***Official 2025 STL Cardinals Thread ***
 

Another year of seeing Mo run this team into the ground. And Dewitt claim to be broke.

Schedule:
https://www.mlb.com/cardinals/schedule/2025-03
Roster
https://x.com/dealinthecards/status/...451315315?s=46

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

MLB.tv is free tomorrow for Tmobile customers if you are out of market and want to watch boring, uninspired baseball.

WE'RE IN 1ST PLACE!!!!!

I'd love to get excited about watching them play again. But I can't find anything to be hopeful about. I guess this must be how Chargers fans feel about their season every year.

I've never seen Cardinals fans this uninterested in the team in my lifetime. It's pretty amazing to be honest.

last time I seen us this distressed would be the late 70’s. That brought on Whitey and trophies. Hopefully we can repeat that. :rolleyes:

Here's the problem - the economics of the game have finally gotten too far out of whack.

I just don't know how anybody but maybe 4-6 teams can keep a genuine star these days.

If Walker is Pujols, we lose him in 4 years.

Shit, we'll struggle to keep Winn.

And I'm a big fan of shitting on DeWitt (especially his dipshit son) but look at what the Twins are going through. That team hasn't exactly spent lavishly but now they're sitting on $400 million in debt and in trying to sell the team they're struggling to get bids above $1.5 billion.

Meanwhile the Celtics just sold for 4 times that.

And the reason the Twins can't get that isn't baseball writ large -- it's baseball in small and mid-markets.

Until the Dodgers and Mets just blew the top off the landscape, any team could keep its best player if they really wanted to. Now that's just not the case unless they decide to sign early (like Witt) and even those deals are massively risky anymore.

It's going to be really REALLY tough to build a long-term contender for about 2/3 of the teams in the league going forward.

Deferred contracts need to be hit with a tax escalator of 1000 percent of AAV so teams can't just invest the savings of the actual outlay. Institute a hard cap and floor of a total percentage of revenue in exchange for trimming two years off of service requirements for FA. That would stop this shit really quickly.

Yeah, unless baseball changes to make it more fair for all teams, like the NFL, baseball will die.

8 different World Series champions in the last 10 years.
6 different Super Bowl champions in last 10 years.

MLB playoff structure will always lead to more parity.

Sure - but things are getting worse.

When the Yankees were "The Evil Empire" they won 4 WS in 5 years and played in 6 WS over 8 years. That wasn't parity. And that was the same thing we're seeing now -- one team just using financial might to blow everyone else away.

The luxury tax was stiffened in 2002 and since 2004 the Yankees have been to 2 WS in 20 seasons.

Now teams like the Dodgers are finding ways around the Tax, the Mets simply don't give a shit about it and things are trending back towards the nastiness of that Yankees era. It's not a great thing for the game.

I'd like to revaluate this in a decade or so when the fruits of LA's labor are finally available for all to see. I think baseball is going down a dark path atm.

Back when we use to regularly have HOF players on our roster.


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Between 1963 and 1970, Bob Gibson was simply dominating.<br><br>156- Wins<br>2.62 ERA<br>160 - Complete Games ⬅️👀<br>37 - Shutouts<br>1902 - Strikeouts <br>2X Cy Youngs<br>1X MVP<br>6X Gold Gloves<br>6X All Star<br>3 World Series (2 Championships)<br>7-2 in WS (9 Starts/8 CG 92 K 1.89 ERA)<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/STLCards?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#STLCards</a> <a href="https://t.co/otgWpK4Ktn">pic.twitter.com/otgWpK4Ktn</a></p>&mdash; Augie Nash (@AugieNash) <a href="https://twitter.com/AugieNash/status/1904867429215314191?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 26, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Crank up the organ to drown out Mo and Dewallet's boo serenade!!

