***Official 2024 STL Cardinals Thread ***
 

I'll update the rosters and opening day lineup when its officially released.

2024 Opening Day roster.

For the new Cardinal fans that joined the Planet since last year, here are some of the historical threads going back to 2006.

I've never cared less about Cardinal baseball in my life. Hopefully they do something to change my mind.

Yep, first time in 15 years I didn't renew my MLB subscription.

I hear ya. Will always be a fan until the day I die. But, this Mo regime has wore me down. The incompetence is so mind numbingly bad.

I see those fans packing the stadium and cheering Mo for crissakes. Only managers that Mo knows wont give him any pushback, It's depressing. In here we all hate Mo and his regime. How can we all feel this way and that stadium is still filled every game?:(

Just use the 2023 thread.

Making a new thread for 2024 is more effort than this franchise deserves.

Here's one reason to get excited and watch:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">God got a plan, so just stick to the script �� #11 <a href="https://t.co/fkCAoMYAOA">pic.twitter.com/fkCAoMYAOA</a></p>&mdash; Victor Scott II (@Victor_Scott2) <a href="https://twitter.com/Victor_Scott2/status/1773104413210550503?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 27, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I can't wait to watch him hit .220 with a .065 ISO

And waste a year of service time on a sunk season.

I don't really even care about service time anymore. If he sucks they'll give him a DeJong type extension, so they'll never get decent value for him. If he's awesome they'll trade him for a middle reliever, so they'll never get decent value for him.

I am at the Costanza inflection point with this franchise. Whatever decision they make is the wrong one, so there's no point even worrying about it.

I'm torn between going to STL sometime this summer is probably the only chance I'll have for vacation and **** this team.

Maybe I'll just go to the Omaha zoo instead?

Infield drawn in against FF turns a routine ground ball into an hit

Extend him again!

And Mikolas already getting shelled

dead already

Well at least Goldy didn't suck... maybe Arenado will put a hit out on Mo soon?

Did that lame brain manager actually say Mikolas did a nice job today?

:)

“We’re not exactly a low payroll team, but you got the Dodgers playing checkbook baseball. We’re going to be the hardest working group of Midwestern farmers we can be,” Mikolas opined on March 16 about this domestic-season-opening matchup, per John Denton of MLB.com. “It would be great to stick it to the Dodgers.”

Mikolas is a shit-sucking cretin. He fits in perfectly with the supercilious ****s running the team.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">&quot;What the front office did, whether they realize it or not, was they&#39;ve left no one else to blame but themselves&quot;<a href="https://twitter.com/katiejwoo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@katiejwoo</a> weighs in on the extension to <a href="https://twitter.com/Cardinals?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Cardinals</a> manager Oli Marmol<br><br>▶️ <a href="https://t.co/mmt90ANBFz">https://t.co/mmt90ANBFz</a> <a href="https://t.co/VEkwoydEUa">pic.twitter.com/VEkwoydEUa</a></p>&mdash; Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) <a href="https://twitter.com/FoulTerritoryTV/status/1773765822525141238?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 29, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

You guys watching the ESPN broadcast? Kike Hernandez's pitch com is coming through the mic on the interview.

Saw that.

Now i get to watch em implode

lol

Shit team

Paul Goldschmidt may make the HOF, but the dude is nothing but a compiler that routinely shits himself in big moments.

Dodgers are the dynasty

So Oli burned 1.2 innings of Gallegos Friday night in a game they were down 5-0 then used him Saturday so he wasnt available Sunday night.

We have guy on the roster in the pen Fernandez, who hasn't thrown a pitch this season.

And everyone is talking about the Cards "depleted" bullpen.

Oli is a ****ing moron.

Pirates undefeated! This will be the only time we are 4 games over .500 and in first place.

Time to begin our normal free fall to the bottom of the barrell.

I dunno. Cruz et al seem like they are beginning to put it together. Like your 3rd baseman and CF as well.

When you spend a new BILLION $'s in the off season adding players, on top of the BILLION $'s you already spent, you probably will make your team better.

This is really bad for baseball. Football figured it out a long time ago. All teams should have the same chance to win a championship. Only a handful of baseball teams can commit to a BILLION $'s.

