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well had to record game so took me some time til I could watch it. have some points. its early but fowler still looks horrible either at the plate or in the field. wacha looked fine but ponce sure didn’t. Cabrera has good stuff but needs more work. I thought gant looked fine. him and mayers are gonna get hard looks cause they are either gonna make the team or be let go, no options left. munoz still looks just as iffy at defense as always. im not a fan, I think we have better options this year. that lane kid looks pretty good in the outfield and im still really impressed by robinson. we need a good left handed option off the bench.
well pugsleyadams im not trying to be smart but they already have a lot of variations on the uniforms for specific times. they have the green hats and such to represent st patricks day, they have camo uniforms to represent military as well, pink hats and such for cancer awareness. you don’t see the cardinal in those colors either. doesn’t hurt to have different uniform variations as long as they don’t over do it. while I prefer they keep the traditional colors for the most part, it doesn’t hurt that they bring powder out of retirement. a lot of people do like that color even if some don’t.
I personally don’t mind the powder blue uniforms. I would have preferred they be a sunday home game thing rather than an away uniform. I do prefer the regular ones so wouldn’t want them to go blue the whole time. on the subject of uniforms and such. why is it that you cant find a Harrison bader shirt or jersey on the st louis store site. sure you can create one but when they already have goldy as well dejong especially, it makes zero sense.
I thought lane looked really good. the starter for the marlins looked good and I thought mikolas looked ok but lane was really sharp. now he has pitched for quite a few teams but with that being said, he could really help. a long spring to go though.
I like that the cardinals are hitting but outside of the starter, marlins pitchers have been suspect.
im very intrigued by drew robinson, I think he could definitely make this team. I don’t see him as a opening day starter but being left handed, would really help coming off bench. I also liked tommy lane. could definitely help the left side of our bullpen. the announcers spoke greatly of him and I think they generally are good judges to a certain degree. I also thought the catcher for the cardinals looked good at the plate. seems they were saying he needs more work behind plate. bad thing for him is yadi is still great and unless the team is ready to move on from him next year or he drops off a lot, he may be moving onto another team.
seems like the cardinals are getting the most benefit here. he probably would have gotten more in arbitration. plus placing the incentives based on plate appearances is wrong since he doesn’t really have control over that. but he signed the deal so that’s that.
I love Harrison bader but he has to learn how to run the bases better. sure its early but that’s not something like hitting where it takes some time to get your timing down and such. when you are the trail runner, there is no reason to get thrown out going back to the bag on a caught flyball in the outfield.
im just ready to watch some baseball. im really interested in seeing how miller responds this spring. im expecting them to move slow with him at first.
hey thanks b Walton for that information about the game being on plus. I hate it cause that means its going to be on a non hd channel but at least ill get to watch it.
b Walton, I didn’t mean to say you were complaining. I just feel you are the person putting in the effort so I feel whatever you decide is best. I haven’t been on this site during the season so I cant say how it was good or bad. its nice that you are asking for thoughts. before mlb just more less gave the finger to everyone, a lot of us were using the news feeds to communicate our thoughts on stuff during the games. I liked that. being able to watch the game and discuss it at the same time was great. its why I would prefer individual game threads. either way I cant wait, its gonna be fun being on this board for the season. im even giddy for the spring game on tv this Saturday which I usually don’t get too much into the spring games. im still not 100 percent sure the cardinals have done enough to change their fortunes but the coming of spring breeds hope.
well as usual, here we are in spring, some cardinal pitcher is having some injury problem. I definitely could see him being put in the bullpen because of it. doesn’t mean he will stay there but I see for the start of the season. I personally think the cards are over estimating their pitching strength. like with weaver last season, there no guarantee some of these young guys will be the same this season as they were last year. there are pitching aces out there, cardinals should take the dive since they obviously aren’t going for harper. they could then put wainwright in the pen where I think he could do really well.
