From Josh Jacob’s twitter;

Since 2023, Miles Mikolas boasts the second-worst ERA in MLB, worst K%, and ranks in the top 5 worst starters in FIP, BAA, and WHIP

And yet, he leads MLB in starts over that time.

Why? Sunk cost fallacy. And the #STLCards need to put an end to it

What's worse? The SP or thr pen?

Good grief. It might end up being a longer season than I thought.

Raycroft walks two guys and falls behind 2-0 with the bases loaded and nobody out to McCutchen - who promptly bails him out and gets himself out.

So of course Raycroft dicks around, and runs the count full to Bart so he has to throw him an absolute cock-shot. Bart, predictably, hits it hard and the game is over.

And Raycroft won't be charged with a single earned run. In a fair world that's the top of the 10th and he gives up 5. He was complete dogshit.

Baseball America has the Cardinals going college middle infielder again in the amateur draft in its latest mock draft.

5. Cardinals — Marek Houston, SS, Wake Forest

We’ll talk about “profiles” a lot in today’s mock draft. In lieu of hitters teams are enamored with, there might be a flight to historically-safe profiles like no-doubt up-the-middle defensive players with contact skills. Houston fits that to a tee. He’s being viewed as one of the safest profiles in the class. While he might not have the typical upside associated with a first overall pick, his reliable shortstop defense and track record of making a ton of contact should get him off the board inside the first 10 picks. If he does, that’ll be three straight years for Wake Forest producing a top 10 pick. The Cardinals also seem to prize hitters who make tons of contact in the zone in recent drafts.

No pitching help on the horizon either.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Quinn Mathews in seven Triple-A starts between last season and this season...<br><br>27 IP, 6.33 ERA, 2.15 WHIP, 29 BB, 29 K (21.6% BB and K)<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ForTheLou?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ForTheLou</a></p>&mdash; Eric Cross (@EricCrossMLB) <a href="https://twitter.com/EricCrossMLB/status/1911793856988787025?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 14, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Yeah - that's mental.

Mathews isn't a guy with bad command. Him just walking EVERYONE says he's either scared in AAA and needs to take some lumps to get his feet under him or it says he's gone all Ankiel and is ****ing toast.

A guy doesn't walk 15 guys in 52 innings in AA then go out there and walk 29 through 26 innings in AAA if it's not something mental. Especially not when it's broken up over two (partial) seasons.

Either his mechanics got really out of whack or his brain broke. Either could resolve themselves pretty quickly.

He's 24 years old -- AA ain't in the cards for you, kid. You really don't need to be pitching in AA in your mid-20s. If you're a big leaguer, it's time to un**** yourself in Memphis.

Citing the recent history of a team that essentially fired its entire player development team into the sun doesn't mean a lot to me.

I mean maybe they take him -- sure. But just because they've gone for high hit tool guys over the last few seasons, that doesn't mean the new regime is going to focus on those same things.

I think they'd love to get Jamie Arnold but could see them taking Bremner instead. Seth Hernandez is a possibility, but the HS arm thing just feels a long way away -- I think they want to see someone that can contribute in 2-3 years.

Hard to get too amped up whatever direction they choose, though. This system needs a MASSIVE infusion of talent and any one draft just isn't going to accomplish that. They are just so far behind most of the NL including everyone in their own division.

Chase Davis breaking out will help if it's legit, but they need to find another 2 or 3 top 100 guys out of this system to really start to find some hope. I'm not seein' it...

What happened to Tink? He was a stud in Springfield last year or at least that is what it appeared to be on Springfield news.

WTF is going on in St. Louis, two straight days of the Cardinals putting on ass whoopings.

TINSTAAPP

Pitchers break. If you have 5 of them that are considered top of the rotation (1-3 starters) you'll be lucky to get a #2 and a #5 out of it.

More probably you get a 4 and a reliever.

With Hence, they were worried that his delivery was causing too much stress and would ultimately keep him from starting. So they've spent a year or so trying to recreate it and low and behold, THAT broke him. Some odd rib-cage thing.

I'd just write him off at this point. Anything he provides is a happy accident.

If the Cardinals are extremely lucky, Hence will have thrown 300 innings over 5 seasons by the end of this year. He's just lost too much development time and too many things they've done to compensate for injury risk on one spot have just created injuries in another.

No reason to believe he'll hold up to a starters workload and he's already lost so much time that its hard to believe he'll ever develop a full starters arsenal anyway.

The offense isnt the issue with this team. It's piching.

We have a new batting coach. Dont know if that is a difference maker or not. They seem to be working the counts and being patient in laying off that outside slider. That seemed to give us fits last year, especially our young players.

lol. Hjerpe blew out his elbow. It's almost like human beings aren't designed to throw baseballs at a velocity that reaches the maximum tensile strength of their elbow ligaments or something.