All the games I've been to, never made it to opening day. It's a bucket list item for me.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">An Opening Day tradition: the <a href="https://twitter.com/budweiserusa?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@budweiserusa</a> Clydesdales take the field at Busch Stadium! 🐴 <a href="https://t.co/YKsDMLBNEp">pic.twitter.com/YKsDMLBNEp</a></p>&mdash; St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) <a href="https://twitter.com/Cardinals/status/1905348628530577854?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 27, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Cardinals&#39; Prospect Tink Hence Goes On Minor League 60-Day IL <a href="https://t.co/1fP7zpAAEj">https://t.co/1fP7zpAAEj</a> <a href="https://t.co/xcsOIgUHqC">pic.twitter.com/xcsOIgUHqC</a></p>&mdash; MLB Trade Rumors (@mlbtraderumors) <a href="https://twitter.com/mlbtraderumors/status/1905845530653053325?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 29, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">JIMMY CROOKS WITH HIS FIRST TRIPLE-A HOMER <a href="https://t.co/SUQpZWNL7q">pic.twitter.com/SUQpZWNL7q</a></p>&mdash; Memphis Redbirds (@memphisredbirds) <a href="https://twitter.com/memphisredbirds/status/1905796533317968108?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 29, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

He's done.

Broke down, rebuilt and broke again.

Forget him. He's not gonna make it. We've seen this 1,000 times before.

TINSTAAPP

Intentionally avoided going to Opening Day this year- just the third I have missed since 2009. I'll still watch the games on MLB.TV when convenient and will go watch when they visit Wrigley but baseball needs to change and Cardinals needs to change. Slowly losing me as a fan.

Seems like you aren't the only one. Busch looks barren compared to Thursday. I doubt I'll make it to STL this year and will probably will skip the Royals game in KC. I'm not paying $200 to see subpar baseball.

The more empty seats we see all year maybe the Dewitt’s will give a shit like they use to when they first bought the team and spend a little money next year.

I don't think you've accepted the gravity of the situation.

Yes, the give a shit is low but that's not the biggest issue. It's that Little Bill is a silver spoon dipshit. And thinks he's the smartest guy in the room. And he's an asshole.

He's a real problem.

I don’t have high expectations for this season, but I like how it’s started.

Then its on Daddy to get his kid under control and give a shit again.

I had a vid show up in my YouTube feed that was a Cardinals podcast. It had Katie Woo on it. I had no idea she was that hot. Yowsa!

Even though the Cardinals are a steaming pile of garbage, the rest of the division is too outside of the Cubs and they don't really deserve the praise because they've never accomplished anything with this current group. The Cardinals were below the Pirates on some sports books with the worst odds to win the division, but all the teams are extremely flawed.

PECOTA and Fangraphs were really down on the Reds even though they have Terry Francona and some core players like Elly De La Cruz, Hunter Greene and Matt McLain.

NOOOOOOOOOOT

(and pgm weeps)

Guy is a hitter. Always has been.

Just has to stay healthy.

But I love him at leadoff. Perfect approach for the role. Real Marp vibes.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">A crowd of 21,206 purchased tickets for tonight&#39;s game at Busch Stadium.<br><br>That is, by a significant margin, the smallest full-capacity crowd in ballpark history.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/stlcards?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#stlcards</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cardinals?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Cardinals</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MLB?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MLB</a></p>&mdash; Derrick Goold (@dgoold) <a href="https://twitter.com/dgoold/status/1906888808110362921?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 1, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Well that's 21k people that got to watch Brendan Donovan make a little league mistake and lose the game in extras.

There was no universe where he had a change in hell of making that throw home to get that out. Cost the team the run they eventually lost by.

Oops.

But on the plus side, I'm really not sure how you pitch to Nootbaar right now. He is seeing the ball so well. And it was just a standard take that really told me that. Just a high and inside fastball I think from Detmers and the moment it was thrown he just moved back a little and watched it hit the glove in front of his face.

He knew exactly where it was headed immediately. No exaggerated flailing, clearly not caught off guard. He just...saw it. Took a couple more pitches and I think he ended the AB with a single to RF.

He's just locked in.

I watched a lot of the games this weekend. It looked to me that they were all taking better AB's. Being patient and waiting on a pitch they can handle.

Anyone know anything about the new batting coach? Is he good or did they just have a couple of great days at the plate in a 162 game season?

I'm not sure what Donovan was thinking. You have to have better situational awareness there including knowing who is running at third. Maybe you go home with Yadi running, but otherwise you have to take the out. The only time you go home is if it is a walkoff situation.