I think you should do whatever fits for you to do. its a lot of work im sure. I would prefer individual games but I do see how having individual series threads would be easier for you. as long as it doesn’t get posted too soo, Im fine with it. theres no reason to start talking about a series down the road instead of whats currently going on but people will do it and you will just have too many threads to go through. that’s my take for what it is. as this has become my outlet for talking cardinals baseball, I thank you for what you have done as well as for what is to come.
well good for him. im not a big fan of him especially after his hustle comment but to be fair, I see a lot of guys just as lazy going to first base, maybe they weren’t as honest as he was if somebody said something about it. the padres have a decent thing going, im just not sure they have the people in charge to make it happen. I think hes chasing the money but I don’t blame him. hes taking care of himself and his family and hes getting to play the best game in the world. plus if he does help them win more, its icing on the cake. im glad to see the padres making the effort, a lot of teams can learn from them.
the league has to get a handle on its owners. these owners just care about the bottom line. they don’t care about the game. they can always sell when things go sour and do well with what they have made even if its at a loss at the time which doesn’t happen often. baseball is on its way to becoming a niche sport like hockey. yea some teams locally still do well like the cardinals but nationally it is getting forgotten which will eventually effect all teams. yea pace of play is an issue so is lack of offense which doesn’t have to be home runs. how bout more stealing, more hit and runs, hitting against the shift. requires owners to ditch a lot of this analytic stuff and get managers who can actually manage and have played the game. if owners don’t want to pay for longer contracts, players should get more options like nba players. im not a big fan of that but if owners are going to continue to do what they think is best for their pocket books and not for their team or fans, then something has to change. the nba and the nfl is about the players and that’s why they do so well with the fans and people in general and they are in the national psyche. baeball owners just don’t get that.
well I wasn’t a fan of getting fowler when we got him so I feel I have the right to criticize all I want. fowlers the perfect example of how the cards ownership does business. they overpay guys who are either at their prime or in fowlers case, just past it but hope against hope that the gamble pays off. and then they try to hang on when it don’t. this idea that you have to play him just because you owe him this money is silly. you gave him the contract, its the price you pay for being not willing to dish out money long term for more deserving players. pay him and move on. the cardinals have better options, oneill for one. he strike out too much for me personally but hes at least a competent outfielder who will make the routine plays. and unless their drafting is horrible, they should have better options in the minors.
to me, for the cardinals to finish first, everything has to go perfectly right and that doesn’t happen often. would I love to see the cubs stay about the same or even perform less, as a cub hater, definitely but I think they underperformed last year and im not sure that’s happening again. I think the brewers should be better. the reds I not sure about. they should be improved but we will see. I don’t think they will get off to the same bad start this year as they did last.
saying that just because the cardinals have chosen to keep fowler and play him that fans cant or shouldn’t criticize that is ludicrous. sure you can also have discussions on how long his rope is but you can have both discussions. if the cardinals offered a free service, didn’t charge you a penny for coming in to watch their games and didn’t take money from tv deals then yea, they are free to run things as they see fit. but when you do all these things as well as well as get tax breaks to build and run your stadium and team, you are fair game in the criticism department, nothing is off the table. that its their money thing is bull crap too, it isn’t all their money. teams that tank[not the cards], or teams that use those magic words being fiscally smart[the cardinals] don’t get the benefit of the doubt and have no right to complain when fans don’t come to the ballpark with teams that are tanking regularly, or in the case of the latter when fans complain about the product the team is putting on the field.
