Exploring the Cardinals' Offensive Challenges, Pitching Evolution, & More With Blake Newberry

Unpack the enigma behind the St. Louis Cardinals' hitting slump with special guest Blake Newberry of Viva El Birdos & The Cardinal Nation as we dissect this curveball in their offensive strategy. This can't-miss conversation takes a deeper look at what might be impacting star sluggers like Arenado and Goldschmidt. 

Dive headfirst into the technical trenches with a detailed analysis of Lars bat speed and Walker's promising power. Our chat with Blake not only showcases these players' potential but also zooms out to examine the pivotal role of player development in the AAA leagues. The confluence of analytics and skill refinement is painting the future of baseball, and we're giving you a front-row seat to the intricate dance of mechanics, strategy, and physical prowess shaping tomorrow's champions.

Switch up the pace as we change gears to the mound, where the Cardinals' pitching strategy echoes a league-wide evolution, favoring a diverse mix of sliders and off-speed pitches over fastballs. We dissect the Liberatore's situation along with his pitching style, debate the Cardinals' rotation options, and peak into the crystal ball of potential trades and rising prospects. And to close out the game, we step up to the plate with draft predictions, considering how the Cardinals' offensive needs could call the shots in their future lineup.

Transcript

Trevor: 0:02

Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of Birds on a Blue Note. Today we have a special guest joining us, Mr Blake Newberry, a writer at Viva Albertos and the Cardinal Nation. Blake, thank you for joining us today.

Blake : 0:19

Hey, absolutely. Thank you guys for having me. I'm excited to talk it over with you guys.

Trevor: 0:23

We're excited to have you as well, and main focus today of the podcast is pretty much going to be what the fuck is going on with this team? The results on paper are not matching everything, and I know there's a few things that you've actually touched on. Blake, one of your recent articles that you had been discussing was the Cards' inability to pull the ball, and I wanted to have you touch on that a bit more on here.

Blake : 0:55

Yeah, for sure. So I mean, when you look at the numbers, we'll start at a high level. Pulling the ball in the air is the single most valuable thing you can do as a hitter. When you pull the ball in the air is the single most valuable thing you can do as a hitter. You, when you pull the ball in the air, just good things happen. And the cardinals used to be the best team in the league at that. Two years in a row under jeff albert. That's all they did was pull the ball in the air and hit home runs no, jeff albert, what?

RJ: 1:15

yeah, yeah, yeah, not albert. Yeah, you mean the guy yeah, right um so go ahead, it's just funny.

Blake : 1:23

They used to be elite at that. Now they are the worst team. I haven't checked since I wrote that article. It's been like a week or two. So they might not be the worst team in the league anymore, but for bottom two or three for sure, because they were the worst team in the league when I wrote that article and it's simply just not great. I mean, you even watch it like I think alec burleson really stand out to me and he's gotten hot in recent weeks, but I remember watching him two weeks ago and all he would do would be hit hard outs to left field because he's just not pulling the ball. You just want to see these guys. Noel Arenado same thing, and Paul Goldschmidt same thing.

Blake : 1:57

They've talked a little bit in the offseason and even in spring training about wanting to go to the opposite field a little bit more. I look at a guy like Nolan Arenado and I'm like you make terrible swing decisions. You don't hit the ball that hard. Your superpower is pulling the ball in the air. Why in the hell would you want to go to the opposite field more often? Like I get it If you get like a slider on the black with two strikes, sure Like, slap that single in the right field and just take it. But you absolutely, if you're Nolan Arenado into your 30s, just keep doing what you do. Just pull the ball in the left field, hit the ball down the line, hit 30 home runs and you're fine. So I'm hoping that that's not like a hitting coach thing or an organizational philosophy where they're telling him not to pull the ball Because you very much want to see guys like this pull the ball in the air, Since, again, it's the single most valuable thing you can do.

Luke: 2:49

And the Cardinals have already shown themselves to be good at it, at least in the past, so it's concerning if they're not as good at it as they have been. Yeah, I mean, I completely agree as well. Um, we touched on this quite a bit on the pod also at the time. I think we were the worst pool hitting team in the stat cast era, like we were 300th out of 300 teams and we talked about too is like because a lot of these guys are at least goldschmidt, are not, or future hall of famers, and you're wondering what the heck is going on. Is this like a coaching thing? Is this a new philosophy thing? Because they should not be this bad and um, you've seen the coaching.