I agree the AB's for the most part looked better than last year. Really not worried about Contreras, but Winn is carrying his very poor spring right into the regular season. I worried about his search for "more power" as it really should not be something to prioritize for him. The 15 he hit last year is plenty if he can up his OPS through better selection. Hopefully he isn't hearing this "more power" pursuit from coaching (and I doubt it), but who knows. It would be like telling Walker he needs to get more contact on the ground.

It was limited, but Gorman looked less clueless. If Arenado continues to show that considerable uptick in bat speed, we might be able to get something worthwhile back at the trade deadline. Unfortunately, we might just hang around close enough in this shitty division to justify keeping him.

They didn't even have the infield in. They were set up for DP depth and if the ball isn't hit hard enough to turn 2 then it OBVIOUSLY isn't hit hard enough to come home with it at that point if for no other reason than by virtue of where you were positioned defensively.

If you had the IF in there (for some strange reason) then sure - come home with it. But the defensive alignment wasn't even set to come home with that ball.

You don't have to be situationally brilliant -- just play the damn cards as they lay.

(Maybe don't trade away your elite defensive 2b for an aging SP and this kind of stuff won't happen....)

I like Donovan a lot but that was completely braindead.

Winn's issue is the same as it was last year -- he doesn't have any idea what to swing at and what to let go.

More talented players than him have been crippled by god-awful pitch selection. He doesn't have the hands/wrists to be as aggressive as he is. Even when he makes contact on half those balls it's awful quality of contact because he's swinging at a pitchers pitch and made the decision to do so before the pitch was delivered.

He's just WAY too aggressive.

Make him take until he gets a strike or something. Then when they start pumping him first pitch strikes in response, cut him loose. You have to do something to dial back this habit of him getting himself out. He's really doing himself no favors out there.

Noot would be a perfect fit for what the Royals need.

When he's healthy he fits what pretty much any team needs -- that's why the Cardinals can't **** around here and mess up his value.

Bottom line is that I don't think he's part of the next contending Cardinals team, at least not in his prime. And he's 28 this fall. He's under team control for his age 28 and 29 seasons and then he's a tricky extension candidate (I mean he's essentially Brandon Nimmo when he's is healthy and Nimmo got $20 million/season through age 37 which is just insane).

So you probably want to consider trading him. And if you can do so this summer, you're offering 2+ seasons of team control for a guy who's a damn nice fit literally anywhere in MLB.

You HAVE to get a top 20ish prospect for that.

You can't **** off and dick around with him like Tommy Edman, a guy who put up a SIX WAR SEASON before they ****ed around and tried to force him into CF rather than just get a damn CFer.

So of course he gets hurt, of course his value tanks and then of course they trade him for 18 months of an aging #4 starter.

Meanwhile in the 2022 offseason they could've gotten a haul for him. They could've moved him for a scuffling high value young veteran like Duran, for instance. Nah - lets do nothing.

Because that's just what they do. Always.

Hopefully new leadership will change that. They have to rebuild their entire foundation and the way you do that isn't to hang on to guys like Nootbaar like grim death - it's to continue to pump guys like that up and move them for dudes in their early 20s with the potential to be that guy in 3-4 years when you're looking at truly being serious again.

I don't get the Noot hate, but I guess its mainly just PGM who is the most miserable bastard on this site.

I swear to god, I was watching the game and I saw the fielder positions I said they are hoping to get the double play cause everyone's playing back. No chance to get the run at the plate.

If a amateur dumpshit like myself, can figure this out on sight, a starting player on the field should know that too.

Lance Lynn retires today. Question of the day - is he a Cardinals Hall of Famer? Numbers would say so.....

Another ghost town today it seems. Hopefully Dewallet and Mozo are getting the message.

Way to completely destroy any momentum and rapport you might have been reestablishing with the fan base after the 3-0 start.

Wonder how long they'll play .500 or less baseball from here on out?

Last year was the fans sending them a message.

This year they just don't give a shit.

I'll take fan anger over fan apathy 100 times out of 100.

How long until Dewallet 3 is threatening us again?

threating? What did I miss?

Didn't he say last year they'd cut payroll if fans stopped coming?

