Join columnist Ben Frederickson for his live STL sports chat at 11 a.m. Tuesday
Ben Frederickson answers your Cardinals, Blues, St. Louis City, Mizzou and SLU questions in Tuesday's 11 a.m. live chat.
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Make the case. I don't really see it. It's April 25. Gallegos had converted every save opportunity so far this young season. He had two outs before the Arenado throwing error. The game is over if Gallegos covers first base after that. If you trust a guy enough to hand him the ball in that spot, you are probably going to trust him to get it done. And he would have, if he covered first base. -
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I think it matters for Minnesota. The Blues are pretty balanced home and away but the Wild are clearly better at home, and securing the chance to host four in a seven-game series would be viewed as a pre-series win for Minnesota. The Wild have the NHL’s third-best point percentage at home (.789) and the league’s 13th-best point percentage .598 on the road. The Blues did not play their “away” game against the Wild at Xcel Energy Center. That one was the Winter Classic game at Target Field.
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Tennessee did not pull its offer. The Volunteers thought they had Collins until they didn't. There was an effort by SLU to get an NIL package together to make the decision harder. I don't know what the end result of that effort was, but something clearly changed the equation. There also were some conversations between SLU and Tennessee about the talks Tennessee engaged in with Collins before he was officially in the transfer portal. SLU was not pleased with how that process went down. In the end, it's a big win for the Billikens. Retaining talent is a huge challenge for an A-10 team right now, and the Billikens circled the wagons. They should be very good next season.
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If only we had a good GM like in Cincinnati.
Bad loss last night. If we win tonight it will hurt less. Long season. Cards doing well overall so far. If we won every game, being a fan would be boring, It's the possibility of success or failure than makes sports interesting and fun for a fan. -
Nice reference.And kudos to the Reds fans who showed up with their paper bags on their heads.The standings don't mean a ton right now but they show the Cardinals are tied with the Brewers. This was what was to be expected. Two team race until proven otherwise, and the Brewers have their issues, too.
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Love the chat BenFred, thank you and the Post-disPATCh for it (pronounce it correctly folks!). Anyway, my weekly Mizzou football question, I have asked Dave Matter and he is not a fan of the idea, but what do you think about Emory Jones as a Portal answer at QB for one year? He has experience and is a good athlete and I think our chances (if we have any ) of competing with teams like Georgia would be to have someone like him at QB. Besides, I worry if we have lackluster QB play that Luther could be one and done headed to receiver Heisman-U (Alabama) if he has a frustrating first season. Am I crazy? Maybe so! Thoughts BenFred?
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Nothing would surprise me -- and nothing should surprise you -- when it comes to Eli Drinkwitz and quarterbacks. He has recruited multiple potential transfers this offseason, and does not appear to be chasing a specific type. There's a big difference, for example, between Jayden Daniels (now at LSU) and JT Daniels (now at West Virginia). There doesn't seem to be a ton of hard evidence that Jones is for sure a better option than what the Tigers could have in Brady Cook, though, and Jones has has two seasons of eligibility remaining instead of one, meaning that could be viewed as a threat to incoming freshman Sam Horn, who Drinkwitz keeps mentioning as a legitimate option to see playing time this season. So, it doesn't scream fit, but again, Drinkwitz can be unpredictable. Horn is having a good baseball season, by the way, and that has to be adding to Drinkwitz's heartburn at the moment.
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Ok.........
Arenado, Knizner and Edman are batting .318
The REST of the team .203 (Five players batting under .188)
Not much has been said about this....regardless of it being early. It still IS 14 games and if we can praise Arenado and Edman for a good start, we should roast everyone else for a Matt Carpenter-esqe start.
I'm sure Arenado doesn't take batting direction from Jeff Albert but MAYBE Edman and Knizner do. But is seems that Jeff Albert continues to over-analyze hitting and mess everyone up.
This year the team is batting .234. The last four years team batting (under Albert's 'expertise') have all been the lowest since the previous low of .236 in 1986!!!
When will they cut ties with this clown? The results aren't there. When 75% of your roster is batting at the Mendoza line then something needs to change. Four years of this body of work. Either Nootbar, Molina, DeJong, Dickerson, O'Neil, Carlson, Bader, Sosa, Pujols and Goldy are not good enough or Jeffy needs to go.
Otherwise what is the excuse everyone will give? It's cold? It's early? Short spring training? Working on new stances? Come ON!!! -
If you are going to fire a hitting coach 15 games into the season, you should not have entered the season with him.I don't say that as a member of the Jeff Albert praise band, either.He's very much in a prove-it season, in part because there's no one else the front office can point -- except the front office -- if this lineup does not produce over a more meaningful sample size.
