Last week I used creative accounting measures on the projections systems to come up with a scorching hot take taken from the end of days (of the hot stove season): the Cardinals could win over 80 games. I have predicted 85! Several players will outdo their best projections.
As winter is winding down and spring arises, the Cardinals have already illustrated several stories worth of baseball experiences. Two of the Cardinals best spring training hitters have already been sent out of camp, Josh Baez with 3 home runs (4 leads spring training currently) and Chase Davis with 2. Ok it’s a stretch to say Chase Davis is one of our best hitters, but a 113 wRC+ while being second in home runs on the team with Gorman is at least somewhat encouraging. I’m not saying that Chase has turned the corner into being a good player, just not to give up on the guy yet. Baez in particular, has looked superb, leaving spring training with a wRC+ just under 200. He did so well that many fans are mad that he isn’t in our starting outfield. Do you know who is hitting at a Baez level during spring training?
Yohel Pozo! Also barely under 200 wRC+, lol. Go Pozo! So with Baez gone, who is the Cardinals second best hitter for the rest of this spring training? It is exciting to say that JJ Wetherholt currently has a 184 wRC+! Hopefully his spring training success translates into regular season success. Similar to JJ, Nolan Gorman has 2 home runs… the similarity ends there because Gorman is batting below .200. Sigh. His OBP is definitely better, but not really passable. Are there any other bright spots on offense in Spring Training for the Cardinals? Nelson Velasquez and Alec Burleson are both over 150 wRC+! Prettayyy, prettayyyy, prettaaaayyyyy good.
The good stories don’t end there on the topic of spring training offense: Nathan Church is hitting at 137 wRC+. Does he somehow steal Victor Scott II’s starting center field job? Or is he playing himself into a starting corner position with Nootbaar still recovering? That outfield defense would be nearly impenetrable, or at least 2/3 of it.
After that it don’t look so good, with Gorman a below average hitter, Walker even worse, while Fermin and Scott II have been terrible. Blaze Jordan takes the crown of worst Spring Training position player though! Small sample size and whatnot. Who has the most plate appearances so far? Fermin and Jordan. But the Cardinals have given Gorman, Walker, Wetherholt, and Velasquez plenty of looks at the plate as well.
How about Church vs Victor Scott II? VSii only has two more plate appearances, so it could definitely be a competition for starting center fielder. Or maybe they will share a lot of time playing center.
Looking around MLB during spring training, Paul Goldschmidt has a fun batting line of 7 RBI and 2 HR in 14 AB. Konor Griffin has an .894 OPS and Matt McLain of Cincinnati is utterly destroying baseball. Ely de la Cruz is also hitting well this spring, which is good news so far for Reds fans, because those two will need to carry the team with Hunter Greene out. Or whoever ends up hitting better than McLain, heh.
Who are the St Louis Cardinal standouts pitching wise during spring training over halfway through? Matthew Liberatore, similar to his 2025 spring training, seems like a definitive ace. He has 14 K and a rather zen-like WHIP of 1.0. Quinn Mathews was a spring training success story, being close to the MLB lead in strikeouts at 12 (Liberatore is 2nd in MLB) while holding batters to a .185 BA. Perhaps Matthews could be a factor in the rotation this very season. Or maybe they’ll work him into the bullpen somehow as longman or 6th starter.
There are so many possibilities right now, it is rather uncanny. You know who else has been awesome: Kyle Leahy. He’s thrown 9 K and held batters to a .167 batting average! 3.67 xFIP. Pallante is also doing well, outside of his FIP numbers. And McGreevy? He’s doing just fine! 3.24 ERA and safe FIP numbers, while walking very few.
Success out of the bullpen? Yep. Stanek, O’Brien, Soriano, Naughton, Roycroft, Cijntje, Rajcic, Blewett, Svanson, Gastelum, all with a light’s out spring. May and Mautz both have looked really good as well, so far. Fitts throwing really hard, also encouraging.
