Room recording
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[00:00:00]

[00:00:00] Nate: Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Talking About Birds, a cardinal podcast that does have that hot dog in them. My name is Nate Heininger, and I am joined by my co-host, Ben Somorka.

[00:00:12] ben: That, that might be m- my favorite one.

​

[00:00:23] Nate: Well, if you have an idea for the opening bit, text or leave us a voicemail at 848-48-BIRDS, or of course, check out our Patreon and consider joining the Bird Squad where people are submitting. we, we did get a, uh, a, couple, uh, dog in them suggestions. That one was my own. I decided to, uh, go

[00:00:47] ben: Dang it. Wow.

[00:00:49] Nate: I know. So I'm, I'm very... I'm quite tickled that your favorite one so far,

[00:00:55] ben: Damn it.

[00:00:56] Nate: came from me.

[00:00:58] ben: Feel like I got rope-a-doped there. That [00:01:00] was...

[00:01:01] Nate: Hoo,

[00:01:01] ben: I don't know.

[00:01:02] Nate: ha, hoo, ha.

[00:01:03] ben: not, not sure how I feel about that.

[00:01:05] Nate: we had a long run of, uh, only listener submitted, uh, opening bits, which I love. Please keep them going. But, you know, sometimes daddy's gotta come out of retirement and, uh, throw one out there.

[00:01:19] ben: Who's Daddy?

[00:01:20] Nate: I don't know. I didn't like it when I said

[00:01:22] ben: Okay. Just thought we should make sure we're on the same page of who Daddy is

[00:01:27] Nate: Uh, is

there a daddy of the show? I don't think so. I think this is a fatherless of

[00:01:34] ben: It would make more sense if it, if that's... Yeah, yeah.

[00:01:37] Nate: Yeah.

[00:01:38] ben: makes sense to me.

[00:01:39] Nate: Yeah. I think we talked a little bit, uh, uh, oh, about this over the weekend. You and I just, just spent a weekend together, uh, to varying degrees of success, but what is your, what is your hot do- Like, your... you have the entire world in front of you.

You have open access to anything. What is your hot dog of [00:02:00] choice?

[00:02:00] ben: yeah. Well, I, I will say, you know, the Co- I had a Costco dog within the past couple of weeks,

[00:02:06] Nate: Yeah.

[00:02:07] ben: and it was hitting.

[00:02:08] Nate: Yeah.

[00:02:09] ben: The thing with the Costco dog is I gotta dress it myself. I don't wanna do that.

[00:02:14] Nate: Okay, so s- big part of getting it, whatever kind of dog you want, it, it must be prepared by someone else. That's a key, piece of your... a

key

[00:02:23] ben: I'm just saying my, my preferred dog is the Chicago-style dog,

[00:02:28] Nate: Okay.

[00:02:29] ben: um, with the... It's, it's... I had to Google it to make sure I got it right. Yellow mustard, chopped white onions, bright green sweet pickle relish, dill pickle spear, tomato slices or wedges, pickled sport peppers, and a dash of celery salt with ketchup strictly forbidden.

And typically, I feel like when you get it in Chicago, it's got those, like, the black poppy seeds on top or, or whatever that is. Um, and the reason I say that is 'cause, like, to [00:03:00] make that hot dog, that's like three trip, trips to the store. I gotta do some knife cutting. I'm not doing that at home. But if I see a Chicago-style dog on the menu, I'm, I'm very well might get it.

[00:03:13] Nate: getting the Chicago dog. Uh, yeah. I, you know, I, yeah, I actually, I think, I, my answer is the same, though I will say no mustard, please, which I understand is, uh, maybe a little bit of heresy here. But don't worry, no ketchup. I don't like ketchup anyway, so I'm not putting that on the dog.

[00:03:30] ben: Wow.

[00:03:30] Nate: but everything else is exactly right.

At home, I've been a big fan of the pickle spear and barbecue sauce.

[00:03:38] ben: Yeah, that's...

[00:03:39] Nate: a great dog, with some onions on it if I got 'em.

[00:03:41] ben: The barbecue sauce thing is the move of a psychopath, of

[00:03:45] Nate: I

[00:03:45] ben: of a... Yeah.

[00:03:46] Nate: knife cutting,

[00:03:47] ben: Yeah,

[00:03:48] Nate: A, a normal way to say using a knife. Um, you think barbecue sauce is crazy on a hot dog?

[00:03:55] ben: I do actually. I, I think that it's [00:04:00] something,

[00:04:00] Nate: most

[00:04:01] ben: if somebody were, that I knew, were to put barbecue sauce

[00:04:07] Nate: the time.

[00:04:08] ben: like that they should be on a list.

[00:04:12] Nate: What list.

Let's keep this going.

[00:04:14] ben: A list. Um, dumbass bitch list?

[00:04:18] Nate: Damn. Fuck.

[00:04:21] ben: Not him.

[00:04:23] Nate: All right, fine. Well, then I guess put me on the dumbass bitch list

[00:04:28] ben: But I also, like the government should track you also.

[00:04:30] Nate: Yeah.

[00:04:31] ben: what end I, I haven't decided, but I do think that, yeah. And I believe in the GOP.

[00:04:37] Nate: my daughter googled me the other day.

Yeah, I was like, "Oh, no, they're getting... She's... It's... It's happening."

[00:04:45] ben: W- was she like confused that there was nothing to find and thought you were dead for a moment?

[00:04:51] Nate: There's actually more because of this dumb shit of my... We're all o- like it...

[00:04:56] ben: Yeah.

[00:04:57] Nate: other, you know, it's not a... Neither of us have common [00:05:00] last names,

[00:05:00] ben: That's true.

[00:05:01] Nate: so we're all over it. It's my legacy.

[00:05:05] ben: True.

[00:05:07] Nate: s-so we just spent a weekend

[00:05:11] ben: Can you tell how, how good our chemistry is right now?

[00:05:14] Nate: we're locked in.

[00:05:15] ben: It's like ping pong.

[00:05:16] Nate: I spent, uh, two days in a boat with Hambone here.

He, of course, was only present for about a day and a half of that, um, but y- you know it's true.

[00:05:27] ben: I was there.

[00:05:29] Nate: yes, you were... Your, your, your physical presence was there.

[00:05:33] ben: Yeah.

[00:05:33] Nate: but you were asleep on the front of the boat, just face down into the carpet of our shitty little boat.

[00:05:40] ben: Ass up.

[00:05:44] Nate: We... At one point, Ben is down, flopped on the front of the boat. Me and in front of the show, Chris, are... We're, we're, we're, we're at full speed cutting through the water. We were... We're stupid 'cause our boat, so our boat was [00:06:00] splashing water everywhere,

[00:06:01] ben: The trim was off.

[00:06:02] Nate: I felt like I was, uh, some sort of eco-friendly, like, coast guard guy, uh, rushing a beached walrus to a local hospital as I had you flopped over the front of the boat.

[00:06:16] ben: believe that you would treat a walrus better than you would treat me.

[00:06:21] Nate: I, I would actually. I mean, I would expect that of anyone. I'd expect you to treat a walrus better than me.

[00:06:27] ben: Really?

[00:06:28] Nate: I mean, low bar.

[00:06:31] ben: Hmm. Okay. I think you should live in an aquatic center and y- let me throw fish at you.

[00:06:36] Nate: you.

know what's a classic bit too? Putting two straws in your mouth and being a, being a walrus.

[00:06:43] ben: Pinnacle of comedy.

[00:06:44] Nate: Yeah, there's nothing better. Um, but we, uh, is now our tradition, I, I don't know how many years you and I have been doing the tournament. It, it, it is, it has been

[00:06:53] ben: 100 years.

[00:06:54] Nate: Yeah, probably around 100 years.

Um, if you were [00:07:00] wondering if we would be successful, uh, you were, uh...

[00:07:05] ben: What is success?

[00:07:06] Nate: Yeah, define success?

really in a fishing tournament. Is it- Is it catching fish and placing well in a tournament? Or is it, you know, having a good day out in the sun with your buds?

[00:07:19] ben: Wow. Hard

[00:07:20] Nate: Wow.

[00:07:20] ben: to say.

[00:07:21] Nate: Yeah. I caught a fish

[00:07:25] ben: In like the last 30 minutes.

[00:07:27] Nate: minutes.

and we were doing trolling, which is a very unsatisfying type of fishing, and so I didn't even really know for sure I had a fish until the very last moment.

[00:07:37] ben: Yeah.

[00:07:37] Nate: it wasn't even like, "Oh, I..." You know, "Oh, I got one." Like, it was like, "Oh, shit, I do have one,"

[00:07:43] ben: Yeah.

[00:07:43] Nate: Which, uh, unsatisfying. Ben fished for maybe an hour total out of the whole weekend and of course did better than me and Chris, uh, two fish into the tournament.

[00:07:54] ben: Yep.

[00:07:55] Nate: Uh, Ben s- Ben submitted two. Big [00:08:00] win this year though, Hambone. Both of them the correct type of fish,

[00:08:04] ben: Rag tide?

[00:08:04] Nate: the tournament, uh, Chri- Chris submitted one and I submitted zero.

[00:08:09] ben: I- That first fish I caught was the fourth biggest fish of the whole tournament. That's not nothing.

[00:08:14] Nate: He almost placed.

[00:08:16] ben: Yeah.

[00:08:17] Nate: 30 minutes on the first day,

[00:08:18] ben: Yeah.

[00:08:19] Nate: one big fish, punched out after that and then, uh, almost placed in the tournament.

[00:08:25] ben: know, a, a truly great player knows when to hang up the cleats.

[00:08:28] Nate: Yeah. Yeah. Yep, I think what would be... I think we'd definitely define your performance this weekend as truly great.

[00:08:36] ben: Thank you. I agree.

[00:08:39] Nate: But good. It was a beautiful weekend, you know. Couple of bluebird days, just really nice outside.

[00:08:45] ben: boy, was it ever.

[00:08:47] Nate: So thank you for... I m- I assume most of our listeners were out there just thinking about us all weekend, wondering how we were doing in the tournament and, uh, it was bad.

[00:08:57] ben: No one fell in the water.[00:09:00]

[00:09:00] Nate: Always a surprise and something that we've done. It's never happened.

[00:09:05] ben: No.

[00:09:05] Nate: of us have fallen in.

[00:09:07] ben: Not yet.

[00:09:08] Nate: I think we're seated. We're, we're a very seated group though, you know?

[00:09:12] ben: I mean, I'm barely moving when I'm on that boat.

[00:09:15] Nate: You were, you were full contact with the boat.

at all times.

[00:09:19] ben: It's a safety measure.

[00:09:20] Nate: All right. Well, we'll, we'll do it again next year I'm sure, and, Uh, next year will be the year I think. Don't you? Don't you feel confident about

next

[00:09:32] ben: I think we're, when we're defining things is when I get confused. Like, the year of what? You know, the year of ... You know, I, I don't want to put labels on it, 'cause then I'm f- I feel like I'm in a box,

[00:09:43] Nate: Yeah, nobody puts Benny in a box.

