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I understand what you’re driving at ZTR, but Helsley worked 22 pitches yesterday as a result of 2 BB’s and a K after taking the baseball for the 9th with a 6 run lead…Haha!
If we can’t get to Helsley for saves, why did we keep him? He had 3 saves by game 9 last season and it’s taken 25 games this season.
Fernandez isn’t quite as bad as his start to this year, but he wasn’t exactly good the second half last year either. There’s a good chance that he’s just not an MLB late inning guy and a shot that he’s not big league quality at all after the shine wore off from early 2024.
Fernandez has been struggling for a long time, so why is he still being sent out there in high leverage situations?
Part of the reason is that they have just four reliable bullpen arms out of eight.
The #stlcards pen:
ERAs under 3.10: Leahy, Matz, Helsley, Maton.
ERAs over 6.42: King, Romero, Fernandez (and demoted Roycroft)
No reliever is in between.
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) April 23, 2025
Before last season, the Cardinals and Helsley agreed he would only be used in the 9th inning.
I think he might have been used in the 10th a couple of times last year, but I don’t believe he was used at all before the ninth.
Pity. Mikolas did his job. Got no support from his offense. And the bullpen gave it away. What’s more, there is no cavalry just over the horizon to ride in and save the season. Sigh.
Although he’s by no means a hitter that could be termed a power threat, in regards to reliabilty, you can rely on the lamb chop slider that Fernandez offered up to White to be destroyed virtually every time. Did anyone at all see that baseball leave the field of play? Warp speed is beyond the scope of my vision.
Ryan was only used more that one inning twice last year. July 5th and Sept 3rd. He was not used before the 9th in 2024. Both were in extra innings.
Marmol says to himself: “gee I’m the manager I better get busy and manage. I’m supposed to do something even though I’m not sure what that might be, so I’ll just over manage as I’ve always done because hey I’m the manager and I don’t want to be caught just in letting the chips fall as they will because then I wouldn’t be managing would I?”
ZTR, if they pair Mikolas with Pozo again, 6 shutout may happen again. Miles waltzed thru the Braves lineup 3 times and could have started the 7th vs the #8 and #9 batters.
If your priority for a catcher is get batters out, Pozo is the best I’ve seen on our 40man. Head and shoulders.
I have no idea concerning the nature of the conversations that take place inside of the whiz-kids’ coconut, but I do know that when he’s occupying a presser podium or speaking to a reporter on the record he says lots of things…I happen to think that virtually all of these statements could only be attributed to someone who would clearly be better off if they were prohibited from saying anything at all. For a long time now, I’ve maintained that if he’d just stop talking, the sweet silence from his mouth would alone be worth 2 or 3 W’s over the course of a season…
At just 5 games under, I wouldn’t have guessed that without knowing the current standings, LA. I also think it’s more than a little interesting that 4 of the 5 teams in the NLW have a W/L pct. of .600 or better. I’d have to guess that’s a little odd despite playing only a little under 1/6 of a season.
Wonder how many games under 500 they have to go before they pull the ripcord on Marmol
You likely said the same thing when they were 9 games under .500 in Mid May last season. He’s still here.
Stan Musial was a just a shade before my time as a Cardinal fan, but if you want to see something that I feel is not only interesting, but also exemplifies the genuine renown of his spectacular career, look up “all time triples leaders” on the Baseball Reference website. The great Stan the Man places at a somewhat modest #19 on the list which shows his photo along with the other top 24 players on the all time triples list. What’s interesting is the nature of the photos of the other 23 players who occupy the list. In my view, all 24 photos are worth a good long look. I don’t guess it’s any big deal, but it really seemed like a profound illustration of how great Musial was.
Edit; A look at the photos and career numbers of these players also gives the reader a genuine sense of how the game of baseball is so deeply embedded in the history of this country that we’re all fortunate enough to be able to live in and call home.
The Cardinals have made it clear that winning baseball games is not the priority. The primary goal is saving money and resetting, or rebuilding, or Whatever they are calling it, and they appear to be doing that all over the place. We must take our enjoyment from the game itself, even if that means regularly getting our butts kicked.
The big question is, can they save money by putting a poor product on the field and asking fans to pay exorbitant prices to watch butt kicking.
The primary goal is saving money and resetting, or rebuilding, or Whatever they are calling it,
Well, they failed at those two objectives during the offseason.
They could have saved another $40 million or so if they had traded players on expiring deals + Arenado, and they could have begun rebuilding by acquiring prospects for those players.
Instead they sat on their hands and complained nobody was giving them top dollar for Arenado.
This season is going exactly as their offseason dictated it would.
They have probably already built in poor attendance for this year into their financial model.
They know exactly where they stood with season ticket and then later single game ticket sales – plus the apparent reduction in TV money.
You can expect some creative marketing soon with 10-15 game ticket packages – if they haven’t already done it.
I’m sure the plan for 2026 is to roll out marketing for the NEW Cardinals with Bloom taking over and maybe – just maybe – a couple of splashy (for the Cardinals) free agent signings.
Maybe one pitcher and one batter while phasing out Mikolas and maybe Arenado.
Do they keep Fedde?
For sure this year they have to figure out which younger players they can build around and which ones they move on from.
One thing is for sure – they have fielded mostly pedestrian teams for most of the past decade and have done little to nothing (by Cardinal standards) in the post season.
They have no one to blame but themselves for the falloff in fan interest. They need to quit blaming the customers and improve their product. That is what it looks like they are in the middle of right now – the problem as I see it is that they waited about 3 years too late to recognize their internal issues.
They have probably already built in poor attendance for this year into their financial model.
Yes, that is why they cut payroll.
Do they keep Fedde?
They need to trade him for prospects.
Oh. Pittsburgh won last night. There is only one team worse than the Cardinals in the National League.
Good thing winning doesn’t matter to the front office.
Looking for something positive, I guess, it is being noted the Cards were “only” outscored by eight runs in the seven road games.
Digging deeper though, they scored 10 runs in their lone win. Two other games, they lost by one run. But in the other four games, they lost by three runs each time.
In the six losses, the offense scored a total of 16 runs, or 2 2/3 runs per game on average. The pen deserves the heat, but they had little help from the bats.
If they have given Mikolas some run support on Wednesday, there would be far less focus on him being taken out after six. Unless Bob Gibson is pitching, you aren’t going to win many games scoring one run in nine innings. And they weren’t facing Cy Young…
It was quite a road trip for #stlcards. They're outscored by eight runs in seven games, and yet go 1-6 with four losses on the bullpen.
On this site, comments whipsaw from frustration Mikolas is in rotation to frustration he's not pitching 7th inning … https://t.co/KC58VLICbj
— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) April 24, 2025
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