Join columnist Jeff Gordon for his live St. Louis 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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Ah, Mike Maddux is missed already! Maybe there was some magic in that hand-on-shoulder move. As for the plays at the plate, I know the Cardinals like to push it. But given O'Neill's history of muscle pulls, sending him has its risks. At full speed Tyler was looking at a 50-50 play at the plate. I'm guessing his injury history made him tentative on that play. The Goldschmidt play was just a bad read. Paul is a good baserunner, but not fast.
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Jeff, let me see if I have this right. O’Neil dogs it running the bases. The manager calls him out twice publicly and then his boss opts to pile on with both admonishing the player for not following the Cardinal Way albeit 5 days into the season. Now dial back 12 months. Molina shows up badly out of shape, seldom runs out a ground ball all season, and departs for a week to his home country during a pennant race to watch a basketball game. I follow the Cardinals very closely and don’t recall one public mention or admonishment over Molina from the team. I realize Molina has accrued many more credits than O’Neil. My point isn’t to defend O’Neil or criticize Molina. But please tell the Cards brass to stop with the silliness around standards and the Cardinal Way if they aren’t going to apply consistently. Lastly, if they want to cite O’Neil for lack of full effort, they might want to call out the starting pitching. Because if the early horrid pitching was full effort that was backed by Mikolas’s post game comments, then this team is in serious trouble. Tell me if you disagree with anything here.
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Gordo the Marmol vs O’Neill dust up has made lots of local and national attention and will likely be a hot topic for your chat today. My 2 cents:
Kudos to Oli for his tough stance and not being intimidated by the varying personalities of his team. It’s not easy. He simply won’t let that get in the way of doing his job the best way he knows how. Applause for that. However, after a lifetime of managing groups of individuals trying to mold into teams I disagree somewhat with his approach. I had to discipline employees numerous times over the years. It is literally impossible to please everyone all the time. It is a completely necessary and decidedly “unfun, is that a word?) part of the job. I personally never would intentionally or otherwise embarrass an employee publicly or within plain sight of the group. As a manager I was held to a higher standard and determined to “stay above the fray “. I assure you the word gets out like wildfire anyway and your point gets made without you looking like the bad guy. I thought he could have handled it better. He is young and will learn and has all the qualifications to be a terrific leader of men. You’re thoughts please? Thanks for the chance to comment! -
This whole episode had us thinking back to Tony La Russa. He set a high standard. He could be very hard on players. At the same time, he went to great lengths during his postgame media sessions to protect them. One of his favorite catch phrases was "men, not machines." So while I appreciate Marmol's high standards and direct communication style, there is always risk in issuing public admonishments. It's a long season. Overplaying that card can cause problems that are hard to fix.
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Thanks for your chat Gorgonzola
The wishing and hoping in the front office of the Cardinals has gotten ridiculous. 17 million for a pitcher that's losing it in Wainwright 40 million for a pitcher with a losing record last year. Flarity's gonna be our ace this year? Matz is going to be a healthy , a reliable starter?. This team is going to be in serious trouble if all the hoping and dreaming doesn't magically doesn't come to fruition
the symptom of mediocre Mo and his falling in love with certain players, and dismissing other players, because they mouth off or put bad video on the Internet. It's gonna take a while to recover from his errors -
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Realizing that P is most important and roster construction usually work out over time w injuries... let's still look at the present makeup... teams 3 core hitters are RH w wouldn't you say Walker now a fixture moving forward? Doesn't that make Gorman and Donavan almost certain everyday vs RHP(about 75-80%of games). Add Edman as the SS and that leaves 2 spots for Carlson, Nootbaar, Burleson, O'Neill and Yepez? Doesn't that make the last two RH's the most likely to be expendable? Also are they playing Burleson to up his marketability as his defense is way below that of Carlson and Noot?