[00:09:45] ben: you

[00:09:45] Nate: It'd

[00:09:46] ben: can't.

[00:09:47] Nate: gotta be a pretty big box. Uh, well you'll be back in a few weeks for, for blogger day. We'll see if maybe that'll be a little more successful, which I don't think we've actually talked about- this show yet. [00:10:00] Um, May 30th, us and, uh, a bunch of other people in the community, I think this'll be our third year doing it.

[00:10:07] ben: Yep.

[00:10:08] Nate: Um, we will be going to... Uh, this year, they're doing it on a Saturday night Cubs-Cardinal game. So uh, you know, really shelling out the big bucks for the, uh, for the blogger and podcaster community. The last few have been, uh, day games. Um, so like a, uh, like a Saturday night game against the, the Cubs.

That'll be fun. And there was a little bit of uncertainty for a while, everyone is quite confident that he would, but there was still uncertainty if Heim would participate and actually come in and like sit with the grossest group of, uh, re- interviewers that he possibly could surround himself

[00:10:47] ben: Freaks and Geeks.

[00:10:48] Nate: Yeah. Uh, but he is, which is great. I, I think we all kind of anticipated it. There, you know, it's a, it's a fun, a fun event, but you could also see him being like, "No, I'm good."

[00:10:59] ben: [00:11:00] Yeah. But it would be an historic L taken by the PoBo, if you ask me.

[00:11:06] Nate: Yeah. Um, so we're gonna grill him. I think we're gonna grill him. I think that's, I think that's the

plan.

[00:11:15] ben: year everybody was too busy, uh, kissing the shoes that Moselock was walking on for, for... I feel like we were a little too nice to Mo on his way out.

[00:11:24] Nate: Well,

[00:11:25] ben: not that he doesn't get gruff from, uh, real reporters and stuff like that on a, on... from time to time. But I'm j- I'm sharpening my pitchfork for this Bloom conversation.

[00:11:36] Nate: to be angry about right now as Cardinal fans.

[00:11:38] ben: the tea- team is over-performing, you son of a bitch.

[00:11:42] Nate: I, it's been a fun start to the season. What the hell, Heim? Uh, and we'll talk more about this as it gets a little closer, but, uh, to that point, though, last year also, if you remember, uh, the Cardinals at the end of May were eight games over .500 too.

So I think everyone was feeling pretty good. You and I were saying, "The team [00:12:00] is fun. The team is good." You know, all that. Mozeliak's maybe walking out on a little bit of a high note, so everyone was ready to just throw legacy questions at him, you

[00:12:10] ben: Yeah.

[00:12:10] Nate: is fine. It's whatever. They're, we're not gonna get anything that we haven't already heard probably in three different interviews in that room.

[00:12:18] ben: That's a really great way to look at this opportunity.

[00:12:22] Nate: I am excited. It i- it'll be cool to, uh, to get to talk to him. Um, uh, all right. So, so let's, let's talk about the Cardinals, though. Um, another good week of baseball, Hambone. The Cardinals, uh, finished their sweep Of the Pirates. Four-game sweep of the Pirates.

[00:12:44] ben: Yeah.

[00:12:44] Nate: They take a series against the Dodgers, which nobody saw coming. Uh, and then they won the first game of the Brewers series. Of course, last night was rained out, and then today did not go very well. Well, this is, uh, Tab After Dark, so we do know the [00:13:00] results of the Wednesday game. but hard to, uh, be upset at all about any of the, the results from this last week of baseball. What do you wanna talk about first?

[00:13:09] ben: I think, you know, and hopefully we have to do this a ton more times throughout this year, but I think we have to start the show off by talking about Jaywalk with another huge week. Two homers, which is great. 10 hits, which is great. And, you know, we're starting to get to the point where we've played 35-plus baseball games right now, and he is ninth in MLB in WRC+ right now.

And if you're not familiar with WRC+, basically just saying he's the ninth best hitter across both the National League and American League, uh, by a couple of different metrics. So, um, seeing him, we talked about it a couple of weeks ago when he got cold. We just need to see him dig himself out and, and see what that looks like.

He was able to get scorching hot again [00:14:00] to carry the team offensively. Again, get some walks. He's still striking out a little too much for my, my taste, but more homers, more hits. It's, it's looking good, Nate. It's, he's looking like a real baseball player. It is. We are beyond the 60 plate appearance. Like, I think we talked about that at the beginning of the season.

Any baseball player can do anything for 60 plate appearances. We're almost at 150 right now. And again, he has that 168 WRC+ for ninth in baseball. Didn't have that on my 2026 bingo card, Nathan.

[00:14:35] Nate: Bing- I did. Bingo.

[00:14:37] ben: If you did, you'd, you'd be a, a bingo winner, I would imagine.

[00:14:40] Nate: It's, it's crazy. I mean, we are, we are rocketing towards, uh, the small sample size caveat no longer being the case. Like you said, 146 plate appearances. Um, and I think what we just saw after the last three weeks or so, it [00:15:00] was really, to me, the, the, um, nail in the coffin of the concern that this was a fluky 10 games.

You know? He, he, he came out of the gates, hit, like, eight home runs in 11 games, and then immediately-- or then right after that, started striking out a ton again. Looked a l- didn't necessarily look lost, but the results weren't, weren't there, and you could just see, like, you know, in the infinite amount of universes and outcomes, there's a lot where that is way it goes, and Jordan Walker re- regresses to his previous approach, and it was a really fun couple weeks. But at the end of the day, he is what he has been for the last three years. Um, but instead, we saw him maintain his focus, maintain, uh, an elevated approach, and basically work through it. You know? He started making a little bit better contact, started hitting the ball harder again, started hitting it up, and then the result- results started to follow.

So, [00:16:00] I've been impressed, you know? And I think that Will-- I mean, will he carry a 168? I don't know. I'm not-- I wouldn't be betting on that for the rest of the season. Um, but I've got no reason to think that this isn't real, and he is, uh, certainly seems to be one of the better hitters in baseball now,

[00:16:23] ben: Yeah.

[00:16:23] Nate: not top 10, which is

[00:16:25] ben: Yeah.

[00:16:26] Nate: I mean, I, like, w- let's zoom out a little bit. Like, when has this happened as a Cardinal fan ever? I just... Like, outside of our true, like, level stuff. Like, feels like the last 15 years has been prospect disappointment after prospect disappointment. Um, and so I understand that I'm probably getting ahead of myself, and that this will, this may still all fall apart as pitchers get better and better at, at dealing with him. right now, I'm [00:17:00] like, man, it feels good to finally have, like, oh, we have a, a top prospect who is succeeding. You know? I know it took three years, but whatever, you know? If, if it's this, if he's anything like this, then it was worth the wait. Uh, and I hope that they extend him, because he's already got, like, two and a half years of service time.

[00:17:19] ben: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think what really, you know, is, is a huge difference maker for him compared to Damn near any prospect the Cardinals have had in the past 10, 15 years is the power potential, is a true 80 grade, hits the ball as hard as anyone else in the league power potential. And, uh, the fact that he's able to get to it, um, the fact that he has already been getting to it, uh, you know, that's, that's how you, y- y- and you know this, but, uh, just to say it out loud, that's how you get to be a top 10 hitter in baseball, is you can give me a little bit of [00:18:00] average, but it's really about that slugging and those, those extra bases, which is what we think he can do as long as he keeps himself together.

I'm kind of at the point now, you know, he, he gathered a, a couple of walks today. We've got 35 games of Jordan Walker doing this. It's the longest and the best he's ever done this. Are teams gonna start avoiding him? Is that... Are those walks going to go up? And is he going to be able to take increased walks?

Because, you know, it is the power. It, it's not like, uh, when you kind of, uh, uh, give in to pretty much any other player on the team where they rope a double down the line. He can take anybody out to any side of field at any time. Like, we'll, we'll see how the league adjusts if they do or when they do, I guess.

[00:18:47] Nate: Well, he had a couple walks today.

[00:18:50] ben: I just said that.

[00:18:51] Nate: uh, and I'm, I'm staring at numbers trying to, uh, you know, to support your argument here. So I wanna say [00:19:00] that he had two walks today. Um, he has a, uh, 9.6%... That was what I was looking for. He has a 9.6% walk rate, uh, which is two points higher than what he had done last year, uh, and like five points higher than, than

[00:19:18] ben: God.

[00:19:41] Nate: Um, the good news is that at least in front of him right now, there's been, uh, some real production as well, um, which is making it, hopefully will make it harder for them to pitch around him as, as more people are on, on base in front of him. [00:20:00] Uh, you know, m- behind him in the lineup, we're still working on that, you know.

Um, but...

[00:20:06] ben: Gorman is technically having a better year than I thought he was going to have.

[00:20:11] Nate: I, so as I, I, I-- It's not on the, the, um, uh,

[00:20:17] ben: He's going off the outline, people

[00:20:20] Nate: I mean, people don't, may not realize this, and it's important every once in a while we'll let people

peek behind the curtain. This show is deeply scripted. Almost everything I've said today was written And Ben signed off on it, all that, that whole bit about

[00:20:36] ben: that starts at like 9:00 AM. You know, we clock in.

[00:20:39] Nate: we clock in.

[00:20:40] ben: Yeah.

[00:20:41] Nate: and we lock in. Um, that whole

[00:20:43] ben: That was good. We, I'm glad we wrote that one too.

[00:20:46] Nate: Yeah, I

I'm actually right now I'm just reading off of a script. Anyway, uh, Nolan Gorman is... go look at Statcast, that, that rolling expected WOBA, it's been [00:21:00] climbing. He's increased his expected WOBA by, like, 90 points in the last 50 plate appearances or so. still

[00:21:08] ben: I

[00:21:09] Nate: league average, but it's climbing. It's moving in the right direction. So, you know, I think that's just something to keep an eye on. Um, I certainly have felt his at-bats have been a little bit better. And when you start to look in the numbers, there is some evidence that he also might be coming out of it.

Um, but he doesn't have the, the some of the, the tools that Walker has. Uh, who by the way, what, has seven stolen bases also?

[00:21:36] ben: just gonna say, Nolan Gorman, uh, is so s- it's rare that I think I might be quicker than an MLB player.

[00:21:43] Nate: Yeah.

[00:21:44] ben: is so slow.

[00:21:45] Nate: Yeah, he is. Uh, so Walker, is he leading the team in stolen bases also? 'Cause I don't... Like, Scott, I think, has six. JJ

[00:21:55] ben: Yeah.

[00:21:55] Nate: four or

[00:21:56] ben: Let me Google that for you, big dog. Um, yeah. [00:22:00] Yeah. It's, looks like J-Walk is in the lead with six, and Victor Scott has five as of today.

[00:22:07] Nate: Yeah. Crazy. It's fun.