I personally don’t think they are going to be any better this year. goldy is great at first but carpenter is actually a pretty good first baseman so goldys defense doesn’t raise us that much. bader is awesome and wong is really good if not great but hes also injured a lot. I think dejong is solid but I wouldn’t consider him great. carpenter is mostly fine fielding wise but throwing wise he is horrible. while they may not be called errors, plays that should be made at third but wont be will go up unless he has gained lots of arm strength. Molina is showing his age, he lets more balls get by than he used to and he doesn’t throw out as high a percentage as he used to, course nobody hardly steals anymore and I still consider Molina a great catcher. ozuna is a solid outfielder though not exceptional and Martinez and fowler. im not even gonna go there. at least Martinez hits. the cardinals bench is mostly horrible defensively. outside of Martinez in right which about anyone would be an improvement, there is nobody at the other positions that you would consider bringing in for the late innings to bolster the defense. funny thing about errors though. they aren’t called the way they are supposed to be anymore. used to be if you got a glove on the ball, it was an error if you didn’t make the play. if you did some stupid thing and took yourself out of position and didn’t get to a grounder or fly ball you should, it was an error. now if the balls hit too hard, its a hit. if it requires any real skill to field but isn’t fielded, its a hit cause yea ut should have been made but it was a little tough. so don’t watch the errors perse, watch the plays that aren’t made that could or should have been made but weren’t. that’s more telling in this day and age.
I think the cardinals have a lot of questions to be answered. can the starters or all pitchers for that matter stay healthy. that has been a huge problem the past few years. if carpenter is gonna continue to leadoff, he needs to hit better and more consistently over the full season. can their core players stay healthy, a big question for some of those guys. can bader improve at the plate far as recognizing pitches and laying off the bad ones. to me he doesn’t have to be a 300 hitter, just needs to learn how not to give away at bats. to me one of the biggest questions, is can their defense improve to an acceptable level. since they don’t hardly give errors anymore, just making less errors isn’t enough. its about making the plays major league players should make which greatly helps your pitchers as opposed to continually not completing the play and not getting the outs. a lot of question marks with fowler, he should be gone but cardinals management don’t want to own up to their mistake, maybe by some miracle he does better. overall I always hope for the cards to do great but im not optimistic. goldy was a great pickup but im not sure he can offset an aging carpenter and Molina especially if our pitchers fall prey to the injury bug which happens a lot. I expect Milwaukee to be better than they were last year and though the cubs haven’t done a lot this past offseason I still expect them to be there though that pains me to say in the hardest way possible. so if I had to pick, im saying third place again but I hope im wrong.
hey brian Walton, I liked your piece on the negotiations. I too am glad they are talking. far as why people tend to support owners over players, people now tend to look down on unions as a whole. especially younger crowd, cause they are far from the days back when companies basically treated their employees like slaves or worse and a lot more people esp college graduates are in jobs that have never generally had unions. when you live up in the clouds, you tend to forget about those maybe on the hill. plus people overlook the fact that most of these players don’t get these big contracts. I personally hate the but I do think they will get it in cause just like you said, its being used as a bargaining chip. it just saddens me that the mlb seems to be trying to borrow from little league, pony league with these silly things. used to, it was the other way around. if they are gonna do that, just use the extra hiiter rule so you have free substitution so you lose less of your better hitters if you brings subs in for defense or just go all stupid and go like football, have an offensive lineup and a defensive lineup. positions don’t really matter to the casual fans of today anyway, so if you are gonna ruin the game, just do it all the way.
it isn’t the cardinals. the cardinals did nothing this offseason but they spin it like they did something. goldshmidt was a great get but the cardinals didn’t really have to do anything. basically Arizona threw him at us for basically nothing. I know they were gonna probably lose him next year but it just seems weird that they couldn’t get more from someone else for him. though if they can get weaver back to form, it could work out a little. miller coming off a down year was also not that great of a get. yea if he returns to form, it will be a stroke of greatness but the ifs haven’t been going the cardinals way as of late. im still thinking we are gonna finish third. the brewers will better with a new full season with the guys they got last year and even though it pains me to say anything good about the cubs, I still think they are better than the cardinals. the cardinals have to have a lot of things go right for their offense to really gel and im not sure it will. their pitching could carry them but only if they stay healthy and that never seems to happen. their defense isn’t gonna improve that much if any. goldy is great but he is playing a position we didn’t really have a defensive problem at unless you count when Martinez was there. elsewise I still expect a lot of errors and plays not made. which since they hardly call errors anymore, the plays not made that should have been are what really stands out.