RJ: 3:15

They messed up with contrast. You know it could be a hitting thing with them I.

Trevor: 3:19

I mean it's. These guys have been seeing 95, 100, many of them, for years now. The fact that they're all late all at the same time, consistently, it just boggles the mind a bit, because this should be something that's an easy fix. Get them in the cages, throw 100 at them a few times and make sure you're getting back your back speed. Drop bat weights. If you're now not um catching up, you know something's gotta fix here I mean specifically goldie too.

Luke: 3:51

You watch some of these goldie swings, especially lately, where it looks like he kind of half swings, he's undecided, then he finishes swing he's like two feet behind the ball and you're wondering what the heck is going on. If it's like a mental thing or if it's, he started with a bad approach and now he's so far in his head that he can't fix it. It it's. It's tough because these are the guys that we need. We need to get going, otherwise we won't be competitive this year. These are middle order, supposed to drive in 100 runs, hit 30 plus bombs, and they're not. I mean arnotto's on pace for what like 12 home runs and goldie's on pace for about 10 on the season. So I mean you need these guys, you need them.

Luke: 4:24

Um, and that's something I actually wanted to ask too, to kind of follow up because, uh, we just got bat swing data, which is fun. Um, been waiting on that for a long time. It's funny we we were talking about before the pod, we just did that community mailbag episode and someone was asking what's going on with the offense? Are they behind on everything? I was like I wish I could find that data, I, data. I was like, just you know, googling, looking what I didn't, didn't think it existed but I wanted to check. But now that we have it available and I know you've written on it a little bit what are some of the things with the bats, bat swing data, with the Cardinals that stick out to you?

Blake : 4:56

Yeah, for starters, I'm just glad they finally teams have probably had for years now and it's valuable data like knowing how hard a team or a player swings the bat can tell you how much power potential they have. Knowing how long the swing is, which again varies based on if they're a pull hitter or not a pull hitter, because you know if you're a pull hitter you're hitting the ball further out front, so your bat has to travel a further distance. So you do have that longer, longer length, um, as a measurement. But like knowing this stuff is actually very valuable and I'm glad we actually finally get the chance to actually have that data and analyze it. But some of my initial takeaways are like I know we've seen talk that Paul Galtridge's bat screen might have slowed down and it's like right around league average, like it could be better, it could be worse. We don't really have a comparison point because we don't know what it was last year since they just released it for data this year. But it's fine, like it's not like it catastrophically declined, it's just it's fine, he's just not hitting the ball. So I think if it was something like I think it's 71 and a half miles per hour sometimes average league average is like 72, so he's he's right at close to like the 45th to 50th percentile. If that was down at like 68 miles per hour I'd probably be concerned, but it's not so. I do think we've seen goldie get you know, start getting more hits in concerned, but it's not so. I do think we've seen Goldie get you know, start getting more hits in recent days. Granted, it's against the Angels, but the Angels had a guy like Randall with going 100 miles per hour the other day. So you know, I mean the hits count, so there's a chance. I'll come back to that.

Blake : 6:15

But I think one of the most interesting things that we saw was Lars Neupahr. Actually, I think All the players who swing above 72 miles per hour on average, only Wyatt Lankford and Lars Newpar had as short of swings as they have. So what that means is that Lars is able to generate a tremendous amount of speed from a very short bat path and when you think about the way the bat travels, it accelerates the whole time. It's starting from zero speed and finishing at its maximum point. So when Lars Newpar is making contact, the bat is still accelerating. He accelerates the bat probably better than anybody else on the Cardinals roster right now.

Blake : 6:47

So I look at Lars and I'm like he's a guy who has really not gotten going this year at all. He's not hitting the ball well at all, but he's a guy who, if he could elevate the ball a little bit more, he does have tremendous raw power. He just doesn't tap into it very often because he just beats the ball into the ground and hits the ball to the opposite field too often. If lars new park could start pulling the ball in the air a little bit more, or even just hitting the ball in the air a little bit more in general, that all of a sudden he would be a very dangerous hitter.

