Join columnist Jeff Gordon for his live STL sports chat at 1 p.m. Friday
Bring your Cards, Blues, Mizzou, SLU and MLS questions and comments, and talk to columnist Jeff Gordon in his weekly live chat.
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Sell, sell, sell. Dennis Gates is out there working it. Missouri fans say they will come when the team wins, but an empty stadium or arena for games makes it hard to attract players who can help you win. So Missouri needs to sell college football and basketball as things to do, period. The school needs to get fans to come for the fun while also investing in the athletic program's future. That is one thing Bruce Pearl did at Auburn. He did other things to revive basketball, but he also got fans to come to show interest while he was still building. -
Unfortunately no one in any walk of life is immune to marital problems and divorce and should be allowed privacy. But w Pujols situation of a wife battling brain surgery while they raise children effect how the public feels about this player who has been publicly adorned and put on a pedestal for his whole career?
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He's been fine so far. I was skeptical, given Nick's past plus-minus history. I saw him as a faded offensive defenseman. But playing on a team with better defensive structure and more skilled guys to pass to, he's been solid. He's just OK on the power play, but that won't matter once Torey Krug returns.
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Obviously, trading Binnington is not going to be an option. I guess a team like the Oilers or Leafs might take a flyer on him if we ate part of his money. I’d just hate to get saddled with half of Binner’s salary for the next 5 years while he goes off and turns into the second coming of Johnny Bowers. Do we just sign Husso to a 3 year $9.5m deal and allocate $9m a year for goalies?
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That might be the interim path. Binnington has played a lot of pro hockey, most of it very good, so I am not writing him off. And since Doug Armstrong does not like to buy out contracts or pay guys to play elsewhere, I imagine the team will invest more time in him unless another team gives it a reason to move on.
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Obviously the Dodgers and Yankees have awesome histories, but in those massive markets teams do not have to work the nostalgia angle as hard as this one does. I do not watch other opening ceremonies, but I'd be surprised if any franchise could match this emphasis on history.
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Berube had to use Husso in back to back last weekend. Seeing that the Preds and Stars are still close can he afford to take the chance of Binnington still being in a funk and throwing away points as staying away from a wild card (especially w the Avs) has to be the teams goal these last 3 weeks? Is it more important to try and rest Husso for a possible playoff run or ride him until that 2-3 spot is secured?
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Subscriptions are the latest cash cow. MLB is selling games to streaming services. Subscribe or miss those games. I subscribe to the PD online and will continue but now they want more money for Pinch-Hits. Everyone has a limit and I hope KMOX radio doesn't join the money grab.
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In our case, we invested more money on the content side to create extra coverage at a time when newspapers are spending less on reporting. We also travel to road games, which many publications do not do. In our business advertising alone can't cover the expense of coverage.
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I’m surprised that framing pitches is accepted as ‘playing the game the right way’, and that catchers get away with it.
If you were an ump, wouldn’t you assume that the catcher moved his glove because he thought the pitch was a ball? And wouldn’t you be disinclined to reward a catcher who tried to trick you? -
A good umpire can tell a ball from a strike. We have lost some good umpires, which is why the pitch-calling robots are on the way.To me, framing means setting a good target, reading the pitch, adjusting to the pitch and having a quiet mitt hand when pitch arrives -- in other words, not lunging around and stabbing at pitches. A good frame could include a subtle finishing flick of the mitt back to the zone to complete the sell.As for catchers getting away with yanking pitches back into the zone, umpires must be better than that. They are supposed to follow the path of the ball through the zone -- up and down, side to side -- and not call a pitch where a catcher catches it. Where the catcher catches it could be a ball, but where the ball crossed the zone could be a strike.There are many aspects of playing baseball that fall into the "gaining advantage" category without rising to the cheating category. Is the hidden-ball trick cheating? No, it's part of the game. Having a second baseball in play would be cheating.
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How long is Binnington's leash Saturday (if he starts) especially if the Blues lose to the Wild? Will one bad goal be enough to pull him again or will it take the team to get down multiple goals? How does this compare to the Cards continuing to running Reyes out when clearly he didn't give the team the best chance to win?
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In the case of Reyes, the Cardinals did not have just two pitchers: starter and closer. So there were lots of options is a pitcher struggled. Not using those options was dumb. In this case, two goalies dress. Given the fact these two games are back-to-back at home, I could see Berube pulling Binnington again unless he felt Husso really needed a night off or the game in question was already out of hand.The Islanders don't allow lots of goals, getting down multiple goals could quality as "out of hand" -- which was not the case for Edmonton.
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I understand if the Cardinals want to make Jordan Hicks a starter, but why isn’t he doing it at AAA? As a starter he’ll need better control and his change up. He can’t be throwing 20 plus pitches an inning as he’s prone to do. I would understand if the team had no other choice, but that’s not the case. I don’t get the thought process, and I think it’s setting Hicks up to fail.
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At the moment, this may fall into the "no other choice" category. Matthew Liberatore is still not ready. Johan Oviedo has not recovered from his 2021 beatings. Drew VerHagen did not finish the spring well. So that seems to leave Jake Woodford and Hicks as the two choices. Woodford would seem to be the surer of two unsure things at this point, but Hicks has massive upside. The team wants to see how his arm reacts to pitching every fifth day to see if this really is his future, as Hicks insists it is. Hicks takes this assignment with a pitch limit and a short leash, so that mitigates the competitive risk.
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If I were to say the Cardinals are good enough to make the playoffs, but they have no chance to win a World Series this year a common response would be “There have only played one game this year. There are a lot of games to play”. That point has merit, but I’m not sure everyone really believes it. What if I said the Pirates have no chance to win the World Series this year? I believe the vast majority of people would agree with me. Wouldn’t the previous statement still be true for them? There is a gap for both teams. The only difference is the Cardinals have closed the gap to a point a portion of the fan base can’t or won’t see it.
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The roster is not frozen on Opening Day. Let's see who plays well, who fails, who gets hurt, and what else the front office or the farm system adds to the team as the season unfolds. And how a team looks on paper means nothing when the postseason starts, as the Dodgers and Braves proved last season.
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The Cardinals want to see if Hicks holds up better pitching every fifth or sixth day rather than pitching four or five times a week. Of course, he must adapt to the role and not try to throw every pitch 102 miles per hour as a starter . . . or, yes, he will be back on the IL.
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Right now Bill DeWitt Jr. must be pretty happy with the state of things. But I can't help but think that John Mozeliak burned some equity with his handling of Mike Shildt. That firing was NOT The Cardinal Way. It was a bad look that was duly noted across the industry. If I'm not the owner, that raised the performance bar for the president of baseball operations.
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