[00:22:12] ben: We're having fun. Um, speaking of having fun, the guy that hits right in front of Jordan Walker has also been having a lot of fun. Ali Burlson just won M- NL Player of the l- of the Week. He's dinking and doinking. He, he had a little bit of a, a cold streak there, and has pulled himself out of it, uh, really nicely, and he's doing that thing where he's just hitting the shit out of the ball, um, in every direction, spraying it all over the field.

Um, and, you know, watching those two guys kind of bang at the same time, it is funny. I j- I feel like we haven't... Even though we had two Hall of Famers on the team for the past however many years with Arenado and, I, I guess that first year or that, that MVP year, yeah. But it just has [00:23:00] felt like a while.

[00:23:01] Nate: Yeah.

[00:23:03] ben: Um, but seeing that, being able to watch that for a week, and even with the pitching isn't, hasn't been all that great, it doesn't really matter if you have two guys that are doing things, you know, better than 90% of the league, at least at, at any given time.

[00:23:17] Nate: What we talked about at the end of last week's episode is that, um, you know, a team that has a legitimate offense, has legitimate defense, and has a good bullpen can be a very, very successful team. You know, most people will say winning starts with good starting pitching, and I think that is still the ideal way to build your team.

Uh, and we know the Cardinals are working on that. Um, it doesn't certainly seem like this year will be the year that we have very good starting pitching, but I have hopes for it down the line. Um, but all the other stuff, offense, defense, and bullpen are [00:24:00] looking very good. And in, you know, an NL that is wide open right now except for the Dodgers, um, and, and the Braves.

I think the Braves have done a good job of establishing themself. It feels like there, there's a wide open path here for, like, a slight-- You know, another team's gonna get into the playoffs with 84 wins or whatever, you know? And if the goal is just to make the playoffs, you can start to see what a 2026 Cardinal team would look like that gets there. Now, I'm not there yet. It's only May 6th, you know? Um, and again, 2025, we were eight games above .500 at the end of May. but for what it's worth, last year it kind of felt like the wheels were gonna fall off that at any time, even when they were winning. Um, this year, this version of [00:25:00] winning feels more sustainable to me than the version of winning we had last year.

[00:25:04] ben: Yeah. Yeah, I, I think I agree with that because the offense is humming. But,

[00:25:09] Nate: Yeah.

[00:25:10] ben: it would not surprise me in the slightest if JJ and Walker just go ice cold for a month and a half, you know?

[00:25:19] Nate: Yeah.

[00:25:20] ben: Um, but I, I get what you're saying, and I, I think it leads to the, the next thing I wanted to talk about is, again, we're 35 games in.

The Cardinals have 35 games. Uh, and they have the seventh best overall offense in baseball if you go by xWOB or WRC+ right now, and I, I, I find that shocking. I know that we've been talking about obviously some good offensive performances. Uh, they are smushed in between the Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds, and I think that coming into 2026, you would've said that those are two better or probably better offenses than what St.

Louis is rolling out. And the only teams above them outside of that goes Houston, Detroit, [00:26:00] Atlanta, LA, New York. And the rest of the league is below them. All good teams, all good offenses at the very least. Um, now there's a s- pretty significant differences between the Yankees and the Dodgers offense and the Cardinals, but that's true for pretty much the rest of the league too.

Um- But yeah, I thought that that was pretty shocking. And again, it's only a month or it's a little over a month, but I think we can finally start having these conversations of we're doing things. This offense might actually be good.

[00:26:30] Nate: Yeah, and it'll continue to evolve and there's some real opportunity here of, um, you know, there's some-- several guys have nowhere to go but up still, you know? So if, if Walker and JJ start to cool off, which would be very, very normal and frankly expected to some degree, um, but, uh, Herrera's results start to increase.

I mean, he's been hitting the ball really well, but the results haven't fully been there, though they've started to lift over the last [00:27:00] couple weeks. Or, uh, Victor Scott starts to put it together, or maybe Jimmy Crooks is called up and, and provides more offense from the catcher position, or Josh Baez comes up or, you know.

There's a lot of different paths here where you just get a little bit more from some of these other guys and the team can be more complete. 'Cause it really feels like a top half

[00:27:21] ben: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:23] Nate: but I don't know, maybe Gorman does keep elevating and, and, and improving. Um,

[00:27:29] ben: I

[00:27:30] Nate: f- to me

[00:27:31] ben: will

[00:27:32] Nate: gambling perspective of like there's no way both Walker and Gorman are going to end up being good this year.

It always felt like at least one of them, and we've kind of already got like our monkey's paw. Like Walker's good, you

[00:27:42] ben: Yeah,

[00:27:43] Nate: Um,

[00:27:44] ben: I get why you feel that way, but just to be clear, that's not how things work. Yeah. I will say

[00:27:52] Nate: clear.

[00:27:53] ben: that you look at the top of the lineup, Wetherholt, Herrera, Burley, and [00:28:00] Walker, and that's probably the 1-2-3-4 for next year and hopefully for a while. I don't really see that going anywhere. Maybe the guys, they change up where they're playing on the field or something like that, but I feel pretty good about that for the foreseeable future.

[00:28:18] Nate: Yeah.

[00:28:19] ben: caveat that we are at the 35-game mark with Jordan Walker and so far so good. All that being said, I guess any player could lose at any moment, but let's enjoy the ride. Those are some pretty sturdy pillars that you're building that Cardinals offense on. I mean, Jordan, that one pillar is

[00:28:40] Nate: I--

[00:28:41] ben: The house is going to be crooked.

That's not how you build a house, I guess.

[00:28:46] Nate: I don't know anything about building houses.

[00:28:49] ben: I live in a house.

[00:28:50] Nate: Hey, brag.

[00:28:52] ben: I know some people that live in houses. I've been in houses.

[00:28:56] Nate: I'm familiar with the concept at the very least.

[00:28:59] ben: Yes. A [00:29:00] bunch of walls. Roof.

[00:29:02] Nate: Let's keep this going. Rug? Did you say rug?

[00:29:05] ben: Roof.

[00:29:06] Nate: Oh, Roof.

Walls, rug,

[00:29:09] ben: You don't need a rug for a house. I think you need a door for a house, though.

[00:29:15] Nate: Probably.

[00:29:16] ben: All right.

[00:29:16] Nate: Many are b- many are saying.

[00:29:18] ben: many are saying... So Cardinals offense has been good, um, and if you're waiting for the shoe to drop, I, I think the shoe's dropping already. We're, we're already in shoe drop mode. Uh, the Cardinals have a team pitching FanGraphs WAR.

This is an accumulative number, so all of the folks that have pitched for your St. Louis Cardinals in this young season. Um, Nate, I'm guessing you can-- you're looking at the outline right now, or do you wanna take a guess?

[00:29:47] Nate: I, I know what it is. I, I was looking at it. So, uh, 0.5, and I'm-- part of me is like, "Where's that even coming from?"

[00:29:56] ben: Yeah.

[00:29:57] Nate: Who's,

who's driving us into the [00:30:00] positive side?

[00:30:00] ben: I, I have the, I have the totals in front of me right now. Let's just play a quick little game. Who do you think is leading your St. Louis Cardinals pitching staff in F WAR?

[00:30:11] Nate: I-- So maybe O'Brien 'cause he's had the most success, although he did finally give up a run,

[00:30:20] ben: He did. He has an ERA now.

[00:30:22] Nate: Yeah. Um, but obviously the, the, you know, some starters Are, getting into 30, 40 innings, and he's probably at, what, 12 or 13. So seems unlikely. You, you look like you wanna correct me.

[00:30:36] ben: Are, are you gonna make it? Is this your guess or are you just noodling around?

[00:30:41] Nate: Dustin May.

[00:30:42] ben: Wow, you are a failure, but you were pretty close.

[00:30:46] Nate: Okay.

[00:30:47] ben: May is number two of F WAR with .6. He's got 36 and two-thirds innings pitched,

[00:30:54] Nate: Pretty good.

[00:30:55] ben: F WAR. You were right, Nathan. Riley O'Brien has [00:31:00] 17 innings pitch, and he has a .8 F WAR right now.

So he is,

[00:31:05] Nate: pretty

dominant 18 innings.

[00:31:07] ben: he is ri- he is... His, uh, 17, 17 innings have completely wiped out the performances by Swanson and Romero on this young season. Um, a- and if you're surprised to hear Romero on that, uh, it might be worth noting that he has a xERA, an expected ERA, and a FIP of over five. Um, so the, the systems are really not liking what Romero has done in a short, you know, 17 innings so far.

But yeah. Anyways, Riley O'Brien is leading the pack. It goes Dustin May, McGreevy, Palante, Fernandez, Stanek, and Soriano. Those are the top seven with,

uh,

[00:31:47] Nate: it's pretty rough when you-- So the math you said was O'Brien was what? 0.7? .

[00:31:52] ben: 8.

[00:31:53] Nate: 0.8. May is 0.6, so that's 1.4,

[00:31:57] ben: Yeah.

[00:31:57] Nate: then you've also told us that the team total [00:32:00] is 0.5. So,

[00:32:03] ben: So I'll, I'll, the-- I gave you all the guys that have a positive F/WAR, even if it's 0.1. Our negative guys, it's Kyle Leahy, Roycroft, Liberatore, Brule, Swanson, and Romero, as I mentioned. So, um, still early and, you know, Roycroft, he can bounce back maybe someday. I, I'm not gonna put any money on that. But, um, it's very, very early, especially for pitching WAR.

[00:32:31] Nate: a st-- yeah, totally. Um, a starting pitcher can add, uh, a half as a, a, a half a WAR.

in one really, really good game,

[00:32:40] ben: Yeah.

[00:32:41] Nate: Yeah.

But that sounds about right, that. So war, wins above replacement, the entire pitching staff has been worth half one win above replacement.

[00:32:53] ben: So you have a replacement level pitching staff, but like you were saying, if you have a [00:33:00] solid offense and a solid defense and good base running, and if you're not making mistakes to, to shoot yourself in the foot, like you could see how that team is slightly over 500.

[00:33:09] Nate: Yeah.

[00:33:10] ben: now it's not going to get any better than that unless something on the pitching turns around.

I also think like, you know, we're, we're watching these games. The, the Cardinals are doing that thing again where they're not striking anybody out, and one way or another that's gonna come up and bite them. Um, and we're gonna get some really gnarly looking ERAs here probably sooner than later. But so they've done a weirdly good just-- especially the starters have done a weirdly good job of keeping, McGreevy especially by the way, but keeping that ERA low while really not striking anybody out.

[00:33:50] Nate: I, I think it's a blend of just good old-fashioned small sample size and very good defense,

[00:33:59] ben: Very, very [00:34:00] good defense. I, I feel like that is the calling card of the team actually. And, and we're gonna talk about Walker and JJ because that's really exciting. But I imagine the scouting report on the Cardinals right now is stout, stout defense.

[00:34:15] Nate: Yeah, I mean, y- you've got a pitching staff that puts the ball in play, and then you've got a very good defense behind them that are doing a pretty good job of, of handling that. So the recipe makes sense. Now, it would be more ideal that they actually just don't put the ball in play as much, and when they-- so when they do, you s- just still also have that great defense.