Its an unfair advantage. Baseball is in trouble. Fans only watch their own teams games.Unless there is some sort of salary cap put in place, it'll continue its decline.

That change wont take place until baseball loses a whole season or more. But, thats what its going to take to save baseball for the next generation.

Brought my World Series tickets.

Goldschmidt's career slash line:
.293/.388/.519

Goldschmidt's career slash line when "late and close":
.249/.370/.430

The Dodgers are kicking the can down the road to avoid huge CBT bills. It's no different from how the Chiefs keep restructuring Mahomes, and actually smarter based on California tax law for them to offer it to Ohtani. Whether it makes him more or less money in the long run may be debatable, but it allows them to go out and supplement an elite core.

The Cardinals could do this if they wanted. They did it with Matt Holliday. They just don't care. Everyone in the org got fat and complacent after 2013, and bought into their own hype, and ownership no longer cared about doing anything more than the bare minimum. They didn't appreciate that Luhnow built the team that was the envy of the NL from 2011-2015. That's why the Cubs lapped them, the Dodgers, Phillies and Braves buried them, and why they won't win over 85 games for the foreseeable future.

3-3 out west so far and this is without Gray having a start. Far better than I expected to be honest.

If Wynn, Walker, and Donavan continue to progress, this team will be all right.

"All right" like 83-79 is probably an optimistic ceiling. No way that geriatric starting corps last the whole year.

Their previous top starting propects McGreevy and Graceffo are likely busts. Hence has yet to throw a 100 innings. The cupboard is pretty bare down on the farms. It could get real ugly in the next few years.

The best we can hope for is Goldy and Arenado show they still have something at the trade deadline and somehow Mo doesn't continue to undervalue his talent in trades.

All that said, Go Cards!

I'm not ready to call those guys busts yet but other than that you're prett close.

Stop...just...stop

Be nice if our 25 mil a year pitcher wasn't hurt so we could get this scrub out of the rotation. But everything Mo does is a disaster.

Hey DJ, Hamas and anyone else that breakdown swings, was the hell has happened to Arenado?

Is it just aging?

Just doesn't look as athletic anymore. Not defensively, not on the bases. He just looks a lot older. And he's always been a 'see ball, club ball' sort of hitter who wasn't exactly patient or selective in what he swung at. The traditional 'old man skills' weren't really his strength.

But he had good plate coverage and a willingness to attack anything hittable and drive it. Made him an excellent RBI guy.

Now he just looks older. And to compensate I think he's gotten MORE aggressive because, unlike when he was younger, he's not going to punish that first hittable pitch he sees. He may mis-hit it a bit so just in case, he's gonna expand his zone and try to attack a pitch he may not have in the past. And finally the frustrations of losing have him pressing and selling out for power.

I don't think it's anything mechanical. I think he's gotten older, he's gotten frustrated by poor performance and as a consequence he's just gotten awfully damn aggressive in his approach.

But if you want a far shorter answer - watch him play defense. He's not the best defensive 3b in baseball anymore. Or the NL. Or the even the NL Central. You could convince me that he's not one of the top THREE defensive 3b in the NL right now. And that's not approach. That's just age. His athleticism has just wanted.

From an organizational standpoint, they've been passed by the Reds and Pirates. Both teams are smarter and more creative.

The sole distinction between the franchises is the fanbase. Cardinals fans still show up so Mozeliak can spend more money (and typically does it very poorly).

THAT'S the bigger problem. It's that they're stale. I read an article a month or so back about revolutions in coaching and how more teams are using outside voices like Driveline to supplement their coaching - the Cardinals weren't mentioned. I've seen articles regarding foreign academies - the Cardinals shut down their Dominican academy during COVID and never re-started it.

They don't DO anything. There's nothing this organization does to set it apart from anyone else in baseball. They have no identity anymore because a suit runs the show. They don't have any creativity because Mozeliak will stomp it out. They won't even write checks like the Yankees, Dodgers and Phillies.

Look at this organization and ask yourself why SHOULD they win anything? They aren't good at anything. They aren't ahead of the curve anywhere.

