00:00Last year, the Cardinals, 78 and 84.
00:02The projections this year, not much better, Tom.
00:05Looking at the lineup, anticipation.
00:07Newport, Herrera, Burleson, Gorman, Wynn, Weatherholt,
00:09who actually had a home run the other day off of Devin Williams,
00:12Walker Paz, and Victor Scott II.
00:14Not a lot of pop, not a lot of power,
00:17not a lot of excitement for me in this lineup, Tom.
00:21Pass, no thanks, out, whatever you want to say.
00:24Now listen, J.J. Weatherholt is one of the upcoming prospects for them.
00:30I have some interest in him.
00:31From a fantasy baseball perspective, anyone out there is drafting teams, sure.
00:35I think that's an interesting option, but this is a bad lineup.
00:38This is the equivalent of the Twins.
00:41The Twins are the Cardinals, the two teams I'm just completely out on this year.
00:44They're bad teams.
00:45They have no power.
00:46They have nothing that we're looking for consistently.
00:49Is Burleson fine?
00:51Sure, it can get there.
00:52But top to bottom, I don't like it.
00:54And more importantly, the pitching staff is absolutely atrocious.
00:58They're going to finish last in the NL Central, and the Pirates will finish fourth.
01:02I'm telling you, like, you look at the pitching staff.
01:04It's okay, is there somebody that we can lean on here?
01:06Matthew Libertor, 29 starts last year, Tom.
01:09151 and two-thirds innings pitched, a four-plus ERA.
01:12Dustin May, that was your prized, I guess, free agent in December.
01:16Close to a five ERA through 23 starts last year.
01:19We've got Pallante here, talented arm, no doubt about it.
01:22But 5.31 ERA, Tom.
01:23It doesn't seem like we're in a season that the Cardinals are like, let's just see what
01:28we have.
01:28It almost seems like they're saying, okay, we're going to have a lockout this season.
01:31It doesn't matter.
01:32And that's the effort that we're giving our fans here.
01:35It's really the case.
01:37Seeing a pitching staff that has, what is this, three guys that have two years or less of
01:43experience is like, that shouldn't give you like a warm, fuzzy feeling thinking like,
01:48oh, the Cardinals are going to be competent.
01:49It's like, no, they have so many young players and you need so many things to go right just
01:55to be in a 500 baseball team when you're already two steps behind the Cubs and the Brewers.
02:00Now, here's an interesting thing that we'll talk about.
02:02The most wins in Major League Baseball.
02:04Usually when you have that time, you have a lot of hype coming into the next season.
02:07Didn't spend a lot of money here.
02:08The lineup still does look solid for the Brewers.
02:10That's Churio, Teran, Contreras, Yellich, Freelich, Vaughn, Rangifo, Mitchell, and Ortiz.
02:15There's pop on that lineup.
02:16There's guys that hit with average.
02:18I like that here.
02:18But if we're looking from a perspective, could have we assigned maybe one or two more players
02:22here that could have helped out?
02:23Maybe so.
02:24I mean, their big free agent move was basically Gary Sanchez coming in as a backup catcher.
02:28Looking at that lineup itself, Tom, they'll be just fine.
02:31But I just don't find a team that led the league in Major League Baseball wins last year
02:35with a lot of excitement coming into the season.
02:37I would say the same thing.
02:39Like, there's nothing in this lineup that tells me that they're like, oh, they're going to
02:44repeat that.
02:45They're going to lead the league in wins.
02:47They're going to lead the league and run differential, all these sorts of things.
02:50Is it a good lineup?
02:51Yes.
02:51Is it a playoff lineup?
02:53Probably.
02:53I think so.
02:54Again, there's some pop at the top of the lineup, especially playing indoors in a controlled
02:59environment is always nice to see.
03:01But there's like a missing it factor.
03:03Churio missed some time last year.
03:05Maybe he isn't a superstar.
03:06Maybe he's just a really, really good player, but he's not some elite superstar that they
03:10think he's going to be.
03:11They're kind of just missing that it factor that really is going to push him over the top.
03:16And maybe status quo couldn't be good enough.
03:18But as we said, they traded Freddie Peralta, their ace of that staff here.
03:21Woodruff, Mizorowski, Priester, Patrick, and Logan Henderson.
03:24It still is a semblance of a good roster lineup here for starting pitching, but it would
03:28have been much better with Peralta.
03:29And you give your fans a K.
03:31We didn't get it done last year.
03:32And yes, the Dodgers were really good.
03:33Maybe we're a little bit over-heralded here, but you still won more games than anybody else
03:37in baseball.
03:37And this year, I look at this lineup, Tom, which includes the pitching staff.
03:40They can't afford injuries, as we always like to say, with just about every baseball
03:43team.
03:43But they still will be competent.
03:45The Brewers are always competent.
03:46You just wish as a fan base then, they just said, you know what?
03:49We're going to keep Peralta.
03:50Add another pitcher.
03:50Add another bat.
03:51And say, let's just build on what we did last year.
03:53And it looks like they did a subtraction instead of addition.
03:56You would like to think that, that they just add a piece here, add a piece there, and the
04:00lineup would be that much better.
04:02But when I look at this team, it's like losing Freddy Peralta and not replacing him is an issue.
04:07Now, you're expecting Chad Patrick and Logan Henderson to step up.
04:11And listen, Logan Henderson had a 33% strikeout rate last year.
04:14He can really get those strikeouts going.
04:16But it was also in a very small sample size.
04:18And to see him do that over the course of 180 innings and the course of an entire season
04:22has yet to be seen.
04:23And same with Mizorowski, he also missed some time with an injury.
04:26So you're expecting Mizorowski and Chad Patrick and Logan Henderson all to step up to fill
04:30what Freddy Peralta left.
04:33But that's asking a lot again.
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