Luke: 7:12

So I think that's one thing that was pretty eye-opening with seeing newt's uh bat speed and bat path in general yeah, and I think looking at lars just watching him play when he does make contact and sometimes when he does hit the ball, like for power, he hits like 440 and you're like holy smokes, he's hit it further than anyone else on the team. So I mean, I guess you can kind of see that the power is there, but it's nice to have the data to kind of back it up. Um, another guy I wanted to bring up really quick and I'm sorry I'm not trying to take over this whole thing, I just have a bunch of questions, so I'm gonna get him out of the way. Uh, this is j, but it was Jordan Walker, because he's at 76.5, and I was looking at that.

Luke: 7:48

I think that would put him eighth in Major League if he was still up right now. And I understand lift the ball more. But like at the same time I kind of had this discussion with Kyle Reese on Twitter the other day too Like maybe if he just stays in the majors and gets a little bit better pitch recognition and you get like a split second ahead of the ball, you won't need to change of swinging that much and you can generate more power, but maybe I'm way off.

Blake : 8:08

Uh, what are your takes on that? Yeah, it's. It's tough to know how the cardinals handle jordan walker, if they've done it well or not. I'm by no means like a hitting mechanics expert. I know I've seen people talk about how he has some kind of a mechanical flaw in his swing and that's what they're trying to fix in triple a. But when you look at Jordan Walker, if you look at, like his actual heat maps when the ball was thrown low in the zone, he just beats it into the ground. He absolutely just cannot elevate it. And if I'm a pitcher, I see that all I'm doing is throwing him sinkers down at the knees and he's not going to touch it. So he's going to have to get over that at a certain point, because he does have the power and we've talked like the highest bat, like eight highest bats in the majors. The dude could hit bombs if he could just elevate the ball consistently and he can't, and and pitchers know that he can't. So all they're going to do is pitch him to his weakness. So he's going to have to get over it.

Blake : 8:49

I'm not sure that this offense was in a state where it could afford having a guy like paul goldschmidt struggling and jordan walker struggling in the lineup at the same time. So I understand the card was putting him down as much as it's uncomfortable because he was one of the better hitters on the team last year. But he's just going to have to work through whatever it is that he's working through that prevents him from elevating the ball, which it's fine. I mean the guy's like 21 or 22 or however young he is Like. If he can get over that, he has a bright future ahead of him as a middle-of-the-order hitter. I would rather just see him get over it hopefully sooner rather than later, whatever issues he's facing and and start elevating the ball consistently where he can really use that bat speed and that exit velocity he can generate and actually start clearing the fences more often.

Trevor: 9:28

Yeah, and you got to remember, just like you said with Walker, he's 21. And, yeah, he may be 260, but that's 6'6" 260. You know that's still a pretty skinny 260 guy and as he's on these major league pro programs he's going to put on some muscle. So, yeah, if he can just get his swing mechanics proper and make sure he's getting good, solid contact with the ball, he's going to have a great career in this league. But I'm always a believer that when you can work on stuff, developmental AAA is the best league to be in.

Trevor: 10:03

As a guy like that, developmental AAA is the best league to be in as a guy like that, that's where you can take advantage, build up some confidence and then transition that into the majors and whatnot. You just can't go back to your bad habits and he started falling back on those bad habits that they had, you know, beaten away. And that's what happens in a five, six month off season. You know you get rusty and you fall back on what you've been doing for, you know, 10 plus years of your life ultimately. So I I have ultimate confidence, confidence in him. The kid is a hard worker, he's a great kid, loves baseball. Like he's gonna get this thing figured out.

RJ: 10:38

Ultimately, it's just a question of when and do we have any update on that, like any reports or anything like how he's doing he's been hitting the ball well.

Blake : 10:49

I haven't seen any reports on like his hitting mechanics. He's not clearing, clearing the yard, hitting for a ton of power in triple a, but I think it's not like an eight game hitting streak or something like that. Like he's hitting singles and doubles. So I mean it's better than what he was doing in the majors and down, so that's good yeah.

Trevor: 11:02

And you know, one thing I wanted to touch on too real quickly as far as the hitting goes, is this approach that we seem to be having and I wanted to get your thoughts on this, blake when we're getting these runners in scoring position, it seems like we're going all feast and famine. Guys aren't trying to just put the ball in play. Now, we've had a lot better luck against the Angels and we've seen you put the ball in play. Errors happen, stuff happens. This seems like a huge change in philosophy from what we had been doing the past decade or so, where we were one of those teams where it's like, hey, if you can slap the ball ball, you take what the pitcher gives you. Ultimately and I'm not even seeing goldie or notto do that as much and whatnot I'll take a sack, fly over, you know a strikeout every day or a pop-up.