And they don't seem to give a ****. They seem wholly content to tread water. It's just bizarre.

Agreed, he has never had what you would call a "sweet swing." He has just had incredible hand/eye coordination that was partly innate and partly honed even further by the defensive work he put in everyday.

Now, I think he has started to age (not uncommon for eyesight to start to change in your early thirties) and it's such a fine edge in baseball that you see him struggle. I really thought they should have tried to move him at the deadline last year. Some contender would have overpaid on his recent history.

He could still recover, but the signs of decline are starting to show.

Thanks man. That explains a lot.
Thats what it looked like to me. Just age. A little late getting to balls he normally would. He seems to be just a little late on the swings. Aging comes for us all. Looks like its coming for him now, as far as his athletic career.

Matt Chapman is the obvious number two.

Manny Machado? Ryan McMahon? Austin Riley?

I just looked!

*The 2023 Fielding Bible voting had Arenado at seventh overall among MLB third basemen behind KeBryan Hayes (1), McMahon (2), Chapman (3), Riley (4) and Machado (5).

McMahon.

Hayes is #1 with a bullet. Chapman as a probable 2, McMahon at 3 and maybe Arenado at 4 (I still think Riley is a butcher). Machado should be great but doesn't seem to give a shit about baseball.

I think 7th overall is pretty harsh but even with a bounce back, I struggle to get him past Hayes or McMahon and Chapman has a history of elite defense in his own right.

He's just not the guy he was. Happens to everyone.

Maybe Arenado opted to stay in STL because he knew he could suck and people would still wash his balls unlike if he went to a new team.

Lowered expectations make for an easy life.

<iframe width="492" height="369" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3flv5nWZgII" title="Lowered Expectations" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

So far the openening day festivities on the pregame show are nothing but nostalgia because that's all this franchise has to offer.

Highly likely. Arenado said he had reassurances from Mo that they would bring in more talent. He said that after not voiding each year.

So if Mo lied to you, why would you trust him to tell you the truth the second time?

Only reason is as was mentioned above, he knew he was getting old and would effect his game. He knew he could decline here and people would still love him, New place would want the production of his old self.

Skip got a bigger ovation than Oli :shake:

Why do I continue to do this to myself?

Jake Burger, a St. Louis kid, his first game at Busch Stadium on opening day - two homers. That's just a cool story.

I actually thought "Good thing the park is big" as Bell started his swing on that pitch from Lynn. It was that bad.

Sadly, the park wasn't big enough...

We have real reasons to like Skip

Game is better now

Still watching. Marlins fell apart.

Yadi would have loafed that into an out.

Does Edmonds have a drinking problem? He's looking awful, red and bloated.

Sad!

Way to eat those innings, Kyle.

Goldy has had some amazing plays at first base tonight

Yea the defense has been stellar but Goldy has been a complete blackhole at the plate. Winn has made some amazing plays as well.

I believe STL is 29th in OPS and 30th in average.

I really don't understand how BT can possibly be a major league announcer. This organization is an embarrassment in every way

One thing that's been an elite improvement is the infilled defense. Defense overall has been very good.

Now if the guys making a fortune could mange to get back to at least average big league hitters.......

Bullpen looks better too

Showtime!
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Jackson Holliday is hitting .350 with an 1.116 OPS AND making plays like this:<br><br>Call him up <a href="https://twitter.com/Orioles?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Orioles</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Orioles?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Orioles</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Birdland?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Birdland</a> <br> <a href="https://t.co/8JUcAy4xa5">pic.twitter.com/8JUcAy4xa5</a></p>&mdash; Nelson Dorsey (@TheBirdlandBeat) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheBirdlandBeat/status/1777861659580608739?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Resorting to celebrating sons of guys that played a couple years here? ROFL

Solid victory last night. I went to Opening Day and did a generous boo to ownership and management. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy. BFIB actually think they are trying!

You give them a .500 team and they worship you like dietyies

You also need to throw a pathetic offer at a big name free agent every once in a while. So you can show fans you are trying so hard.

Cards are the kings of coming in 2nd place trying to land big name FA players.

