photo: Gary LaRocque, Moises Rodriguez, Randy Flores, Michael Girsch (Brian Walton/The Cardinal Nation)
In a change that is disappointing to me, the St. Louis Cardinals no longer offer separate detailed one-hour breakouts with the organization’s farm director and scouting director as part of their Winter Warm-Up fan event. The former sessions allowed for very informative presentations about the two very important functional areas while still allowing time for fan questions.
Instead, the 2024 event featured a single 27-minute moderated session with four Cardinals executives on one panel, called “Talking Baseball”. The venue was the cavernous and noisy Bally Sports Live! main stage at Ballpark Village. With the limited time and the primary focus on fan questions, there was little depth in the session.
The panel began with each of the four executives explaining their respective roles – general manager Michael Girsch (MLB needs) and assistant general managers Gary LaRocque (farm system), Moises Rodriguez (player transactions and international) and Randy Flores (amateur scouting).
From there, five questions were taken from the floor before the session concluded.
Summarizing the five fan questions:
- How are prospects ranked?
- Does the banning of the shift lead to focus on strikeout pitchers over ground ball ones?
- How is the lineup set?
- How much time do they spend knowing other teams’ players?
- How do you do overseas talent evaluation, specifically Japan?
The full audio follows.
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Cardinals Winter Warm-Up – In Their Words: Saturday, 1/13/24
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Brian Walton can be reached via email at brian@thecardinalnation.com. Follow Brian on Twitter.
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