'cause eventually these hits find holes.

We've seen that. Uh, we've had a couple games this year. Even the v- the very opening day where they just got, you get dinked and dunked and the people just put the ball in play seven times in an inning, and every single one of them fucking finds the perfect little hole, and the game is done. Or, or, you know, not in opening day's case, but several times this year just went, "Well, that was a shitty inning."

[00:34:58] ben: Yeah.

[00:34:59] Nate: that's what you get for [00:35:00] that.

[00:35:00] ben: I don't, I don't ever wanna root for the Cardinal- for bad things to happen to the Cardinals or even individual Cardinals, but I am kind of at the point where I'm ready for specifically Palante and Leahy to get blown up, to,

[00:35:17] Nate: Oh,

no.

[00:35:17] ben: to, stop being

[00:35:18] Nate: a bomb?

[00:35:19] ben: Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. On the baseball field, in, in between the lines,

[00:35:23] Nate: okay.

[00:35:24] ben: giving up some meatballs.

And not real meatballs, Nate.

[00:35:28] Nate: Stop with all these euphemisms.

[00:35:30] ben: I'm sorry. I would like for Leahy and Palante to give up several runs that are more in, uh, in line with what their underlying numbers are saying so that we can start having the conversation of a little, uh, starting pitcher merry-go-round and, and maybe that's getting Hunter Dobbins some more starts or, or maybe somebody else.

But what a great segue I just did. Let's talk about that Hunter Dobbins start really quick, Nate.

[00:35:58] Nate: So, yeah, 'cause I [00:36:00] was gonna say, to what end, though? Because I don't, I, I really doubt Heim, the Bloomin' Goons are not seeing and understanding exactly what we're

seeing and

[00:36:10] ben: I might be thinking Moselak brain. I, I might be too Moselak brained with that, where it was just hope and pray and not actually look at what's happening.

[00:36:20] Nate: I think they just don't have-- Like, we saw Dobbins' first start, which we'll

[00:36:24] ben: Yeah.

[00:36:24] Nate: a second, um, and I imagine he will be back up shortly. Um, but outside of that, like, you know, no- D-Doyle's not running away with it, not like

[00:36:33] ben: No.

[00:36:33] Nate: projected to be up this early. Uh, Matthews isn't crushing it yet.

Like, you could maybe stretch out Graceffo, things like that. You could get cr- more creative in that regard. Um, but it's not like there's a guy knocking down the door, and I think they're likely doing what they've said they're gonna do, which is stick to the long-term plan. And I think that Polante and Leahy, um, are basically just pitching. [00:37:00] Like, they're, they-- I mean, they have opportunity. If they turn it around and are good, they will get to stay, but I imagine both of them are first on the block when a reasonable option surfaces.

[00:37:11] ben: Yeah, and I, I, I am probably, this is probably to a fault, a- a- and I'm fine with that. But I, I kind of think about it as like major league innings and major league opportunities are like a super finite resource, and I absolutely see the value of keeping guys down if you think there's more development that needs to happen.

Um, but I do want like... I, I, I wonder what Bryson Mounts looks like in the big league, big leagues. We talked, I did my whole thing about Bruce Zimmerman. You know, just getting looks at other guys who are older, who you may or may not think are cooked and, like I, I think that a major league start in a year like this can be a developmental opportunity rather [00:38:00] than looked at as like, uh, it, it being a step back.

I think that if you organizationally design it that way, then that's what it will be.

[00:38:09] Nate: Yeah.

[00:38:10] ben: maybe I'm wrong, and I'm fine to be wrong on that, but that i- is kind of where I'm at. Also, maybe I need to exercise some patience. I, I can hear all of that,

[00:38:19] Nate: Well, I

[00:38:20] ben: go back to it's, it's a finite resource. You only have so many starts, and, um, I think we've seen enough of Polante, at least him,

[00:38:28] Nate: Yeah.

[00:38:29] ben: to move on.

[00:38:30] Nate: That's what I was gonna say is I, I think while his results have been rough too, I think there's a, a more easy argument to be made that they've gone through this exercise of stretching him out. Some people have opinions that the slider will work and that he needs to it out, but he has the stuff to be a Major League starter, and it's only been one month.

And if you pull the plug on.

it now, what was the point of any of this? Like, he needs more time. I think that is a super reasonable argument, and I'm [00:39:00] fine to continue to watch Leahy, at least for a while. Polante, I think, is the different argument where we have 200 innings of him being, uh, you know, mid at best.

But again, who do you replace him with? Especially right now with a 17-game streak. Like, there's just... I- if there's not someone who's ready for a development start at the big leagues, which I agree with you is, is totally a thing that teams do, um, especially in a rebuild year. but if there's not someone who's, like, right there, then we just keep letting these guys go and kind of hope maybe Polante throws a couple good games in that time, which he's had a couple good games this

[00:39:38] ben: Yeah. No, I, I think that that's right. Like, a- and really you need... I, I think it's more what you said in the beginning, is somebody needs to perform at Triple-A to make the conversation a little more worth having, and really the only person who's done that is Bruce Zimmerman, who has been a Cardinal for all of 35 seconds,

[00:39:59] Nate: [00:40:00] Dobbins or Fitz,

[00:40:00] ben: Right. Who, who had pitched in the bigs before.

[00:40:03] Nate: and are-- Fitz is out for the season, and Dobbins just made his first start back, uh, which had some things to be positive about and some things that it really looked like a guy coming back from injury. Uh, do you wanna run through the, the stat line?

[00:40:18] ben: Yeah. Did you get a chance to watch this game, or, uh?

[00:40:21] Nate: I wasn't able to watch the whole thing, but I did watch some of it, and I went back and watched the highlights of him pitching.

[00:40:26] ben: Yeah. So he, he was able to go four and one-third. Uh, he kept it to only three earned runs, four Ks. I think the headline, though, was the five walks. And, and I'll tell you, watching this game live, from a stuff standpoint, I was impressed. The fastball played better than I expected it to. Um, I kind of chalked up the wildness to, uh, first start with the Cardinals, first start in the big leagues this season A lot of things changing.

Like you said, he's coming back from injury. There's just a lot of factors. I'm not going to [00:41:00] really look into it too much. So really just going off the, the stuff, um, I thought that the, uh, uh, the sinker, slider, and curve ball all looked really good. They all rated out really well on the, on the stuff plus and all the advanced metrics and everything like that.

Um, and you're talking about a young guy that was hitting, you know, 97, 98 with three borderline plus pitches, pitches that are above average in his first Major League start with his new organization. And I'm not saying like, "Here's our new ace incumbent," but I, I think that there's a lot of clay here that we can mold into a, a pretty decent starting pitcher.

You know, what his ceiling is, I don't know. But the slider's real, curve ball's real. Keep chucking those things.

[00:41:50] Nate: It's just nice to see a new pitcher

[00:41:52] ben: Yeah.

[00:41:53] Nate: I know we have Dustin May, uh, who's been, uh, good. He's getting seemingly better and

[00:41:58] ben: Dustin May's unc though, [00:42:00] we already know that.

[00:42:01] Nate: Yeah. And he's on a, uh, we have him for, uh, five more months unless something

[00:42:06] ben: Yeah.

[00:42:07] Nate: you know. Um, so it's just nice to see somebody new with interesting stuff. Um, and I- he was optioned, but I think that's just playing the game. I suspect uh, an injury, he will have... And, and maybe it's even already been announced and I just haven't seen it, but I think he's gonna have another start here soon. And while, especially w- they, they did ended up getting a, a free day off 'cause of the rain delay, but 17 games in a row, wouldn't surprise me if he comes up for another one of these starts, even if it's a, a shortened thing just to get him back.

Um, and then if he does really well, when we get more into the, the schedule with five-man rotation off days as you would expect, maybe he does take Polante's spot and we, everything we just talked about is solved in the next three weeks anyway.

[00:42:58] ben: Yeah. [00:43:00] Um, yeah. We'll, we'll see. We will, uh, I think follow his upcoming starts in Triple A pretty closely. Um, but yeah, I was... I think what you said is really what it comes down to. We got to look at another good or another start Cardinals pitcher. I don't care if he's good or bad or what, he's a new Cardinals starting pitcher.

[00:43:19] Nate: Yeah.

[00:43:20] ben: and that's, that's fun.

[00:43:22] Nate: Well, it's just nice. I think I talked about it last week or the week before. Like, the entire off-season was about improving the pitching, we've not seen any of that at the Major League level yet,

[00:43:34] ben: Yeah.

[00:43:35] Nate: makes sense understanding the scope and the process at which they went through. They, they targeted, uh, a wide range of pitching options, but a lot of them were, uh, in the lower to middle minors, you know?

So we didn't anticipate seeing a lot of them this year, so it's not like this was unexpected. Um, but I still, just from like a fan standpoint, spending the whole off-season acquiring like [00:44:00] nine pitchers and then going into the season and it's just Kyle Leahy, Michael McGreevy, Liberatore, you know, all the same guys that we had last year.

It's like, all

right. It's n- it's nice to see Dobbins. I wish Fitz was here, you know, but it is what it is.

[00:44:16] ben: It, it is funny, if you look outside of the bullpen, if you're looking up and down the lineup and in the rotation, everybody except for Urias, who by the way just went down, we'll talk about that in a second, and May, it's the exact same team.

[00:44:32] Nate: team.

[00:44:33] ben: feels so different. Um, and it seems like the clubhouse thinks that.

Obviously, I think the fans, we and I are feeling it. Um, but it is

[00:44:42] Nate: Well, yeah, it's,

[00:44:43] ben: really the same team.

[00:44:44] Nate: uh, I mean, yes and no because the, the core of the team.

was arguably like Wilson Contreras, Nolan Arenado, Brendan Donovan, and

[00:44:55] ben: Wait.

[00:44:55] Nate: gone, you

[00:44:57] ben: Oof,

[00:44:58] Nate: your, your three, four, five, or your [00:45:00] two, three, five hitters or whatever from last year are all gone. but yeah, we, we did the, the dog and 'em bit at the beginning,

but talked about hot dogs instead of the whole,

[00:45:11] ben: oof.

[00:45:11] Nate: dog and 'em thing. Uh, what, uh, so we were, we were watching the game together on Friday night when

[00:45:17] ben: Yeah. Sure.

[00:45:18] Nate: whole

[00:45:18] ben: that's good. I like

[00:45:59] Nate: a home [00:46:00] run."

[00:46:00] ben: Yeah.

[00:46:01] Nate: too. Um, it's just, it's nice. After the last, I mean, even the 2022 Cardinals, who had an MVP, a runner-up MVP, it's been stale,

[00:46:12] ben: Yeah.

[00:46:13] Nate: And I loved that team. They were a great team, and they, you know, did really well with Pujols and all that, but it was still just so serious. It was like the, my s- my complaint with the Team USA stuff earlier, just like, "Does anybody actually wanna be here?" You know? Um, so it's been, it's fun.