Blake : 11:51

Yeah, over the bases loaded, no outs, and we somehow don't score a run like 10 times in a row. However, that happened, right every game.

Blake : 11:58

It's not because we missed a butt either like I'd rather have like runners on first and second and no outs, because I feel like basis though the no outs is just cursed, like they're just not gonna score. Yeah, um, but yeah, it's weird like I think we've seen it the most with goldschmidt at the plate, where it's like he almost just takes pitches down the middle and then chases sliders like five feet off the plate. It's like what are you doing? And I mean, even when you look at it broadly, the Cardinals have been generally passive against pitches at the plate statistically and a little bit too aggressive against pitches that are kind of on the edge of the plate or a little bit off of it and you almost just want to see them, especially in situations where we have runners on base.

Blake : 12:34

You get that fastball down the middle, just swing away. You get that fastball down the middle, just swing away, just hit the ball. It's something good is likely going to happen. It's a sack fly. It's a hard hit ball to the outfield, it's something. But I'd rather you take your chances against that than get into a one-two count and have to swing a slider to defend the play.

Blake : 12:56

I'd rather you rip a shot, have a double play, triple play turned on us bases loaded, than strikeout, strikeout, strikeout.

Trevor: 12:59

You know 100% it happens with that, but I'd rather the ball be being put in play, even with our Babbitt luck this year, and that's the thing too.

Luke: 13:08

Alec Burleson luck.

Blake : 13:10

Yeah, literally the whole team has gotten Alec Burleson luck somehow.

Trevor: 13:14

Except for Burleson, who now has regular. Yeah, he's been our hottest hitter.

Blake : 13:21

Alec Burleson, who now has regular. Yeah, he's been our hottest hitter. Alec Burleson and Michael Ciani being the hottest hitters is just absolutely not something I expected at the start of the year, that's a little sad you didn't have that bet going. I mean we'll take it. I'll take Michael Ciani on like an eight-game hitting streak that got snapped. I did not expect that at all, but if that's what it takes, sure I'll absolutely take it, especially at the bottom of the order, to set up the top.

Luke: 13:40

I mean, yeah, you know we've been we've been scoring a little bit, and I did want to ask too about this angels series and I guess the brewers were on a three-game win streak. You know we're winning kind of um. Last last three games they scored 21 runs. So like is I guess the question is is this real or is it just the Angels?

Blake : 13:59

Man, I don't know, it might just be the Angels, but also the Cardinals played the White Sox earlier in the year and just looked terrible against the White Sox. So, like at this point, we'll take what we can get. I would rather them absolutely dominate the Angels than look like they did against the White Sox. So it's kind of a thing where I'm cautiously optimistic, where it feels like the way this team had played at the beginning of the year even against AAA teams. They were not going to score 10 runs in the game. So the fact that they have scored 10 runs in the game makes me feel better. I just want to see them now have consistent production against better teams. So we'll see how this looks in the coming week, but it's at least better than what it has been.

Trevor: 14:34

No, absolutely. And with that in mind, moving over to the pitching side of things we've touched on it a few times here, but I know this is something that you've actually harped on since last season with your riding Blake was the fact that most teams around the league have been moving away from throwing the fastball as much, and the cardinals didn't seem to be following that trend at all. Now I know we've been shifting on that a bit this year, which makes you really happy, but you're the guy that you know saw this coming a mile away, so I wanted to hear from you like what are your thoughts on how they have been implementing that? What would you like to see further from them improving that?

Blake : 15:17

yeah, I. I love that they've moved away from the fastball a little bit. For context, like over the last probably six years, the league has gone from being maybe 55, 56% fastball to below 50%, meaning majority non-fastballs. As a hitter you're more likely to see a non-fastball than you are a fastball now, because the game has completely changed and the Cardinals were playing the old school version of baseball where you're still going to see a fastball 55, 56% of the time. This year they've dropped it below 50% for the first time in maybe forever. Honestly, for as far back as I tracked in my article, they'd never been below 50%. So seeing that is encouraging and it's a simple statistical fact that non-fastballs play better than fastballs Inside the zone zone. Outside the zone, hitters have a harder time hitting like sliders and change-ups and curveballs than they do hitting fastballs, which just makes sense. A fastball straight a slider is kind of nasty, it's. It's just how how the game works.

