
the organization and just how they look at prospects. And I think it's when
15:43
you look at how the Cardinals handle this offseason where they had to go invest
15:46
over twenty to twenty five million dollars and guys like Kyle Gibson and Lance Lnn.
15:50
Wouldn't it be nicer if you could just have prospects making MLB minimums to
15:52
come up and fill those back end spots, so you could then use that
15:56
twenty to twenty five million dollars on higher quality players. Yep. So it's
16:00
just somewhere where they kind of put themselves into the hole that they found themselves
16:03
in this offseason. Temporary solutions with with some veteran players, and hopefully now
16:08
the pitching development system and the pipeline can start to catch up a little bit
16:11
and then plug those gaps where they can actually reallgate those funds in a better
16:14
way again, folks. Talking to Blake Newberry from Viva Elbertos dot com,
16:19
Cardinals Nation dot com as well, sorry, the Cardinalsnation dot com. Find
16:23
them on the Twitter slash x at BT underscore Newberry great, great follow and
16:29
close us out here. Two part question for you, buddy, wondering what
16:33
is the biggest challenge of this coming season for this Cardinals team? And then
16:37
I'm gonna ask you on the opposite side of things then where you have no
16:41
fears at all in terms of this team, So what's the biggest challenge this
16:45
season? I think the biggest challenge this season is just pitching well enough to
16:51
actually win the division and We've talked about the rotation a lot in the podcast,
16:55
and it's also just health too, because guys like Stephen Matt's extent of
16:59
injury. Sonny Gray was healthy all of last year, but he has a
17:02
pretty checkered injury history in the past. Like, if guy's like Sonny Grand
17:04
Stephen Mats will have been the two best starting pitchers on the team so far
17:07
in the early going and might be over the course of the full season get
17:11
hurt, there's just not enough firepower left on the rotation for it to actually
17:14
be a solid a solid group going forward. So it's health and performance.
17:18
So there's two kind of warning flags there, which which make me a little
17:22
bit nervous about it going forward. But we'll see how it goes. On
17:26
the flip side of things, like where do you have no fears at all
17:29
when it comes to this team, where you're like, Okay, we're set,
17:30
we're set, we don't have to worry about this. Yeah. So,
17:33
weirdly enough, I'm going to say the lineup of all things because and
17:37
now this is where it matters though, because I do think the Cardinal is
17:41
going to have a top ten lineup, But if they're sitting closer to tenth
17:45
and not closer to like third, that that might be the difference between them
17:48
making the playoffs and not making the playoffs, because if that pitching is not
17:52
good, they need that offense to be elite. If it's just good,
17:55
that's a problem. So I have full faith in the fact that it will
17:57
be good and the hitters like Paul Goldschmian Will we Naos already started the rebound.
18:02
I think that'll happen once the lineup gets healthier. There's a lot of
18:04
good hitters in there. We just need that lineup to be better than good
18:07
again, folks. Blake Newberry from Viva Elbertos dot com, Great SB Nation
18:12
site, Blake, Buddy, it was great talking to you. I loved
18:15
having you on the podcast for the very first time. I hope that you'll
18:18
be able to come back and join us down the road, my friend.
18:21
Yeah, thanks man, absolutely, it was. It was great talking it
18:22
over with you. Look, this Cardinals team always appears to be a team
18:27
to be reckoned with in some way, shape or form, especially when they're
18:30
playing the Philadelphia Phillies quite frankly, so it's gonna be interesting to see where
18:33
this team goes I thought what Blake said about you know, whether or not
18:37
this team can be a top ten batting team. You know, whether they're
18:42
maybe towards the ten spot there, you know, can determine whether or not
18:48
this is gonna be a playoff and postseason team. You know, if they're
18:51
up towards the three area, then you know what they're gonna be. They're
18:55
gonna be a pretty darn good team. So gonna keep tabs on what is
18:57
going on with the Cardinals from here on out, as we do with all
19:02
Major League Baseball teams here at the PSD Podcast Show. And again we appreciate
19:07
you listening, longtime listeners here man eleven years that we have been doing this
19:11
podcast show. Amazing time certainly flies. So if you are on the Twitter
19:18
slash x at Philadelphia PST is where you can follow the show. You can
19:21
follow me at Jeffrey Underscore Warren. I am over on threads as well at
19:26
mister jeff Warren and you can also follow the show over there at Philadelphia Sports
19:30
Table. And that's going to do it for us, folks. Take care,
19:32
We'll catch you next time.