[00:46:32] ben: Yeah, that, that Team USA team had bad vibes. I think it's time that we have the conversation. It's true that Nolan Arenado ruined the Cardinals for the past two years.

[00:46:44] Nate: Well, you know, I said this before, and I said it last year, too. Everyone was so precious about pr- preserving the, the team chemistry. "Oh, we can't trade some of these guys. It's

[00:46:56] ben: I'm

[00:46:56] Nate: We need this culture." I don't [00:47:00] know. I- it seems like this is certainly a very good culture, maybe the most fun version of the team we've had in quite a while. And so I think that, I guess what I'm saying is that I'm right,

[00:47:13] ben: Yeah. You're good at that

[00:47:17] Nate: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Um, but we like dog barking, don't we, folks? We love a big necklace. We love a big, cheap Amazon necklace or whatever they got it

[00:47:26] ben: I do

[00:47:26] Nate: which

[00:47:26] ben: Jose Fermin just bought it off Amazon and

[00:47:29] Nate: Yeah.

[00:47:29] ben: now this is the thing. It, it has a little less majesty than the, uh, golden trident that the Mariners have, but I actually think that makes it better.

[00:47:38] Nate: Yeah, I've, I saw a, um, a, a national writer, I forget who, but basically called the, the Cardinals, like, the scrappy Cardinals, the, the scrappy upstart St. Louis Cardinals, you

[00:47:52] ben: I've seen it for many national. I saw... I just watched, uh, on one of the John Boy podcasts, they were talking about, uh, the, the guy that's [00:48:00] not John Boy, whatever that other guy, he was talking about how he's watching a ton of Cardinals games this year because they're young and fun and, you know,

[00:48:06] Nate: Yeah.

[00:48:07] ben: some great baseball.

It's, it's... We're not the only ones noticing. Um, it's, it's cool.

[00:48:13] Nate: don't know if you've seen the, uh, the stuff going on. I mean, everyone's laughing about the Red Sox, but have you seen the Willson Contreras stuff with the Red Sox?

[00:48:22] ben: Uh, no, I don't think so.

[00:48:24] Nate: so.

I, I'll paraphrase here, and I may get some of the smaller details wrong, but he, he, he basically said some things about the, part of the problem with the team is inconsistency from some of the younger players.

[00:48:37] ben: Yeah.

[00:48:39] Nate: I actually thi- like, I think his point is fine. Uh, and it probably would come off more as, like, elder statesman if the team was doing okay. Uh, but instead, uh, everyone's mad at, uh, old man getting mad at, at young kids on team sort of thing.

[00:48:57] ben: I am sure that it [00:49:00] is frustrating to... You're like, "Yeah, uh, uh, Roman Anthony's about to be the next great player. Marcello Mayer," you know, uh, Da- Caleb Durbin. And they're all sucking, and you're hearing how good they are. I get how that would be annoying.

[00:49:14] Nate: Yeah, I...

[00:49:15] ben: but it's also, like, the whole thing with young players is that they're not consistent yet.

[00:49:19] Nate: Yeah. I, I kinda took it as, like, Willson's probably right. I think knowing him, being on the Cardinals, it is a well-intended statement too. He's not actually trying to, like, blast anybody. but also probably something that you don't need to say.

[00:49:38] ben: No.

[00:49:39] Nate: yeah, uh, yeah.

[00:49:40] ben: We, we watched him for three years or whatever, and I feel pretty confident in saying that everything that comes out of Wilson Contreras' mouth is not always a fully formed thought. He lets it fly. Um,

[00:49:56] Nate: whole team got, his whole, the entire team, he got traded there. He [00:50:00] signed, or he agreed to waive his no trade clause to go to a team to try to win a World Series. Everyone said it was a smart move by him. He's there, and within one month, the entire staff is fired. Uh, Sonny Gray's on the IL, though he's back now.

[00:50:13] ben: yeah.

[00:50:14] Nate: and Willson's having a great start to the year. He's doing very well, uh, and it's like everything around him is crumbling. So I can imagine him being frustrated too.

[00:50:23] ben: Yeah. Um, but yeah, I'm sure. The, you know, it's funny, uh, the Red Sox, uh, with this god-awful start that they have had, according to Fra- FanGraphs projection systems, they have a 33.9% chance of making the playoffs this season. Uh, the Cardinals, with the good way they've started this season, now have almost a 25% chance of making the playoffs.

So,

[00:50:47] Nate: Yeah, So, we're still behind the Red Sox.

[00:50:49] ben: that being said, I bet you he's looking at the vibes that are happening over here and he's like, "Goddammit."

[00:50:55] Nate: Yeah.

[00:50:55] ben: But,

[00:50:56] Nate: why'd I leave? It would be fun to be over there

[00:50:58] ben: yep. Yeah,

[00:50:59] Nate: Um, [00:51:00] anyway, uh, so the Cardinals have had a few transactions, uh, over the week. Um, one very interesting one, um, which I will say is the, the Cardinals optioned Sajacy, and they've recalled Cesar Prieto, uh, from triple A. Uh, what's your, what's your take on

this?

[00:51:19] ben: and, just to, to put a button on it, uh, r- after Ramon Urias went down, Sujeyse got called back up. So Sujeyse, I don't even know if he was actually down for...

[00:51:28] Nate: was the same day.

[00:51:29] ben: Yeah, so,

[00:51:29] Nate: Yeah.

[00:51:30] ben: um, yeah, anyways, that happened.

[00:51:32] Nate: Yeah.

[00:51:32] ben: Um, yeah, Prieto, uh, I am infinitely curious about Cesar Prieto. You know, he can play all over the infield. I, I was curious.

I took a look. He has not had any starts in the outfield, um, at least that I can find on- online. So he is an infielder. I think he's probably a little bit better of a shortstop, uh, than a lot of other guys on our bench. Not a shortstop naturally. [00:52:00] Um, but the thing about this kid, it's always been hit tool over everything.

Um, I think he can probably hit. He's a left-hander, which doesn't necessarily help out the Cardinals.

[00:52:09] Nate: I

[00:52:09] ben: I think that we've seen, um, you know, JJ and, uh, um, uh, Mason should probably get a, a day or two off every once in a while. With Urias down, you don't mind having Cesar Prieto start at third base, and he hits the ball.

He's a high contact, uh, relatively low power kinda guy. He's had a really nice, powerful start to the season. I, I don't think the Cardinals fans should really buy into that until they see it in the, in the big leagues. But I think that there's no question that he is a good hitter.

[00:52:42] Nate: mean,

[00:52:42] ben: I think he's an above average hitter

[00:52:44] Nate: when you're thinking about roster construction, if you start to think, well, we weren't getting much power from who he's replacing in the first place. Um, and if he's spelling, uh, Mason Wynn for a day, [00:53:00] he's-- we're not losing much power there also, at least not right now. Um, the, the team is doing well at, at hitting the ball hard. Uh, what we really need is just guys to get on base in front of that top four. Um, you could see a world where obviously the overall offensive package is not something that is going to, uh, stand out, like, in a vacuum. But as a, as a part of this team with where the team is strong, like, just getting a guy who could bat eighth and get on base consistently, would actually really, really help, uh, the later in the game when the lineup is turning over.

[00:53:41] ben: Yeah. Yeah, I wonder like, you know, are you going to see more Nathan Church in center field and then potentially put Fermin or somebody else out in the outfield, and then you open up pinch hitting spots and maybe even some starting spots for Prieto? [00:54:00] I, I don't know exactly how they're going to use this. I, I do feel like, um, and this is purely anecdotal, I have no data to back me up on this.

But I do feel like so far in the early season that Oli has really just run his horses out there.

[00:54:13] Nate: Yeah.

[00:54:14] ben: and like we're not seeing a lot of Pozo. We weren't seeing a lot of JC. Um, I don't think we've seen-- I guess we've seen a little more Fermin, and we'll see how he uses Prieto. But, um, yeah, I don't, I don't know.

Maybe we'll see. Wouldn't mind Victor getting a couple of-- I don't know what to do with Victor right now, but maybe a couple of days off a week might be, might be the move or a defensive replacement might be the move.

[00:54:38] Nate: Well, it's, where we thought there would be more shuffling was basically around, like, all right, well, Wetherholt's brand new. He's gonna... know, we wanna give him days off. We wanna... Like, we'll see. Maybe he'll play some third maybe. And it's like, oh, actually, oops, uh, turns out he might be already the best second baseman in the game, and he [00:55:00] also is hitting for power. Uh, and we just want him to play every single day also 'cause he's 23 and has the energy to play every day. mind. Okay, fine. It's like, all right, well, right field maybe we'll, we'll slot... You know, maybe we'll put Burley out there again every once in a while and slot some guy. Oh, never mind. Jordan Walker is the ninth best hitter in baseball, so let's lock in that slot. Then you have Mason Wynn, then you have Nolan Gorman, who you could argue we could swap out more. all we had was Urias, who did

[00:55:29] ben: Yeah.

[00:55:30] Nate: little bit, but now

[00:55:31] ben: Yeah.

[00:55:31] Nate: down. So anyway, I say, like, a lot of those spots that we thought were gonna be more heavy rotation is because we didn't think Jordan Walker and JJ Wetherholt were going to be two of the better players in baseball basically from day one.

[00:55:44] ben: Yeah.

[00:55:45] Nate: and when they are so young, guys wanna play every day too, and you really don't have a reason to give o- other than maintenance, really have a reason to give JJ or Jordan Walker a day off right now.

[00:55:57] ben: Yeah, I, I agree with that. [00:56:00] Definitely, like, keep them fresh. Don't run them into the ground. But, uh, yeah, I mostly agree with that, and it makes sense. Um, but

[00:56:06] Nate: Like, Jordan Walker, he's so big and so strong. It's like, does he ever get tired? You know, does someone with that many muscles ever get tired?

[00:56:14] ben: You know, I, I... To, to live a day in the life of Jordan Walker's body, um, is something I guess I'll never know.

[00:56:24] Nate: You could find yourself, of course, in some sort of Freaky Friday situation.

[00:56:29] ben: if I, if I could Freaky Friday. Yeah, it'd be like him or Judge would be, or, or Ohtani. It would be one of the, one of the freaks.

[00:56:38] Nate: one of these big freaks.

[00:56:39] ben: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:56:40] Nate: Like, why would you do anyone else? Maybe, uh, like a Kyle Raleigh. Just be like, "I'm a big... I wanna be the big dumper for a day."

[00:56:48] ben: I don't know. Being José Altuve would be... I mean, I am like a foot taller than him. It might be a fun, fun departure. But, uh, then I'd be José Altuve, and I'd be afraid of showing off my nonexistent tattoos during a home run [00:57:00] celebration. Ah, team.

[00:57:03] Nate: Deep cut. Yep. Now finally someone took Jose Altuve to

[00:57:06] ben: Yeah, somebody might remember when that happened in 2017. Um,

[00:57:12] Nate: really paying the consequences of those actions

[00:57:14] ben: oh, God.