Blake : 16:09

So I'm encouraged to see the fact that they've actually dropped down from that and I do wonder how much of that is due to high and bloom's influence in the front office, even if he has only in kind of like an advisory role. It is interesting to note that he was the guy who kind of overhauled some of the raised pitching strategy. He gets brought into the team, they bring in a bunch of pitchers who he had brought in before in previous organizations and now all of a sudden they're throwing fewer fastballs, like it's easy to connect the dots, even if I don't know if that information is actually accurate, but it seems like there's an influence there. So I'm hoping that this is something that they stay with and that they continue progressing down this line where they throw fewer and fewer fastballs, because I mean, we've seen a team like the red sox this year is, I think they're under 30 fastball usage right now.

Blake : 16:53

I mean four seasons and sinkers, which is insane. But they have a bunch of pitchers who are really good and as long as you can locate a slider, locate a curve ball, whatever pitch it is in the zone, it's likely that it's not going to get hit as hard as a fastball in the zone would be. So it makes sense that they're doing that. You just have to have pitchers with the ability to do so and the Cardinals moving towards pitchers or staying towards pitchers who are genuinely command oriented. You would think that they have the ability to do that. So it's at least an encouraging sign that they're modernizing the way they think about pitching a little bit, and I'm hoping that that's it's just one step in the right direction and there's one pitcher that has a problem with that matthew livertore.

RJ: 17:28

He's throwing fastballs, cutters.

Blake : 17:30

He needs to start throwing some curveballs there and just some off-speed pitching it's all like fastball and sinker for livertore and I know they talked about moving him into the rotation and if they move him into the rotation he's still throwing like 50, 60 fastballs. He's gonna get crushed like it's got to just be cutters, sliders, curveballs. He doesn't really throw a change up, which I think a change up would actually really help him, but it changed up. So really very much a field pitch and if he doesn't feel for a change up, it's it's tough. But I think as a lefty who struggles to get out to get righty sometimes that would be a huge pitch for him. But either way, just throw a cutter, slider, curveball, see what happens. I'd rather not see that like dead zone fastball that he throws.

Luke: 18:06

Just thinking of a liberator. I kind of have a bone to pick with the cards and how they're handling him. But I went on to like a 10 minute rant in the last pod with Trevor here. Poor Trevor had to listen to me complain about it for a long time. But yes, I mean to stay on the pitching. I guess we kind of have I don't want to call it a makeshift rotation that we have this year, but we kind of have some options for the future and like how we're going to handle it with the club options and the trade deadline coming up and some guys flying up through the rankings. I know Quinn Matthews is one that we've been really big on. I know you've been really big on Quinn Matthews. I guess the question is, like, going into the next season, how do you see this rotation panning out? Is it? Is it going to be completely different? Are we going to trade off our assets or how's it going to?

Blake : 18:45

look. So I think I think it depends on how this season goes, because I think the Cardinals are bad. There's a chance that they trade off Lance Lynn, kyle Gibson, pretty much any starter who's who's close to free agency. But I think that's actually one of the underrated things they did in the off season was signing guys on one plus one deals where they have the flexibility to like usher a guy like Tink Hens into the rotation and if they feel like Tink Hens isn't ready, then you just re-up on Lance Lynn if he has a good year. So I think they've given themselves a little bit of flexibility. Granted, it would be better if they just developed back-end starter prospects for the past five years and they didn't have to sign a last land and could just start a back-end starter prospect at a league minimum deal. But that's already happened. It's gone, so it's at least good that they've given themselves the options.

Blake : 19:31

I think that Tink Hence obviously looks ahead of Dakota Roby right now, because Roby's just been giving up home runs at an absurd rate in AA. I think that'll change, because Roby's just been giving up home runs at an absurd rate in double-A. I think that'll change. I think a lot of that is due to some suspect command and maybe some not optimal fastball location specifically where he's throwing it down to the zone. He should be throwing it up a little bit more and it's also the Texas League is just a launching pad in double-A, like pretty much every double-A pitcher for Springfield has just given up bombs at a ridiculous rate. So I think that'll improve.

Blake : 20:00

I think tink hentz is somebody you look at. If he can secure a starting job in the rotation by next year, that would be huge for the cardinals because you can kind of start him as that like four or five starter in his rookie year, progressively move him up the rotation because he does have that frontline potential. Um, I think sam reverso is also a guy that we look at who could potentially be starting this year. He could be starting this year.