Threating your customers is always a good choice. :eek:

It was the single most tone-deaf and completely inexplicable interview I've ever heard. I believe it was with Slaten and it was just defiant to the point of obtuse.

If I hadn't listened to the whole thing I'd swear the reporting was embellished. It wasn't.

BD3 is a MASSIVE prick.

We are cattle to him. This team is nothing but an asset sheet. The team isn't the product -- the fans are. I always knew he was something of an entitled rich kid but his public statements last year were just remarkable.

children of billionaires are convinced they are as smart as their billionaire Dad. But, haven’t done shit on their own. The arrogance drips off them.

Wish he would stick to drawing his shitty art or at least trying to find a buyer who cares for the team.

Why does every silver spoon jackass want to be an artist anyway?

I always just presume money laundering...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Absolutely nobody at Busch Stadium.<br>(Taken 15 minutes before first pitch)<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ForTheLou?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ForTheLou</a> <a href="https://t.co/4dnaZboJpY">pic.twitter.com/4dnaZboJpY</a></p>&mdash; ⚜️ ®️©️®️ ⚜️ (@rcr_314) <a href="https://twitter.com/rcr_314/status/1907214950315270369?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 1, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I just can't help but think of October of 2021.

How much different would things be if that fall, when John Mozeliak told ownership he was going to fire Mike Shildt due to 'philosophical differences' after Shildt took a team that got something like 85 starts from guys who NEVER THREW ANOTHER MAJOR LEAGUE PITCH to the playoffs, ownership had stood up and said "Y'know what John? I think maybe your services are no longer needed..."

And set about, right that very minute, to bringing people into the organization that could undo the decade or so of stasis that Mozeliak had created.

Where would we be now? Could Carlson have continued to develop as he was doing under Shildt? Would Walker be further along? Would guys like Edman, O'Neill and Bader still be here? Would they have been traded for legitimate value instead of dumped?

One thing I do no is that the fans would not be this goddamn furious. Firing Mike Shildt was the spark that ignited this entire conflagration.

And there were people on this board that supported it. Because he wasn't able to carry that pathetic roster full of cast-offs past a 106 win Dodgers team.

Some of us knew the Cardinals were in dire straights before that. ALL of us should've known they were after it.

Some folks are slower learners than others.

But think of all the nostalgia they can sell? Can't wait til I see on Storage Wars someone buying a unit with 20000 Nolan Gorman bobble heads in it.

https://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/show...=337124&page=6

Start at the bottom of page 6 and read through page 8 (80 post view) and you'll get a goddamn treatise on how badly the Cardinals botched this and how unbelievably wrong so many people were about Shildt.

And how POSITIVE they were they were right. That's the best part.

Some of the same folks looking at this organization right now saying "How did it ever come to this?" were standing right alongside Mozeliak's decisionmaking back then and ignoring every single pie hitting them in the face along the way.

We fully and finally killed this organization in October of 2021. The damage hasn't still fully born out and will take years of pristine decision-making to undo.

That moment wasted a decade of your Cardinal fandom, fellas.

And many of you defended it.

No, we are worse.

I don't know how many people defended it. To be fair this thread has been one of the most negative and anti-mo cardinals places on the internet. PGM is the only poster I remember not liking Shildt.

wow, way to go to another thread from 2021 to cherry pick that post. What is your damn point?

Yes, the unexplained hatred for Pham, Nootbaar, etc. was laughable too.

Read the thread.

Most folks defended firing Shildt. Some also said that Mozeliak needed to go, but the fact that folks actually looked at Mike Shildt as part of the problem that year is the reason a clown like Mozeliak got to skate by on pure inertia for as long as he did.

Fingers were pointed in the wrong direction -- all of them should've been pointed squarely at him all along. He's been the problem for a decade. And the people that continued to employ him.

I saw one post from Marcellus and the rest from PGM (he hates everything). Way more vitriol towards Mo than Shildt, but it's a hard read with the server as slow as it is right now.

I'm kinda curious as to when I made my first fire Mo post? It has to have been at least a decade of me hating him by now.

Cardinals catcher Iván Herrera, who hit three home runs in todays game versus the Angels, wasn't even using his own bat when he hit these home runs.

In fact, he was actually using Cardinals utility man,
Brendan Donovan's bat per Katie Woo.