[00:57:15] Nate: be, we shouldn't be too mean to the 2017 Houston Astros 'cause, you know, they really dealt with it.

[00:57:22] ben: Justice served. That's all I can say. All right, um, we mentioned it, uh, but real quick, Ramón Urías is down on the IL with a right elbow lateral ep- epigoc- I can't... I don't, I don't know how to say it. Can you take a whack at that, Nate?

[00:57:37] Nate: Uh,

[00:57:38] ben: Epic-

[00:57:39] Nate: epicondy-

[00:57:41] ben: epicondylitis?

[00:57:42] Nate: um, epicondylit- dilitis. Epicondal- ep- epicondylitis?

[00:57:48] ben: Yep. Squeaky elbow, I think, is, is what's going on there. You gotta get the juice back into the elbow, and he's down

[00:57:55] Nate: Yeah.

[00:57:56] ben: his elbow rejuiced or maybe juiced. Maybe they're taking the juice out of it. I [00:58:00] don't know.

[00:58:01] Nate: You know what I was thinking the other day is, uh, we talk about loose bodies a lot on this show. You know, people are always getting these loose bodies,

[00:58:07] ben: Yeah.

[00:58:08] Nate: uh, taken out.

[00:58:09] ben: Yeah.

[00:58:10] Nate: a good horror movie name, Loose Bodies.

[00:58:12] ben: more about that.

[00:58:13] Nate: I just think it would be a good name for a horror

[00:58:15] ben: Just the name. Okay. You didn't have a pitch. Okay.

[00:58:17] Nate: don't have a pitch yet, but

[00:58:18] ben: All right.

[00:58:19] Nate: sound scary?

Loose

[00:58:20] ben: but I'm just... If you're going to bring it to the table, I think it's gotta be a little more fleshed out than that or you're kind of wasting everybody's time.

[00:58:27] Nate: I appreciate, uh, the high bar you've set for me, um, but I feel like I've made it quite clear on numerous occasions that I'm not seeking that bar. Okay?

[00:58:39] ben: Lars, uh, Lars Nootbaar is expected to start his rehab on May 10th. Uh, probably two to three weeks of rehabbing depending on his performance. Uh, but we finally have Lars Nootbaar news, and it is in the direction of playing baseball.

[00:58:55] Nate: very interesting. There is a, uh... You [00:59:00] know, exactly how this gets sorted is an open question, but there's a wide open need for a competent hitting outfielder. Uh, and,

[00:59:11] ben: I, I think I feel it's pretty right on where he's gonna play when he gets back, right? You throw him in left field, you, you feel pretty good about that. I'm more curious of where do you bat him in the lineup?

[00:59:24] Nate: So you're, uh, you're pretty locked in on Newton left. I, I am as well. Are you doing Church in center on a daily basis, or Scott?

[00:59:35] ben: I, I don't, I don't see... Unfortunately, I don't see any reason to play Victor Scott over Nathan Church. I, I think there's a slight iptuck, uptickit, iptuck, uptick in, uh in defense.

[00:59:48] Nate: a slight nip tuck in defense.

[00:59:50] ben: But great show, by the way. But,

[00:59:52] Nate: You

[00:59:52] ben: clearly from...

[00:59:53] Nate: all... When we lived together,

[00:59:55] ben: Yeah.

[00:59:56] Nate: Nip/Tuck all the

[00:59:57] ben: Oh, I remember the day I stopped [01:00:00] watching that show, uh, which is, if you haven't seen it, it's a really cheesy, like, melodrama on, like, TBS back in the day.

But they were trying to solve this mystery of it, it was some, like, sexually violent predator or something like that, and then they realized at the season finale that the killer had no penis, and then it cut to black. And I never watched that show again. Um, I was in a dark place is the only thing that can really explain that.

Yeah, it was bad.

[01:00:31] Nate: Nice to see yourself represented on TV. All right, uh, so.

[01:00:37] ben: Oh, that was good.

[01:00:38] Nate: Thanks. Uh, you bat him right now, I'd say if he's, he, he probably, you bat him, hopefully you're batting him fifth, you know?

Or...

[01:00:47] ben: do you do that or do you just bump everybody down one and go Newt, J.J., Ivan, Burley, Walker?

[01:00:56] Nate: Yeah. Maybe eventually. I'd rather, I wouldn't [01:01:00] wanna mess with the top right now until we know that he's doing what he, we all know he can do. If you have a 400 OBP Nootbaar like we all think he can do and he has done at times, sure, great. I don't think anyone's gonna complain and, in fact, JJ in the two hole is an im- is a improvement for him, too, you know?

So, I don't think anyone would complain about that. But I think I'd be surprised if they do that day one.

[01:01:23] ben: Yeah.

[01:01:25] Nate: Really, they probably put him sixth. They leave Gorman at fifth. They have Nootbaar at sixth, and then let him get reacclimated healthy because, I mean, we all know the story on him at this point.

The underlying metrics are killer. He looks like he's a stat cast darling. He looks like he's gonna have a 400 OBP with 20-plus bombs, the whole thing, but he just almost never does it. A- either, uh, either injury or inconsistency.

[01:01:51] ben: He has un-spurred heels, Nate. His deformity is gone. I think we're gonna see a whole new [01:02:00] Lars.

[01:02:00] Nate: Haglin's deformity.

[01:02:02] ben: Haglund's, not Hu- yeah.

[01:02:03] Nate: longer deformed.

[01:02:04] ben: Charlie Hunnam's deformity, yeah.

[01:02:06] Nate: Mm-hmm.

[01:02:06] ben: Um, all right, looking forward to that. Uh, I wanna do a couple of quick hits on the farm, then we can get this show moving along. Uh, down in triple A since April 10th, Joshua Baez has a 924 OPS with seven homers and six steals.

He also has a K rate of about 40%, but we'll keep tracking that. Um, he's, he's having a lot of success even though he's striking out that much. Can't do that in the big leagues, but he's, he's doing it.

[01:02:35] Nate: are too high. It's wild to have a 924 OPS and a 40% strikeout rate. Um, but, uh, you know, at least I, I... With that high a strikeout rate, that's a big red flag everything else looks great,

[01:02:50] ben: Yeah. Uh, Jimmy Crooks has six homers over the last two weeks at an OPS of 1025. Um, you know, I get why he [01:03:00] hasn't come up yet. It's fine. The guy's walking a lot, he's striking a lot, or striking out a lot. He's doinking a lot. He's playing good defense. You know, I'll just keep saying it, I'm, I'm ready for the Jimmy Crooks show to start.

Um, not that Pedro... You know, Pedro had a, had some hits over the past week or so, but, uh, I'm, I'm ready. I'm ready for Crooks. I'm ready to start stealing, baby.

[01:03:23] Nate: Yeah. And if we're, we're keeping our eyes on the farm for a moment, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but right now Rodriguez is about to be a consensus top 10 prospect.

[01:03:34] ben: Yeah.

[01:03:35] Nate: continues to obliterate. Uh, so I think...

[01:03:39] ben: Well, yeah, we... Not to sell out some, uh, um, off mic chatter, uh, but you and I were talking about this over the weekend that, uh, you think he's probably on the train to move off of catcher and get that bat into the bigs as soon as possible. Not this year, of course, but, uh, sooner than later.

[01:03:57] Nate: yeah, I think [01:04:00] consider- like, people think he could stick at catcher. And so this isn't to do with him as a defensive player. It's more to do with how teams typically handle with his bat and, and high upside. And then you add in that the Cardinals have already some very highly touted prospects at catcher. So there's no real need for him to be a catcher at the Major League level, assuming at least one of Crooks or Bernal are, uh, big league capable starters. Everything comes together to me to say he's going to, uh, be in the le- in the big leagues, not as a catcher, sooner

rather

[01:04:43] ben: I think it's right on. I think it makes a lot of sense. It's way too early. He's in high A right now. And by the way, he's carrying a 157 WRC plus in high A over obviously a short amount of games. 19, yeah.

[01:04:55] Nate: Yeah.

So, it should be a while, but everything [01:05:00] about him tells me he's gonna continue to fly through the minors, and I don't know where he ends up playing. Um, he's not a huge guy. You could see him fitting. If he's real- if he actually is a pretty good catcher, which most people say he is, then you would think he's got pretty good hands.

Maybe he could end up, at a corner infield spot. Um, but I think seems like that's all gonna be secondary, uh, and it's gonna be where can he hit?

[01:05:21] ben: Born in 2007, Nate. That, that hurts.

[01:05:26] Nate: Yeah. it's tough when, uh, the guys that are born after you graduated high school,

[01:05:31] ben: Yeah. Yeah. All

[01:05:32] Nate: Yeah.

[01:05:33] ben: right, Nate. That's all I got.

[01:05:35] Nate: cover the upcoming series, do a little bit of league news, and of course finish with a little game. But before we do that, we wanna remind everybody that this show is listener-supported on patreon.com.

Patreon.com/talkingaboutbirds is where you can find access to all of the v- various different tiers and perks and benefits, uh, that we offer when you subscribe. Um, subscribers at [01:06:00] any of the paid levels get access to our private Discord server. That is the Birdscord. Uh, I mean, it's been popping lately.

Like, you know, we talk about the Cardinals being fun. Uh, the Birdscord for me has been a big part of the fun of this year because it's a bunch of other people that are Cardinal fans that wanna talk about the Cardinals, uh, and wanna do it in a space that isn't some shitty broader social media. So it's a really cool place to-- You know, we're, we're all in there.

We're li- we're live chatting throughout the games. Um, people are posting updates, articles, things like that. It's, it's become a legitimately fun place to be. So I highly, highly recommend you check that out, and w- I-- we're really thankful to everyone that has subscribed. if you want to support us elsewhere, you can of course leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform, or tell your friends, tell your family.

If you're a Cardinal fan right now, probably people are talking to you about the Cardinals, um, [01:07:00] and what a great segue to recommend us as a way to stay connected with the team in a way that maybe they haven't before. Uh, Hambone, where else can people find us online?

[01:07:10] ben: Yeah, if you don't want to be in the bird squad for, you know, whatever reason, uh, you can hang out with us on Blue Sky, Instagram, TikTok. We got a TikTok, Nate. Come look at our faces on TikTok. Uh, you can watch this show on YouTube. Be a great episode to watch. I'm feeling under the weather today. You'll see me blowing my nose and sneezing.

If you want to get that kind of content, you can go over to youtube.com, uh, slash talking about birds and, and find us over there. You can find all that information, including T-shirts and more at talkingaboutbirds.com. And of course, you can email us questions, thoughts, anything to talkaboutbirds at gmail.com.

Um, of course, you can call us and leave a voicemail or send us a text message to [01:08:00] 848-48-BIRDS. That's 848-482-4737.

[01:08:08] Nate: Hambone, I can't get out of this segment without thanking and welcoming our newest patron, Parker. Parker?

thank you so much for signing up. We truly appreciate it. All right. Ham Bizzy, we got-- The Cardinals have four games

[01:08:28] ben: Ooh la la.