I have no idea how this group in here can see the disaster of the fromt office, how cheap our ownership is but at the stadium, if you boo, people look at you like you're a Cubs fan.

If we all see this BS, why cant the BFIB sitting in those seats at Bush see it?

You could get tickets in decent seats for the game last night for less than $30. You could get outfield seats for under $10.

ahhhh thats good news. Thanks for the info.

A team that 'is trying to win' is playing Victor Scott at the big league level. I feel like that's really all that needs to be said.

Myles Straw got waived. He's no impact player but he's an elite defensive CFer who can hit .250 from the 9 hole and not embarrass himself. Victor Scott, OTOH, is a guy who got drafted in the middle rounds 2 seasons ago and who's never played above AA (and had fewer than 300 ABs in AA at that).

They had no business at all bringing him north. They're just cheap and out of ideas.

Yeah - the stadium yesterday looked at least half empty for the debut of Gray against Wheeler. That should've been a hell of a draw. It wasn't.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GKwurffX...jpg&name=large

The reason people look at you odd in the stadium is because the people in the stadium are the only BFIB sheep left. And there's only about 25,000 of them any given night.

The rest are staying home. The Marmol extension took a lot of starch out of this fanbase. They see that the entire organization is on auto-pilot.

Man DJ, I know you want them to win but your standards are ridiculous. If hitting .073 with a .270 OPS isn't good enough for you then you will never be happy.

Announced attendance -- 31,972.

If there are 22,000 people in that ballpark I'd be floored. Gotta love the denial from these guys.

Meanwhile TON has a 1.394 OPS with 6 dingers in 10 games. We have pissed away a ton of talent in the last 10 years.

TON couldn't stay healthy for more than 80 games a season, that one ain't on the Cards and we will see how it plays out.

Hicks tearing it up as a starter is a whole different story.

A portion of the TON thing is absolutely on the Cards. Olli destroyed any chance of repairing that relationship with his bullshit.

I audibly laughed when I saw his box pop up and the .270 OPS.

I mean that's a god-awful OBP. It's a solid BA if you're a guy who plays GG defense (and to Scott's credit, he's close in that regard).

But a .270 OPS is just staggeringly awful. And I'm not seeing anything to suggest it's bad luck. Even that RBI he had yesterday was a ball he mis-hit. Thompson's sitting there saying "Hey he let the ball get deep in the zone and took it the other way..." like hell he did. He just swung under the ball and it flared out. That was no sort of opposite field swing. His front shoulder flew open, his head came off the ball. It was bad swing and he got lucky.

Meanwhile Adolis Garcia, Randy Arozarena, Tyler O'Neill and even Lane Thomas could all be in the All Star Mix.

Anyone know if Jordan Walker's hit a ball in the air yet this season? Still can't believe they sent the guy to AAA to work on his swing, he openly defies them ("I'm going to keep doing what got me here") and then they brought him back to STL anyway because of fan unrest. Wonder of wonders, he's still hitting the ball straight into the goddamn ground.

This organization just doesn't know what the **** it's doing at any level.

They were bragging about the crowd on the broadcast lulz and panned to the only full area. What a pathetic organization. Lying sacks of shit.

Yes it is.

Because it's EVERYONE. If it were just O'Neill I'd listen. It's every single guy that leaves this organization. O'Neill, Randy, Garcia, Thomas, Hicks, Gallen, Alcantara.

You could build the fundamentals of a WS roster with nothing but our cast-offs. When the Rays acquire a player, he's on my fantasy baseball radar immediately. I know they're going to get good production out of the guy. When we TRADE a guy, I do the same thing. Because this organization for the last 10 years or so had reduced the productivity of every single player on its roster by about 20%.

If Dylan Carlson gets traded, RUN to pick him up off waivers. Liberatore? Grab him.

Because there's not a single person this franchise won't **** up. They broke Nolan Arenado, FFS.

It's a rotten organization and O'Neill is just part of the same trend they've shown across the board. They're unwilling to work with players to maximize what they are and instead hammer them for what they aren't.

Worst outfield in baseball....not a damn one worth a shit....then you look at the guys they let go and it would be a damn fine group