Blake : 20:24

And he's actually made some very, very positive strides. So I think the Cardinals have put themselves in a position where they came from last year having very limited pitching depth and very few actually talented pitching prospects to a spot where they have a good number of upper level pitching prospects who could potentially fill a spot in the rotation next year. So that's at least helpful. So I think how this year goes will determine if they're going to try to maybe put some more veteran types in the rotation next year or if they're just going to let the kids play.

Luke: 20:54

Yeah, I mean I was looking at some reverse and we've been harping on some reverse. That was part of the Lieber tour rant. It's like why not just call it reverse? He's been dominant, he's on the 40 man and we're going to, we're going to take Lieber tour, put him in the bullpen and back in the rotation, the bag in the bullpen, back in rotation, back and forth, over and over again, kind of like we did with Hicks last. That was the last episode, so you have any questions, trevor Luke.

RJ: 21:20

So you were saying the Lynn and Gibson deal one year deal. Since they're surprisingly, you know they're doing pretty good, you go ahead and you know, trade them, get the prospects. You saw what happened with Montgomery last year. I mean, what do you think?

Blake : 21:33

Yeah, I think it all depends Like. I think, honestly, john Mozelek has his critics, he has his fans, whatever I Like I think honestly, john Mozelek has his critics, he has his fans, whatever I think John Mozelek handled the trade deadline last year very well. I think he got a lot of very talented players who are at the upper levels of the majors who can contribute, hopefully soon. So I think if there is a scenario in which the Cardinals decide to sell off at the deadline again, I feel like a reasonable amount of confidence that it'll go well. I think if the Cardinals feel like they're in a playoff spot, I wouldn't.

Blake : 22:04

And if lance lane and kyle gibson are still pitching well at that point, I would not mind them holding on to both of them seeing how the season goes. And if in the off season you want to re-up their deals and just have that kind of pitching depth or that way you're not rushing your prospects up you still have that pitching depth. If somebody gets hurt in spring training, whatever it is, I wouldn't mind it at all. It's all just going to depend on how the season breaks. I think they could have maybe put some higher end talent in the rotation this year, but in terms of where they're at, they at least have flexibility with how they want to handle it yeah, and that's the club option.

Luke: 22:31

I know trevor and I've talked about it a lot. That club option holds a lot of value for other teams at the deadline, especially if they're pitching well, so that's something that can hopefully pull, pull you in a little bit higher rated prospect and cheap, cheap one-year options too for them especially with everything being boosted out after the yama deal and everything.

Trevor: 22:51

Like we got these guys signed before that happened. These extensions are pre-yama extensions. Like people are overpaying for this type of production right now. So I mean, but to harp on, um, what you mentioned earlier, like those, well, we can't exactly connect the dots. There's a lot of like phantom connections to bloom that we've been seeing even before.

Trevor: 23:18

Like I know, last year, when it was announced that he had been working with john and the team, everybody was like, oh, those deals make a little more sense now with what we were doing before and then even after that. Like him and flores, I feel like are a good combination to have in that front office from a scouting talent perspective side and then like the development side of things. So, um, it just makes a great, especially with Mo set to retire after 25 and everything. I feel like it makes for a little bit of a mishmash, but a good situation for us fans for the future, hopefully. I mean there has been a little bit of lackadaisicalness with that, um, you know, timeline coming on, so I mean hopefully like a smoother transition right from one pobo to the next.

Luke: 24:10

Um, but yeah, yeah, I get what you're saying. Um, I did have one more question before I'll just let you guys. I'm sorry I wrote down a bunch of notes. I'm like super big into the draft of this year. I feel like it's a really deep draft with sucks. We're seventh. I wish we were top three, like we should have, but what? I guess there's a couple of guys I'm really high on. I think may slip, but probably not. I was looking at chase Burns and Nick Kurtz. But what do you see as like best case scenario for us in this draft?

Blake : 24:40

So honestly, I think it sucks that the Cardinals dropped as far as they did, but I think that there is probably about a top 10 in this class. That's very good and I wouldn't really want to be picking after that. So I think the fact that the Cardinals are where they are there's really not in my mind a huge distinction between prospect like number five and number 10 on the board. So I think they're really going to have their choice of whatever player is their type of player. Whoever like the most randy flores player is that you can find. That's where I think the cardinals are going to go and I think they'll be fine with it. Like there's a chance that chase burns falls because hagan smith has been so dominant this year, there's a chance that teams value him more than hake or than uh, than chase burns, now especially in the last two yeah, like chase burns could follow the cardinals.