[01:08:29] Nate: The dads, your San Diego Padres.

[01:08:32] ben: Yeah.

[01:08:33] Nate: Um, what are you expecting to see in this

[01:08:39] ben: baseball in a nice climate with,

[01:08:42] Nate: this

[01:08:43] ben: evenings.

[01:08:43] Nate: here. This is

[01:08:44] ben: That's why they pay me the big dollars. But, uh, it's a pretty good team. They are 21 and 14 as we're sitting here right now. It looks like the Cardinals, uh, for game one. Thursday night game, it's gonna be Michael King against Matthew Liberatore. Game two is gonna be the new Padre Griffin Canning [01:09:00] against Michael McGreevy.

Saturday night, we got Randy Vasquez versus Dustin May. And Sunday, Walker Buehler versus Kyle Leahy. Um, you know, the Cardinals, uh, I think seem like they're gonna be okay in all of those matchups. Nobody, uh, other than Michael King in that group really scares me. Um, this, this team is pretty solid from the position player group.

Their bullpen has some really nice pieces in it. But you know, they're, they're kind of playing over their shoes right now too. The way-- Uh, run differential doesn't really like them right now. The teams that they've been beating up on have been lighter teams. Um, a- and you know, there's like some weird things like Fernando Tatis Jr.

is just not doinking dongs this year for some reason.

[01:09:45] Nate: I, I was just pulling it out. He does not have a home run yet.

[01:09:49] ben: Not a single? I didn't know it was like that.

[01:09:51] Nate: a single home

[01:09:52] ben: Wow

[01:09:54] Nate: Jackson Merrill has had a slow start to the season. Manny Machado [01:10:00] has had a slow start to the season, though he has been heating up a little bit. Um, Gavin Sheets has been one of their better hitters.

Xander Bogaerts is suddenly having a pretty good year again. So other guys are chipping in and keeping this team competitive, but the guys that normally run this offense, Tatis, Machado, and Merrill's newer, but he's, he's been in here for a couple years now, aren't doing it right now.

[01:10:23] ben: Yeah. Let's hope that that continues for the next four games, because you could... Ma- Machado's been a little bit cold recently too. You, you could totally see a scenario where, uh, Marilyn Machado and Tatis, you know, put up six homers against in four games against the Cardinals, 'cause they are all very, very good players.

[01:10:46] Nate: Yeah.

Um,

[01:10:47] ben: Yeah.

[01:10:48] Nate: uh, Miguel Andújar, who a lot of people wanted, ourselves included, saw him as a, as a obvious Cardinal signing this off season. He's doing very well against lefties, like he does. [01:11:00] Um, and so we'll see how he

[01:11:02] ben: Yeah.

[01:11:03] Nate: Liberatore. But, uh, seemingly a beatable team considering everything we've said, but they have a better record than the Cardinals, and are a star-studded team who expects to play for the World Series every year.

Uh, so no matter what, this is going to be a tough series. This is a traditionally a hitter or a, a pitcher's park. so we'll see how

[01:11:22] ben: Yeah.

[01:11:32] Nate: and Jordan and crew.

[01:11:33] ben: I- if memory serves, this is the first time the St. Louis Cardinals are seeing Mason Miller in a Padres uniform, which is not good news, uh, for the Cardinals themselves, but for baseball fans. If, if you haven't got a chance to watch him throw the baseball yet, I'm sure we'll see it at least once or twice this series.

He is something

[01:11:55] Nate: Yeah.

[01:11:56] ben: behold, my friend.

[01:11:57] Nate: He's very, very good. [01:12:00] Uh,

but obvious-

[01:12:01] ben: would you ever vote for a reliever for Cy Young if you had a vote?

[01:12:06] Nate: Um, I could see it happening, but I think it'd have to be a pretty absurd season mixed with no other starter, um, really running away with it, which is just not how baseball goes anymore. Like, there's, there's at least one guy who throws 200 innings with like a s- a 2 ERA and

[01:12:24] ben: Yeah.

[01:12:27] Nate: But, uh, like I'm not, um, inherently opposed to

[01:12:32] ben: Yeah. Yeah.

[01:12:33] Nate: don't say no right out of the gates. And it, it basically had to be kind of if Mason Miller did this all year and, uh, you know, like Ohtani stops pitching or something.

[01:12:45] ben: He, he is in the lead to win the, the Cy Young right now, which is crazy. Uh, so yeah, Cardinals, four games against the Dads at the Dads. I believe I saw this on the broadcast tonight, that each game is with a different service. So good luck watching the games, [01:13:00] y'all.

[01:13:00] Nate: We love that, don't we, folks? That's like my favorite thing, how, uh, obnoxious it is, obnoxious it is to watch Cardinal games.

[01:13:07] ben: Yeah. Uh, so then the Cardinals have a day off, their first one off in 17 days. How amazing. Well, their first true day off in 17 days, where they don't have to be at the ballpark. Uh, then they go to Ath. They're gonna go to Ath, Nate, to play the Aths.

[01:13:23] Nate: love, we love our aths,

[01:13:24] ben: did, did

[01:13:25] Nate: aths.

[01:13:26] ben: s- you're not supposed to say Sacramento. I was just reading about this.

[01:13:29] Nate: Yeah, they

[01:13:29] ben: you

[01:13:30] Nate: you to.

[01:13:30] ben: can't attribute. It's Ath.

[01:13:32] Nate: Ath.

[01:13:34] ben: So the, the Ath A's, or just Ath maybe, um, the Cardinals are going to that joke of a ballpark for three games, uh, which should be, um, I guess, interesting at the very least.

[01:13:46] Nate: of a ... It is a, the best hitter's park in the league. Uh, even maybe more so than Coors. and the A's have a very good offense there.

[01:13:58] ben: Yeah.

[01:13:59] Nate: so [01:14:00] we'll see. I think this might be a bit of a slugfest.

[01:14:03] ben: Yeah, and that's kind of the, the A's whole identity right now.

[01:14:07] Nate: Yeah.

[01:14:08] ben: Um, it looks like on the Tuesday game, Monday off, Tuesday game, Jeffrey Springs against Polante. We have JT Ginn, I'll admit I've never heard that name before, against Matthew Liberatore. And then Jacob Lopez, pretty impressive, uh, righty against Michael McGreevy in the Thursday night game.

Um, and yeah, I think I agree with you, like this is probably a tough matchup just because they have guys like Nick Kurtz and Tyler Soderstrom. Brent Rooker is back from the IL, and I'm, I'm sure he'll...

[01:14:39] Nate: been heating up a little bit too.

[01:14:41] ben: Yeah. Oh, I mean, all of these guys. You know, Carlos Cortez was the talk of the first month of baseball.

Looks like he's cooled off a little bit. Um, but they got guys that, uh, are a lot of home run power, um, kind of up and down that lineup. And, uh, it's not gonna be easy, uh, for them. Shane Langeliers is [01:15:00] out on the paternity list right now, but he should be back in time for the Cardinals series. Um, yeah, I think this team is weird.

I, I think they're pretty good. There are just so many player, like Jacob Wilson I find to be a really weird player. Like, he's got a good glove and a weird bat. I don't know what to think of him. Jeff McNeil. Is Jeff McNeil still good? I, I don't know what to think of him either.

[01:15:20] Nate: He's having a good start with

[01:15:22] ben: yeah.

[01:15:23] Nate: he won a batting title a couple years ago, so, you know, you could see it working in this offense. Um, but yeah.

I, I, I like the Athletics. I- they're a fun team to watch.

[01:15:34] ben: Yeah. Lawrence Butler got all that money and is he good?

[01:15:40] Nate: He act- so his, his underlying metrics seem to indicate that he's, he's doing pretty well.

He's making improvements where you want a guy like that to make improvements, but the surface stats are just not there right

[01:15:51] ben: It's not there right now. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, I, I think as a Cardinals fan, I feel pretty good going into both of these series, especially with the way the Birds have been [01:16:00] playing.

[01:16:00] Nate: Yeah, I think so too. Um, which is such an interesting feel just from not that long ago, like going into a s- I think the Dodgers series

[01:16:11] ben: Okay.

[01:16:11] Nate: really gave

[01:16:14] ben: worth saying at least.

[01:16:33] Nate: trailing off. Let's move on to the next thing.

[01:16:35] ben: All right.

[01:16:36] Nate: got for us from a le- for league news?

[01:16:38] ben: got some injury news, Nate. Uh, we can run through these pretty quickly. Carlos Correa to undergo season-ending ankle surgery. Finally, that ankle that apparently is full of holes has caught up with Carlos after a few years really. But

[01:16:52] Nate: Yeah.

[01:16:53] ben: for him, um, you know, we'll, we'll see.

I feel like the recovery on this is, it's going to be [01:17:00] long and painful and slow. Um, and Houston kinda, you know, the, the aging core

[01:17:06] Nate: Yeah.

[01:17:07] ben: just has a huge aging spike all of a sudden right there.

[01:17:10] Nate: the dice ev- on bringing him back. Everyone knew. I mean, uh, teams had denied, like, was it, he was gonna sign with the Mets, but then they had to back the whole thing out because of the medicals,

and

[01:17:20] ben: you would think if anyone knew, the Astros would know.

[01:17:23] Nate: Well, I think everyone did know.

and I think they just thought, "Well, let's, let's roll the dice,"

[01:17:28] ben: Yeah.

[01:17:28] Nate: Um, they've been so successful for almost 10 years straight. Like, "Let's just keep it rolling," you know? And here we are.

[01:17:36] ben: Yeah. Uh, Tarik Skubal is also gonna go down for it looks like two to three months, uh, to undergo surgery to remove loose bodies from his elbow, which, what are those? What's in there?

[01:17:51] Nate: are... Um, Well, why are... I mean, that's part of the horror,

Right.

What, what are all these... I'm imagining tiny little bodies floating around in [01:18:00]

[01:18:00] ben: Yeah. Well, that sounds kinda cute.

[01:18:02] Nate: But they're all bloody and stuff.

[01:18:04] ben: Really opens up the, uh, Cy Young conversation. You know, this is, this is interesting. And did you see that for Amber Valdez, their, uh, their, I guess their de facto ace, uh, hit Trevor Story in the middle of the back and got suspended for six games?

[01:18:19] Nate: Yeah. the, the Tigers, who, you know, a lot of us like, it's a, a rough couple, uh, little bit of time for them. Uh, losing Skubal is a, I mean, you know, a understatement of the

[01:18:32] ben: Yeah.

[01:18:33] Nate: losing the best pitcher in baseball is a big deal.

[01:18:35] ben: A-as load-bearing as a player there is in baseball, I would say.

[01:18:40] Nate: Yeah, like your house.

[01:18:42] ben: Y- we're back to it. We get it.

[01:18:44] Nate: Yeah.

[01:18:44] ben: This show's good. We know what we're doing.

[01:18:47] Nate: Yes. Yes and yes.