Of course he did.

Because Pitchers break -- all of 'em.

So after he gets his 50 innings pitched in 2026 he'll end up with maybe 150 IPs over 4 seasons as a professional and he'll enter his age 26 season in AA having never thrown over 55 innings in a professional season. So they'll slow play him in AA hoping to have him throw 125 innings on the year with maybe 50 of those in AAA at age 27.

Looking forward to the spring training puff pieces about our 28 year old rookie with fewer than 300 professional innings coming into spring training with a shot at the 4 slot and being 'In the best shape of his life'.

Write another one off, fellas. He done.

A month into the season and our best pitching prospect can't find the zone and our 2 and 3 prospects have broken down and can probably be written off altogether now. At best you get a swingman sort out of Hjerpe for a few years. Maybe Hence can work himself back to prospect status but you can't consider it unless/until he actually does.

We keep slow-playing these pitchers and they keep breaking down anyway. Something is seriously wrong in our pitching development pipeline (and it sure doesn't seem much better for the hitters).

I still think this goes all the way back to Reyes when they let the guy shoulder-load to velocity hunt. Guys absolutely shredding guys at 20 years old in AA throwing 95. Then he shows up the next season throwing 101 without his breaking ball, the Cardinals pat themselves on the back for turning him into a triple digit reliever (because his new arm slot cost him his curveball) and proceed to watch him explode on the launching pad.

At 95 mph with 3 plus pitches and actual command, he was a top 2 starter in the making. At 101 mph with a fastball he couldn't command, a curveball that couldn't get depth anymore from the way he was throwing it (so he had to scrap it in favor of a slider he didn't know what to do with) and a change that lost its drop for the same reasons, he was novelty act that predictably exploded in their faces.

Then act all shocked when it happened. I said at the time it was going to. When all those fawning pieces came out talking about him finding 5 mph of velocity in an off-season I said "Welp, that kid is ****ed because there's no way he did that without shoulder loading and it's going to break him..."

And they just whistled past the graveyard and watched it happen.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">&quot;This doesn&#39;t even feel like the big leagues.&quot;<br><br>This was my reaction to seeing Busch Stadium nearly empty last night...<br><br>I took this photo a few minutes before the St. Louis Cardinals took the field.<br><br>This is a franchise with:<br><br>Brand Power<br>Rich History<br>Loyal Fanbase<br><br>Yet, Busch… <a href="https://t.co/d0fWFOU9Hh">pic.twitter.com/d0fWFOU9Hh</a></p>&mdash; Jacob Turner (@TheJacobTurner) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheJacobTurner/status/1912480624000086082?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

So, anyone got anything to say?

Generation X doesn't care about sports. This was always going to happen. There are too many alternatives for kids to do these days.

I'm not spending another dime on this organization until Mo and Oli are gone

Meanwhile, other teams are pulling in huge numbers and broadcasted games are reaching higher viewership than pre-covid.

No, it's the Cardinals suck and have sucked for years and continue to not try to get better. The fans are tired of it. Cardinals fans need to spread that message to a lot of things going on right now outside of baseball. Maybe shit would change if the consumers put up a big middle finger.

They are. Seen attendance lately? It's a ghost town and only going to get worse once the heat and lawlessness rises downtown.

Our generation is still alive and kicking but when all of us 80's babies are gone it will be a different story.

In my fantasy baseball group thread, a guy in the 5th inning of that game said "So how do we lose, Romero in 8th or Fernandez in the 9th?"

In my defense, my guess was actually King in the 7th which was almost right -- we blew the lead.

But when the 8th happened I get short message -- "So...both, then?"

Ollie -- when us plebes can sit there with a mid-inning lead and make bets on who's going to lose it for you late and the 3 parties named are ALL directly responsible for it....you might ****ing suck at your job.

Romero putting two guys on only for Fernandez to immediately give up a bomb to clear 'em is the most Cardinals moment of the year so far and really the most Marmol thing I've seen in his tenure.

It was just so goddamn predictable.

Yeah - franchises are still selling for record figures.

Very wealthy people are making very large bets on the long-term health of sports in general. And almost every last one of them is cashing in just fine.

'Sports' aren't the problem. "Kids these days" are not the problem.

The Dewitts, Mozeliak and Marmol are the problem. And it couldn't be more obvious.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">We join the baseball community in mourning the passing of Walt Jocketty.<br><br>Our general manager from 1994-2007, Walt helped lead the Cardinals to the 2006 World Series title, two National League pennants, and seven postseason appearances.<br><br>We extend our condolences to his family… <a href="https://t.co/EUCCX3FxPt">pic.twitter.com/EUCCX3FxPt</a></p>&mdash; St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) <a href="https://twitter.com/Cardinals/status/1916183567585186211?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 26, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>