Blake : 25:27

I think there is a, a high school player, connor griffin, who screams like he just seems like a cardless pick to me. Two-way guy, very toolsy, six foot four, a lot of power potential coming out of high school, like that. Just screams like a randy flores first round pick to me, where it's like a jordan walker, a mason, a joshua bias who wasn't a first round pick but kind of. Again, is that toolsy high school prep bat kind of guy that they like. I would not be shocked if connor griffin ended up being the pick there, but it's all.

Blake : 25:55

I think the cardinals are in the driver's seat here where whoever falls to them they can just take whoever's at the top of their board and be happy. There's probably three, four or five players that they would be content with. Um, nick kurtz, of course, is another one who's interesting, like I think, from from a hitting perspective. He checks all the boxes. It's just a question of if you want to take a guy who's a surefire first baseman going forward and doesn't really have any kind of defensive utility. Some teams are fine with that, some teams aren't. And number seven I'm a little uncomfortable with that, but I'm just looking at the goalie timeline, though with that too the goalie timeline.

Blake : 26:26

You can watch them up. I understand that the offensive profile is is nice, so I would like I. I would understand that pick if it happened. There's a lot of players who I would actually be content with at this point in the draft and two.

Trevor: 26:39

You got to remember once it gets to playoff time, a lot of guys get the boost from the playoffs. You never know what's gonna happen. You could have that surprise pick, like the angels did a couple years ago, where you're just like the heck, are they thinking there? You know, I mean because it is still cleveland and cincy picking one and two, so you never know what those two will do over there.

Blake : 27:00

So that's yeah, that's the thing Cleveland could could be interesting at the top. We all we know they like to go under slot on some guys, so that could. That could throw things up a little bit.

Trevor: 27:11

Yeah, it'll be pretty interesting, but yeah it. I mean, at what point do you start to worry about this team ultimately? Like, where do you call the like stopping point?

Blake : 27:26

For me usually it's around June, like if you hit June and you're not in a race. You know, in my mind you got to give up at that point. Yeah, I agree, it's usually around June for me, just watching the way this team has played offense and the way arenado's power is gone and goldtrip just hasn't been hitting until recently I've already. I'm already at that point where I'm concerned. Now, if goldtrip it's like recent three game stretch becomes just him coming back to life, okay then then we're okay, we're looking like a three, four, middle of the order that's actually hitting the ball again. There's actually offensive potential on on the team. I'm willing to let it play out. But I'm already kind of at the point where I'm concerned and I think, oh yeah, like, like I'm very.

Trevor: 28:09

That was a long.

Blake : 28:10

That was long past, but I mean being a bottom three and l team kind of catch concern. So I would hope that we don't have another year, like last year I think, if this team comes out of the Angel series and then just falls flat for like the next two or three series again. Like you really got to look at changing things up a little bit, from whether it's from a hitting coach perspective, managerial perspective. The managing thing is interesting because I do think that Mo and Ollie are linked somewhat. I think the hitting coach is easier to change and even if it's not necessarily his fault which I'm not sure it is I don't know what he's saying in the locker room, but I'm not convinced that he's a good hitting coach. I'm not convinced he's a bad hitting coach, but I'm not convinced he's like a Kevin Sizer with the Braves, like you're not going to fire him and then regret it three years down the road.

Blake : 28:56

you can just end up being fine, then he's fine. But you can find somebody better than him. If there's a chance to upgrade with the way the cardinals have been at, I'm willing. Just let's go find that upgrade and actually try to make that one year slide, not become a two-year slide and become a three-year slide.

Luke: 29:11

Let's try to get back in the playoffs and just get back to playing cardless baseball right, and I think that's the question too, like sorry, I didn't mean to step on your toes, they're just kind of bouncing off of what blake's. Like you look at the, this, the, the bat speed data, and like the cardinals are like pretty middle of the pack, so like everyone's underperforming, so like you almost have to think that maybe it's like an approach thing. But it doesn't really make sense for all these like surefire future hall of famers to just randomly change their approach one year to get worse it.

RJ: 29:39

It's weird and then you have like gorman, like in walker. I mean, I think it's a coaching thing, because there's too many players that are going not doing so well this year.