[01:18:49] ben: All right. Uh, Tarek, Tarek Skubal, I already said that. Red Sox place Garrett Crochet on the IL with shoulder inflammation, another Cy Young candidate

[01:18:58] Nate: Yeah.

[01:18:59] ben: a trip to [01:19:00] the IL.

We don't know how long that is going to be just yet, but, uh, arguably the two best pitchers in baseball, at the very least the American League.

[01:19:09] Nate: two and Skeens I think are the, they're the three,

[01:19:12] ben: Yeah.

[01:19:15] Nate: health-wise, but he has had a, a stumble out of the gates.

[01:19:17] ben: Skeens will never get hurt.

[01:19:19] Nate: yeah. I promise I will never die. Um, yeah. Like you said, I, I think the Crochet thing is expected to be a lot less time. Um, I've seen some saying minimum or around there, you know?

Uh, but you never know.

[01:19:36] ben: The Red Sox trade away so many pitchers to the St. Louis Cardinals. Right now they have Cutter Crawford, Garrett Crochet, Tanner Houck, Johan O-Oviedo, and Patrick Sandoval, all starting pitchers, all on the IL right now.

[01:19:50] Nate: You can never

[01:19:51] ben: No, uh, yeah. All right, Nate, that's all I got for league news. Did you put [01:20:00] the song? Yeah,

[01:20:17] Nate: assuming I

[01:20:18] ben: I was just gonna...

[01:20:20] Nate: put the song in there, voice you just heard was, uh, who's singing the Draft Day song is Chris, friend of the show, uh, the one who spent the weekend in the boat with us.

[01:20:29] ben: People like the song, Nate. I, I heard s- there's also negative feedback towards you, uh, in the Birds Chord recently about the lack of song.

[01:20:36] Nate: well, that's not the songs. Those are the dumb little things that I have

[01:20:40] ben: I'm just saying you're getting feedback and you're not actioning that feedback. What are we supposed to do?

[01:20:44] Nate: Maybe I won't put the song in now on purpose.

[01:20:47] ben: See? That's, see, that's a really good...

[01:20:50] Nate: Uh-huh.

[01:20:51] ben: the curtain back on what Nate's actually like right there. That's, that's the realest Nate's ever been on this podcast. Remember that, [01:21:00] listener.

[01:21:00] Nate: Mm-hmm. so you've joined the show in the last month or so, uh, you may have missed the initial draft, so

[01:21:08] ben: First off, welcome.

[01:21:09] Nate: yes, welcome.

A, a quick recap. Before the season started, but like right before the season, Hambone and I did a draft. We are drafting six total players. We were going back and forth. Three players from the opening day 26-man roster, and then three players from anywhere else in the organization. We track them all season, and whoever ends the season with the most F-WAR Uh, Ben, I will read through your players.

[01:21:37] ben: Please do.

[01:21:41] Nate: discussion on how we feel it's going, and then I'll run through some numbers.

[01:21:44] ben: Okay.

[01:21:45] Nate: Uh, Ben, you, who had the first overall pick, you took, I think, who was the consensus first overall pick, Wynn.

[01:21:52] ben: Let's go.

[01:21:53] Nate: Then you took Ivan Herrera

[01:21:55] ben: Yep.

[01:21:56] Nate: and Alec Burleson

[01:21:57] ben: smart.

[01:21:57] Nate: hero- your heroes side of the [01:22:00] draft.

[01:22:00] ben: Yeah.

[01:22:01] Nate: Uh, your, your hatchlings were Dick Fitz, uh, Thomas Sjecy.

[01:22:07] ben: I feel like I didn't get the full scouting report on that before taking him.

[01:22:12] Nate: Uh, Thomas Sjecy and Tink Hence.

[01:22:15] ben: Yeah.

[01:22:16] Nate: My six J.J. Wetherholt,

[01:22:20] ben: It's a good pick.

[01:22:21] Nate: Liberatore,

Victor Scott,

[01:22:23] ben: Uh-oh.

[01:22:24] Nate: Baez,

[01:22:26] ben: Yep.

[01:22:26] Nate: Jimmy Crooks,

[01:22:27] ben: Okay.

[01:22:28] Nate: and Quinn Matthews All

[01:22:31] ben: is this like the eighth year in a row that nobody's picked a war leader?

[01:22:36] Nate: I will tell you, we did not, uh, pick the war leader?

although I am... I, they might, they might be tied right now, actually. I'll have to, I'll, I'll pull it up real quick.

[01:22:45] ben: I believe Walker is above Wetherholt.

[01:22:47] Nate: h-how, how are you feeling about your, your pick so far?

[01:22:51] ben: I mean, obviously Ivan had a slightly slow, slow start to the season, but he is fully, uh, he, he is hanging them and banging them right now, so I feel great about that. [01:23:00] Uh, Burley, just won NL Player of the Year, or Ye- uh, Week, can't be mad about that. And, uh, you know, the reason I took Mason Winn overall is because even when the bat ain't cooking, um, you know, the defense is spectacular and it's gonna keep that F/WAR up.

So I feel pretty good all around. I feel like I got a really nice high floor, Nathan.

[01:23:22] Nate: Yeah, so I, I looked up real quick. J.J. and Walker are tied right now.

[01:23:26] ben: They're tied. That's funny.

[01:23:28] Nate: Um, so the... I will say, obviously, taking J.J. second overall was a bit of a gamble, but not

really.

[01:23:36] ben: yeah, what's

[01:23:37] Nate: projected him to likely, uh, be second or maybe even lead the Cardinals in F/4 because of that defensive floor as well, and overall plate approach. But it's very satisfying that he is, you know, 25% into the season the team in F/4, so I'm quite happy with that pick.

[01:23:53] ben: he on pace for, like five plus war or something like that?

[01:23:57] Nate: no, it'd be six.

[01:23:58] ben: Yeah.

[01:23:59] Nate: 20-- he's

[01:23:59] ben: [01:24:00] Oh, yeah, duh. Yeah.

[01:24:01] Nate: one, 1.5 times four would be a six war season in his rookie year.

[01:24:05] ben: How wild would that be?

[01:24:06] Nate: Yeah. Uh, pretty good, Hambone.

[01:24:10] ben: Pretty, pretty good.

[01:24:12] Nate: success in this draft plummets after J.J.

Wetherholt.

[01:24:15] ben: Sure.

[01:24:16] Nate: Matthew Liberatore and Victor Scott have not been what I had hoped. Uh, I do think right now I have the higher upside in the hatchlings with Josh Baez, Jimmy Crooks, and Quinn Matthews.

[01:24:26] ben: Yeah, I agree.

[01:24:27] Nate: but, uh, obviously they have not contributed at all yet.

[01:24:31] ben: Right.

[01:24:32] Nate: the numbers. Hambone, Mason Wynn is 0.8 F/WAR.

[01:24:37] ben: All

[01:24:37] Nate: Ivan

[01:24:38] ben: right.

[01:24:38] Nate: is

[01:24:39] ben: Okay.

[01:24:40] Nate: leader. Alec Burleson is 0.7. So all three of your top picks are contributing accruing at a pretty good pace, all of them. That puts each of them at a, at an, a pace of right around three or more.

[01:24:56] ben: Yeah.

[01:24:57] Nate: So,

[01:24:57] ben: Gotta be happy with that.

[01:24:58] Nate: about [01:25:00] 2.9 up to, what would that.

be? 4.5. Um, so, or 3.5. Uh, so pretty good.

I think we would all be very happy if those three ended up in between three and four war.

[01:25:11] ben: Right.

[01:25:11] Nate: Uh, J.J. is my... I, I'll tell you the, the results at the end. J.J. is my leader at 1.5. Matthew Liberatore is negative 0.3. Scott is negative 0.3.

[01:25:24] ben: Oof.

[01:25:24] Nate: None of my other guys have contributed. I did fail to mention that Thomas Ejacy is negative .2, so

[01:25:29] ben: Ooh.

[01:25:29] Nate: is dr- he is dragging you down a little bit. So your total, 2.2

[01:25:36] ben: All right.

[01:25:39] Nate: My total, .9.

[01:25:41] ben: Oh.

[01:25:42] Nate: Yeah.

Liberatore, and my, two of my three being negative, uh, hurts even

[01:25:52] ben: Yep.

[01:25:52] Nate: currently have the war leader. And none of us took Jordan Walker, uh, as I think probably if we ran this [01:26:00] 1,000 times, I don't know that we get to taking

[01:26:02] ben: He had such a bad spring, it's all we could go off of.

[01:26:06] Nate: it really... I mean, it's incredible really. The fact that I took Victor Scott.

[01:26:11] ben: Over it. Yeah. '

[01:26:12] Nate: cause I had the

[01:26:13] ben: And

[01:26:14] Nate: you know.

[01:26:15] ben: Double J is not providing you with a W right now, Nate.

[01:26:21] Nate: We'll see, though. I, I still have faith in Liberatore. I'm, I am worried about my Victor Scott pick, but I think my secret weapon will be in the Jimmy Crooks, uh, and Josh Baez come up, you

[01:26:33] ben: you, you really. It's an easy story to tell that Jimmy Crooks comes up, looks great behind the dish, and starts hitting a couple home runs and throws up a couple of WAR pretty quickly. Um, Baez is just such a, such a coin flip right now. You can't strike out 40% of the time. But if you're gonna do that, then you're gonna hit seven homers and six steals in a couple of weeks.

[01:26:55] Nate: nobody carries a 40% strikeout rate at the ma-

[01:26:59] ben: Yeah.

[01:26:59] Nate: [01:27:00] the, like, um, maybe 35

[01:27:03] ben: Yeah. Those Javy Baez years. Yeah. Yeah

[01:27:07] Nate: and that's, he's doing that at triple A.

[01:27:10] ben: Right.

[01:27:10] Nate: the problem.

[01:27:11] ben: No, no, I, I know.

[01:27:13] Nate: Yeah.

[01:27:14] ben: But,

[01:27:14] Nate: All right.

[01:27:15] ben: hopefully something will change.

[01:27:16] Nate: we check in on this game every 25% of the season or so, so we'll, we'll check back in at around the halfway point.

Um, it is cr- kind of crazy that we are 25% of the way done with the season.

[01:27:27] ben: Yeah, it is.

[01:27:28] Nate: Yeah. So all right, Hambone, that's gonna do it for this week's episode. Uh, thank you again to the patrons and everybody who listens to the show and supports us. Consider joining the Patreon and checking out all of the different links and everything to how you can follow and support the show at talkingaboutbirds.com. Leave us a call, ask a question, submit an opening bit, whatever you wanna do. Call and ask for advice. us fishing tips. Uh, we're open to anything. 848-48-BIRDS. How do you like your hot dog? How do you build a house? All of these are real questions that need to [01:28:00] be

[01:28:00] ben: Do you need a door for it to be a house?

[01:28:02] Nate: Do you need a door for it to be a house?

I don't think so, but maybe you think differently. 848-48-BIRDS. and guess that's gonna do it for this week's episode, so until next week, go Cardinals.

[01:28:18] ben: No birds.

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