Game Reviews with Statcast
March 10th: Jared Shuster and Austin Love got hit the hardest today, 2 Cardinal prospects I have never heard of. Yohel Pozo hit a ball the hardest on the Cardinals. Who is this guy? Blaze Jordan and… Victor Scott II? also hit scorchers on this date! 104.2 mph for Victor. Every once in a while he really gets into one. It was a double. Other Cardinals pitchers who got hit hard today? Matt Pushard and Packy Naughton. Who was dialing it up into the upper 90s for Cardinals pitchers? Riley O’Brien and Scott Blewett. Nelson Velazquez hit a home run for the Cardinals.
March 9th: Velasquez hit a 111.9 mph single on this date. Richard Fitts got hit hard by the Astros. Jordan Walker scorched a 109.8 mph single. Fitts was throwing 96.3 to 98.7 mph fastballs. In fact, Fitts threw 17 of the top 20 fastest pitches in this game. Max Rajcic had the highest spin rate for the Cards with his curve, while throwing a 95 mph 4 seam fastball.
March 8th: Pedro Pages hit a double really hard! 110.3 exit velocity! Another catcher of ours, Yohel Pozo, hit a 105.5 mph single. Ryne Stanek was throwing in the upper 90s, 98 to 99.5 mph 4 seam fastballs. Pallante peaked at a 95.9 mph sinker. The Marlins had several pitchers with high spin rates. This game was a low scoring tie with the Marlins.
March 7th: Mautz got hit hard a few times in this game but was able to mostly avoid damage. Riley O’Brien throwing in the upper 90s with a sinker. The spin rate on Kyle Leahy’s sweeper the best of the Cardinals pitchers. I’m so far really glad they stuck with the Kyle Leahy as a starter plan because both horizontal and vertical break on his sweeper has been very good and overall his mix of pitches seems to be working out.
Thanks for reading!
and now for the music…
1981
In 1981, the big time box office movies that I loved as a kid were Raiders of the Lost Ark, On Golden Pond, Superman II, and just cracking the top 10, Time Bandits. Saw all of those in the theater. Outside of the higher grossing movies, Excalibur was another good one. Werewolf movies were definitely “in” back in 1981, and American Werewolf in London and The Howling were my cool older sister’s favorites. Evil Dead was also released but I saw it years later, another classic!
In baseball, a minor league game went almost 8 and a half hours, the longest professional baseball game in history! It was the Rochester Redwings vs the Pawtucket Red Sox in Rhode Island. At the MLB level, there was a player’s strike from June 12 to July 31! This resulted in one of the only split seasons in baseball history. The champs in each division of the first half made it to the playoffs, as did all the champs in the second half of the season. Somehow, the Cardinals missed the playoffs despite having the best winning percentage at the end of the season. They finished in 2nd place during both halves. Especially aggravating was that during the 2nd half of 1981, the Cardinals finished 1/2 a game out of first place. And they were only 1 1/2 out during the first half of the season. The Phillies ended up winning the first half of 1981, and the Expos won the 2nd half.
The Dodgers ended up defeating the Yankees that year, so it was sort of anticlimactic. The bigger news was that Bob Gibson was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility! Fernando Valenzuela won both the Rookie of the Year and the Cy Young Award! Rollie Fingers one-upped him by winning the MVP and the Cy Young Award in the AL. Mike Schmidt was the NL MVP.
The Tribune bought the Cubs from the Wrigley family.
The first sampler made, the E-mu Emulator was released mid-1981, changing the music world with sampling capabilities. Stevie Wonder was given serial No. 1. High speed rail between Paris and Lyon, France, began.
Top Album Picks for 1981
We will all have our top albums for any given year, but I am hoping to uncover some undiscovered early 80’s gems. Some will be more well-known, but I found some obscure heavy metal releases to round out the end of the playlist.