Blake : 29:50

There's a good chance that it's a coaching thing and that's always one of the things I try to avoid when I'm writing is talking about the coaches, because I will sit here and I know zero about any of the coaches, because I don't know what they're saying, I don't know what they're preaching like. All I can do is look at numbers and understand what's happening and like one of the numbers we look at the cardinals hitting. They're like the worst team the league and hitting pitches middle, middle. It's like they'll throw like a 92 mile an hour fastball down the middle and they're swinging miss. It's like I don't know how you, how you coach that away other than just like tell, hey, goldie, maybe you should hit the 92 mile an hour fastball down the middle. It's like I don't really know what the issue is there. You just have to hit the ball and it's.

Blake : 30:25

I understand there's probably a hitting coach issue. There's definitely just a player production issue and those things are sometimes connected but sometimes not. So I'm willing to make the easy change because you're not going to fire every player. You can fire a hitting coach that's not exceptional and replace him. You can't fire Goldschmidt, arenado, gorman, everybody at the same time. So I'm okay with that if that's the route they try to go, but it's at least nice that we've seen signs of life recently. I'm hoping that continues and that we can just play ourselves back into a playoff spot. But we'll have to see how it goes.

Trevor: 31:00

Yeah, because we've got up coming up, we've got the red sox, followed by the orioles, and then the cubs and cincy series before we start philly to um, start june, basically. So really going to be telling these next couple weeks what position we're in, but right now we're just two and a half games back, I believe, of a wild card spot. That's it. Despite how horrible we have been, we are right in the thick of this. So if this, if these bats can turn it on like there is something to be said for teams struggling early on and having to power through that. There's plenty of examples of teams having rough first couple of months and ending up going to the championship series.

Luke: 31:41

I mean, look at the frills that we were just talking about. Like they fired Girardi and flipped a switch. Like people thought that's not the coach and it can't be the coach and there's too many good players, it's gotta be the players and they fired the man.

Trevor: 31:55

It wasn't really the manager in my mind. There it was, you know, but it sent the message to the guys wake the fuck up. Yeah, and sometimes that's what has to be done. It it the coaches. The easiest coaches are like you said, coaches are the easiest one to get rid of, a lot easier than trading a player Cause. Then it's like, oh, did you get the right value for them? You know it's easier to just move on from a hitting coach, a pitching coach, even your manager, and be like you know what You've been. Okay, we can replace you with Stubby or whatnot for the time being, for the month and whatnot, but I mean it's just going to be interesting and everything. Any thoughts on the City Connects before we, you know, call it a day.

Blake : 32:40

I don't know if you guys saw the tweet from Emo's.

Luke: 32:43

Yeah.

Blake : 32:44

I saw that Coming on the same day as the Cardinals are releasing their City Connects.

Luke: 32:48

And if this?

Blake : 32:49

is some pizza-themed jersey. I'm kind of terrified to see what it's going to be.

RJ: 32:53

I'm just hoping it's not all red.

Blake : 32:56

I'm now ready for an Emo's patch, like the Stifle patch on the side honestly, though, like all the City Connects, at least in my mind, have just been terrible. So let's just get like as weird as possible with this, like just pizzas everywhere on the jersey, like let's just make it and it can't be worse than one that has been released yeah, I'm real.

Luke: 33:16

Weird jersey. The weirder the better.

RJ: 33:17

In that case Emo's better have you know crazy, crazy deals yeah awesome.

Trevor: 33:23

Well, um, that'll uh do it for our episode today. Blake, thank you so much for joining us. Been a pleasure chatting with you.

Blake : 33:32

Um anything you have coming up that you want to plug yeah, so over at the cardinal nation, uh, brian walton and I are kind of re-ranking our off-season prospect rankings. So we ranked the top 50, we ranked it in the top top 50. In the offseason we've had a lot of interesting prospects that have kind of come up and down and shown different skill sets over the first month of the season. So we'll be re-ranking it, releasing it, hopefully in the next couple of days. Um, so be on the lookout for that. And as for Viva Alberto's, I have no idea what I'm writing about on Sunday, so we'll just have to find out.

Trevor: 34:04

Perfect, obviously. Hey, everybody, if you aren't already following Blake, make sure to check him out on Twitter on Viva Alberto's and Cardinals Nation. We will see you guys next time and hopefully we'll be talking about a sweep of the angels in our recap later this week. Thanks everybody and have a great night.