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Other than cleanup (thanks to Nolan Arenado) and the No. 9 spot (thanks to Edman), the No. 5 spot is the only other place the Cardinals are producing a top-10 NL OPS. It's not great (.597), but it's not as lacking compared to the rest of the NL as what the Cardinals are getting at spots 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8. My point is, it's easy to say that guy should not hit there, but harder to put point to who could be sure to do better. Edman is getting more leadoff chances with Carlson struggling. No other bad is demanding a move up the lineup, unless we're talking about Nolan Gorman, and he's not here yet, and not yet on the 40-man roster. Dickerson has to be feeling the pressure of two things. Pujols cutting into his at-bats, because that's how this thing is going to trend, right or wrong, if Dickers is not hitting, and the pressure Gorman is applying from below. A one-year, $5 million deal is not hard to eat if the Cardinals feel Gorman is ready and they're ready to admit they didn't need Dickerson as much as they thought. They're not there yet. That gives Dickerson more time to produce.
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Any reflections on the NIL marketplace? I agree completely with your analysis that when a 20-year-old has a chance at making $100k, that's a business decision.
I also wonder where the NIL market is headed.
It initially struck me as weird to discuss what schools are giving students, as the policy change reflects the NCAA no longer _barring_ college athletes from owning their own names and faces. But how directly is this becoming a matter of collecting booster cash to pay for athletes' labor (a separate issue)? Making no moral or legal judgments here; I just think it's interesting. -
The schools are not giving the athletes the deals. Businesses and/or individuals are giving the athletes the deals. The athletic departments are supposed to be hands-off but that notion has been a joke from the start and continues to be even more so as it plays out. Business X can say, I want to pay every starting player on the men's basketball team $100,000 in an NIL deal. Business Y can say, if Player Z goes to this school, he will get an NIL deal for $25,000. What players get collectively and individually is of course influencing recruiting and being communicated to prospects by coaches. It would be insane to assume that is not happening. The NCAA can try to enforce that, I guess, but seems to have mostly taken the stance that NIL is none of its business. Where is it headed? Perhaps to a separation of the schools that want limits, and the ones that don't. Or perhaps to a settling point where a market is determined and a status quo for NIL deals emerge, but if it's going to go the route of college coaching contracts, the money will continue to grow and the biggest spenders will continue to compete. It is becoming, very quickly, a slush fund that allows pay-for-play while the NCAA can still attempt to defend its outdated amateurism idea.
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Just logged in so ignore if already discussed. 3B defense ala Arenado should not be taught. He seldom if ever sets to make a throw. The throws he makes while remarkable can only be duplicated with countless hours of practice. The throw last night took at least three steps away from 1B after the catch and then was wild and not strong. If he could have set (which I think he could have) and thrown his chances of making a good throw would have increased three fold.
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Brooks Robinson said Nolan Arenado plays third base as well as anyone.The greats get to bend the rules once they have mastered them.If everybody played basketball with their tongue hanging out, there would be a lot of basketball players with half tongues.But it worked for Michael Jordan, right?Arenado is not mistake proof. No one is. You're right about the practice. Arenado practices every one of the jawdropping plays he makes. He'll probably add some more practice after that throw he wishes he had back.
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Here's how I view it, and I invite you all to join me. Pujols is good for business. He's going to make the Cardinals money on this deal. More reason for the Cardinals to pump money back into the team via in-season upgrades, right? Especially because the team has been adamant about this not being a financial play. There will be chances to prove that.
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In your opinion, should Arenado just planted and thrown last night in the ninth or do what he did? He made about three extra steps into foul territory before throwing off balance to first. I know. I know. He does that play. He's an expert. But there are times when he HAS to make that play like that. But last night, that was a softly hit grounder
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How do you feel the Cardinals quest to use data and matchups to improve the offense through lineup construction is going so far in the small sample size? It doesn't feel like there's been a lot of lineup flexibility thus far, feels pretty static with the exception of the DH vs righty/lefty pitchers and it still feels like guys are somewhat locked into their numerical positions in the lineup as well.
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The proven guys who like where they are are not going to move around too much.The bottom and leadoff will have some churn.That was advertised toward the end of spring, and the approach has not surprised me much.It was never billed as a drastically different lineup every day. Some key cogs, and some moving parts.
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The Cardinals admitted they underestimated Max when he signed the big contract with the Nats and lived up to it and then some.If he keeps pitching like he did last night, they will have underestimated him agian.He would have loved to pitch here. I know that for a fact.
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