#1 This Heat – ‘Deceit’ Even better than their first album, This Heat perfects their sound then pretty much disbands not long after. Super influential underground classic, inspiring experimental approaches to rock music, new alt punk sounds. Quoting this reviewer because he said it better than I can say myself, “James Joyce once said that “History is a nightmare from which we are trying to awaken” and this album is a graphic evocation of that nightmare.“”
#2 King Crimson – ‘Discipline’ King Crimson reinvent themselves and prog rock in the process by bringing in Adrien Belew to be frontman, another guitar virtuoso to complement Robert Fripp’s complex guitar lines, plus Frippertronics pushing the envelope of music performance push this instant prog rock classic over the top.
#3 Rush – ‘Moving Pictures’ it was tough to decide between KC and Rush here, especially with the epic huge guitar and bass on this album, the musicianship every bit as good but with more synthesizers. Neil Peart’s drumming is at its most musical and subtle here as he drives this music ship into alternate dimensions and parallel futures.
#4 Eskaton – ‘4 Visions’ how do you top the epic bass playing on Discipline and Moving Pictures? Listen to this! A totally surreal, beautiful dream of an album. Speaking of parallel dimensions, I think this is from one. Beautiful vocals soar above it all, singing their own language. More Zeuhl mastery, for fans of Magma.
#5 Dün – ‘Eros’ this is one of my big unheard of finds this week! For fans of Magma and Eskaton or mad prog rock. Fantastic sounding album!
#6 Brian Eno and David Byrne – ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’ my favorite thing that either Brian Eno or David Byrne did! A masterclass in sampling to the point where you don’t even realize what’s happening, you’re just floating in a sea of sounds as well as music genres and it just keeps changing. I have been very into this album since reading ‘Ocean of Sound’ by David Toop.
#7 Glenn Branca – ‘The Ascension’ is this huge sounding, incredibly recorded album of beautifully epic guitar sounds and occasionally drums. 20th century classical music in guitar form. For fans of drone, ambient, experimental punk, avant garde, art rock.
#8 Gang of Four – ‘Solid Gold’ super catchy way ahead of its time punk you just have to hear it. Genius heady party music.
#9 Fred Frith – ‘Speechless’ another big find, if you love guitarists on the more creative side of things, this is for you! The variety of cool songs here is highly impressive.
#10 Takeo Moriyama – ‘Smile’ I feel a little guilty placing this absolutely stunning jazz masterpiece this low, but it was a reallllyyyyyy good year for music.
#11 Eider Stellaire – ‘Eider Stellaire’ another top tier Zeuhl album, 1981 was the year of Zeuhl masterpieces!
#12 Frank Zappa – ‘You Are What You Is’ acerbic comedy music with tons of relatable content to today’s world, but written 45 years ago! Including hits like “Drafted Again”! “Dumb All Over” is my favorite song though. Zappa shows off both his advanced prog side and his unforgiving observational “comedy” which for me at times is a bit cringe but overall, this album is an important chapter in rock music.
#13 Chick Corea – ‘The Three Quartets’ Chick Corea: piano; Eddie Gómez: bass; Steve Gadd: drums; Michael Brecker: saxophone. Perhaps my favorite Chick Corea album.
#14 Hawkwind – ‘Sonic Attack’ one of my favorite Hawkwind albums and now we are getting into the truly epicly cheesy album covers too! This is where it gets fun.
#15 Prince – ‘Controversy’ Prince really hits his stride here and his production job on this 1981 album is so good! Perhaps his most underrated album.
#16 Big Boys – ‘Where’s My Towel/Industry Standard’ more ahead of its time punk rock, writing the future.
#17 Holocaust – ‘The Nightcomers’ if you’re a fan of early Metallica, you have to hear this!
#18 Riot – ‘Fire Down Under’ omfg that album cover! The music rules too, super tight Australian metal.
#19 Venom – ‘Welcome To Hell’ how this album sounds was super influential to early metal in its most extreme forms. Another one for fans of early Metallica, but even more for fans of early Slayer! Included because it was freakin’ 1981.
#20 Gaskin – ‘End of the World’ that album cover is ridiculous. But the music is ridiculously awesome and the bassist is mixed super loud for a metal album. Unique stuff.
Ok I ran out of words today. Go Cards! Enjoy.
