Join baseball writer Derrick Goold for his live Cardinals chat at 11 a.m. Monday
Bring your Cards questions and comments to Monday’s 11 a.m. live chat.
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The Cards did face good teams in September, but let's not also pretend they weren't shut down by Anibal Sanchez and went just 10-8 vs the Nats, Reds, and Pirates, as well as almost breaking a major-league record for consecutive innings without an RBI (starting with 2+ games at home against Cincy). -
They're always shut down by Anibal Sanchez. He's going to wander up from his offseason home some offseason, and at 55 he's going to throw in a Cardinal Fantasy Camp and all of the former Cardinals are going to struggle to hit him. And the Marlins are going to need a split-squad starter later that week, and he's going to give one for the team and go and shutout the 2032 Cardinals. He just does that. -
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Who is claiming that the Cardinals "get in and see if we can win" approach is unique!? I don't claim it. I don't think that it is and I haven't seen others say it was unique. I do however, think it is a wrong approach that can leave you locked out of the wrong side of randomness for a very long time (See: the Cardinals 1 LCS win in 10 years...)
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I'm having a hard to squaring the circle, here. A lot of comments I get suggest that the Cardinals have this approach every year -- and they do -- without also acknowledging that a vast majority of teams, including the ones who have recently won the World Series, have the same approach. They do. Again, they do. Atlanta did. Washington did. Boston has for awhile. Cubs did. And so on. Dodgers kinda don't, but they're the Death Star. They are run unlike any other organization, and at the moment Atlanta is really the only challenger. The Mets can get there, but they've got to get better at development and drafting to then be the new Death Star.If it's the wrong approach for the Cardinals, fine. Good. They do need to get better. I've written at length about their recede from contention and their slow fade from being a factor in October.I've said many times in this chat that they may even need to dial up their expectations to chasing 100.That's not an overstatement.But to criticize "get in to win" approach without acknowledging that other teams do it too and do it successful is to miss the point. That's my view. Get over the "get in to win approach," and get on board with the win 100 and see what happens when you get in.
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Did you think it strange and out of character for Donovan, leading off the 7th down 2 runs, to swing at a 2-0 pitch and end up hitting a can of corn to center? And don’t get me wrong, I thought he was terrific all year. Also, I wonder if Molina and Pujols considered a walk around the park after Saturday’s loss. I think them and the fans would have enjoyed that. Thanks
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I'm glad you brought this up. We talked about it in the press box, Rick Hummel and me. He thought it was odd, too. I felt that it showed where Donovan was looking in the strike zone with an eye to drive and that he must have gotten a pitch right there, one that he thought he could punish. We went and watched the pitch and where it was -- and sure enough, that was probably the area he was looking and just didn't get his A-swing on it. There is clearly an argument that no matter what he should have taken that pitch. Count me in the McGwire/Ward/Albert camp of that -- if it's the shoebox of the zone where you know you can do damage, do damage. Donovan had the look of having missed the pitch that he could hammer, and that's part of it. Not every pitch gets the A-swing, but recognizing the pitches that an A-swing destroys, well, that's a good approach, and it's OK then to go after a 2-0 pitch like that one. Seriously, go look at it. I wonder what Donovan does with 10 of those pitches. If I'm just operating on feel and not data from watching him all season, I bet half are extra base hits.
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As disappointing as the end of the season was I hope we can have a little perspective. I think the Cardinals were one swing away from the next round. The Phillies didn’t have much left for pitching on Sunday. And I really like the rotation matchup going into a longer series to follow. It feels like a total meltdown, but was it?
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They would prefer to face worse pitching, yes, than Scherzer, Nola, Wheeler. They're really hopeful for next year to be against a team's No. 4 starter who did not start the year in the rotation or finish the year in the rotation but is somehow starting the playoff game because, I don't know, moths got into the new jerseys of the other starters and MLB won't let them start without the advertising on their shoulder. Something like that.They also would like their best bats to be their best bats at the biggest moments. That would be an approach the Cardinals would embrace.
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Only if the fans are willing to accept a lesser brand. The St. Louis Cardinals are baseball royalty because of a brand that is based on:-- they have the second most championships in MLB history-- they lead the NL in championships-- they have a continuous run of Hall of Fame players that goes back more than 100 years-- they boast all-time greats as signature Cardinals including Musial, Ozzie, Gibson, Hornsby, Brock, and again Pujols-- they have a great devoted fan base that is generational and geographically as wide and deep as any other team, thanks in part to the fact they were the southernmost and westernmost team for the first 60 years of the NL and they had the tailwind of KMOX carrying them as far as 48 states, from the front range of Colorado to the bayous of New Orleans to the big woods of Wisconsin.-- they are viewed by their peers as a model franchise when it comes to making the most of a midmarket and spending beyond it, while also generating revenue.-- they are the envy of their peers when it comes to attendance/TV ratings for smaller market clubs-- they have a popular logo, both with critics and merchandise sales-- they are the most important game in town for a major-metro city in an age when the NFL is king, and that was true even when the NFL was in town.I could go on, but I think you get my point.The Cardinals and their fans have invested 130 years in championships and Hall of Famers being how this organization is defined and how it represents St. Louis to the world.That brand does not need to be changed anymore than the Arch needs to become a half circle. That brand needs to be lived up to -- and that's to be expected.
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The Cardinals of 2006 and 2011 defeated teams who were superior coming out of the regular season. The '11 Phillies were. The '06 Tigers definitely were. And, thus, the Cardinals were an inferior team to those -- until they were champions. I stand by my description. All teams are inferior to Atlanta until they're not.
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Yes, all parties were held to account for their role in that by the local media, from Helsley to Marmol. They each faced questions so that they could explain themselves for their choices and for their actions, and they each acknowledged where it went awry and explained why they made the choice, why they would again, and why in hindsight they could have done something differently.That's what accountability usually looks like.Unless you are using it as a euphemism for being fired.Neither Marmol or Helsley are going to be fired from their roles for the ninth inning Friday.
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It would bring that run for 100+ years to an end, yes. Quite a run for baseball coverage, no? Quite a bar for the rest of us to reach, and it's up to the readers whether we come close. Few, if any, cities can claim a run that long.Good news: Hummel will still be around the ballpark and still writing baseball. That's what he's promised. And I'm going to hold him to that.
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Alright, there are still so so many questions in here. For each one I answer, seven more appear. I've got to cut the chat at some point, and in hindsight probably should have left it with the question about the brand. That would have been a strong finish. But I've got to try and push it one more inning, lose feel for my screwball and then bow out before the editor comes and gets me.I appreciate the broad scope of topics brought up today and look forward to diving into more of them because we have this extra time. It's not a substitute for you, the fans. You'd rather have postseason baseball.But we'll make the most of October with offseason baseball talk.I won't be at the keyboard next Monday, but will return soon to it for the chat, and then will have World Series coverage for the Post-Dispatch and that will spill immediately into the chat, live from the GM Meetings.I'll have tons of questions there.I'm sure you will, too ...2023, ahoy.
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