Prior to the game, Ivan Herrera felt he needed to make a change. So he asked Brendan Donovan if he could borrow a bat.

Herrera then went on to have a career day at the plate and led the Cardinals to defeat the Angels 12-5.

The St. Louis catcher then went on to say, "Yeah, he's not getting that back," when asked about him giving Donovan back his bat

But was it a torpedo bat? Because evidently that makes all the difference...

I’ve always thought that hitting a round baseball with a round bat was the hardest athletic task in all sports.

Not trading Helsey last year at the trade deadline was one of the dumbest moves this team has ever made.

That’s not even a top 10 bad move in the last 10 years

Too bad he never gets a chance to pitch now, usually some other bullpen scrub is coughing up the lead.

Mikolas giving batting practice off the green monster

Mikolas is a turd

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Which are you? <a href="https://t.co/b0kPDaYiiR">pic.twitter.com/b0kPDaYiiR</a></p>&mdash; Cardinals Talk (@theredbird_way) <a href="https://twitter.com/theredbird_way/status/1909044395762159690?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Skipped all 3 this weekend luckily

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Cardinals offense through 9 games:<br><br>.301 AVG (1st in MLB)<br>.380 OBP (1st in MLB)<br>.482 SLG (2nd in MLB)<br>.862 OPS (2nd in MLB)<br>100 H (3rd in MLB)<br>14 HR (5th in MLB)<br>59 RBI (4th in MLB)<br>62 R (4th in MLB)<br>73 K (22nd in MLB - that’s good)<br><br>The front office completely let this… <a href="https://t.co/zWGDxvipbe">pic.twitter.com/zWGDxvipbe</a></p>&mdash; Cardinals Talk (@theredbird_way) <a href="https://twitter.com/theredbird_way/status/1909095504673378618?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It’s 2025 and Mikolas is still in the starting rotation <a href="https://t.co/5Y8VtHVxqo">pic.twitter.com/5Y8VtHVxqo</a></p>&mdash; Keely (@keelynstl) <a href="https://twitter.com/keelynstl/status/1909033229669052883?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I had a big ol' post listing about 20 decisions that were clearly worse than the Helsley decision and the server shit the bed.

I don't have the heart to do it again.

Keeping Helsley doesn't move the needle at all for this organization.

Ryan Fernandez was decent last year so the team will cling to that 'victory' like grim death and ignore the concept of reliever volatility in favor of pretending that some non-pedigreed hack like Fernandez is suddenly a stud.

They got him in the Rule 5 - they're going to LOVE that guy. That's found money and for Mozeliak, money stolen is far sweeter than money earned.

Roycraft was some scrub from the indy league they signed as a minor league FA -- they're gonna give him the same amount of rope.

John King is a chance for Mozeliak to gain some capital getting him in the Montgomery deal - he's gonna keep getting sent out there to die despite literally YEARS of evidence that he's shite.

That’s small sample size bias - the offense isn’t very good either.

it's a hell of a lot better than the pitching.

If Noot is healthy and Walker has developed a little more (to at least get back to the .800 OPS sort of hitter he appeared to be even as a rookie) then it's a pretty deep lineup.

Lineup depth will score you more runs that a couple big hitters in the middle. And it grinds pitchers up.

But our pitching is just ass. And it was always going to be. There was no upside in this rotation at all - it was obvious from day 1. At best you get slightly below average from this roster. In all probability, you won't get that.

I can readily admit I was wrong about Schildt even though I still don't defend his pitching change in that playoff game.

Mozeliak and Bill DeWitt have completely ruined the franchise undoubtedly. I don't remember defending Mo at any point. I mean saying Schildt should have been fired for an idiotic move isn't saying Mo shouldn't have been beat to death with a torpedo bat as well.

I've got $ on Mikolas being DFA'd before the ASB.

The Cardinals won't DFA guys with multiple years left on their deal.

They WILL DFA a guy with about 4 months left on his deal, though.

Yeah -- ASB seems about right. Might get the axe in June if McGreevy can force the issue.

Maybe sooner than that if Mikolas won't shut his ****ing mouth. Stop acting like you're hot shit, Miles - you suck and have sucked the overwhelming majority of your career.