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The player deployment has been, um, interesting. I was a bit surprised by the heavy usage of Alec Burleson early. He's got a nice bat, but clearly he is the No. 5 outfielder when everybody is healthy. Tyler O'Neill in center field? That also seems odd. Dylan Carlson looks more comfortable and aggressive out there. Juan Yepez does seem like the odd man out, since Burleson can back up at first base and Nolan Gorman can back up at second while offering the left-side balance that you cite. After a week, I get the feeling that Marmol needs to settle on a deployment plan and stick to it once Lars Nootbaar is back. The first week felt a bit scrambled.
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Is it time to make Goldschmidt a fixture in the 2nd spot like other stars like Judge and Trout are? Analytics w the DH say the 2nd spot is the most important and I think Goldy only has hit there since being acquired for the two hot months O'Neill had where they split him and Areanado? It's been understandably not doing it because the Cards didn't have a true 3rd middle of order bat or anyone mentally or ability wise to hit cleanup.( tried Dejong, O'Neill, Carlson, Yepez, etc). Now w Contreras who could handle 4th, wouldn't it make sense to utilize the two best hitters at 2-3?
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While I'm an old school guy who always loved the traditional role of No. 3 and No. 4 hitters, I understand that getting extra at bats for Goldschmidt is a worthy goal. And, yes, at least in theory this batting order has a lot more depth with Contreras and Walker in the mix and O'Neill healthy for the time being.
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Is Mikkola playing some top LHD minutes for the Rangers plus PK? Did the Blues give up on him too soon? Aren't the Blues defensive corp issues mostly having Leddy miscast as a top pair D and PK? Scandella was looking like he might be the answer but now injured may not even be able to get much in return in the off season? How would you like to see Army remake the back end moving forward?
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As we've talked about all season, the Blues defensive pieces don't fit together well. Nick Leddy was cast in a shutdown role for the first time in his life. The team has too many puck-movers and not enough defensive defensemen. Niko Mikkola was shaping up as a possibility for that role, but he is due for a big raise after this season and the other defenseman contracts squeezed him off the roster. Although Marco Scandella looked pretty good post-surgery and Colton Parayko picked up his play, the mix is still not great. And where does puck-mover Scott Perunovich fit in next season? At some point Doug Armstrong will be able to move a defensive piece or two to change the mix, but in the meantime the coaching staff has its hands full.
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Some redundant thoughts from previous comment but the whole Marmol/TO thing upsets me on so many levels. Hypocrisy about standards... C'mon... Molina not running hard etc. How about calling out your third base coach publicly? He's cost us some outs and should not have sent O'Neill on one hopper to Acuna-sure out against that arm and risking injury to TO. How about standards for calling a game as manager like he did against Philly in playoffs last year? Was that up to Cardinals standards? Or how about just being a donkey the way he is arrogantly calling out his player in the 5th game of the season and risking losing some of his clubhouse over it? Definitely team Oneill here and will be hard-pressed to ever be team Marmol!
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A lot of teams had a bad pitching week. It's a small sample. But bad is bad. If the Cardinals don't get consistently good starting pitching, this could be a long year despite that offensive depth. Fans were vexed about the lack of a staff ace coming into the season, but the concern today is that all five starters struggled once the real game started. And who knows what the team will get from Adam Wainwright this season. Oliver Marmol firmly denied that the first week struggles concerned him, but I don't blame fans for fretting.
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Kessel figures to get another year in the AHL with some occasional call-ups. Jim Thomas sees him as a depth guy for now. He has a good shot, but he's not really an offensive defenseman. Nor is he a shutdown defender at this point. Let's see how he develops. Samurokov has had three full AHL seasons and one KHL seasons with just a cup of NHL coffee, so at this point he looks like just a depth guy. Loof projects as a potential shutdown guy. He turns 21 this month, so he is due to come over and try the North American game. I imagine Doug Armstrong will want to make that happen, but we'll see.
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Seems like a lot of turbulence follows Oli around. He had the confrontation with Bader that was followed by his trade. Albert and Maddux both left after being offered extensions. Holiday joined the staff for a few months then left.The dispute with C B Bucknor resulted in Oli having no respect for him as a human being. Now the dispute with O'Neill has lingered for days and is being discussed everywhere they talk about baseball and the consensus that I have read or heard is that O'Neill didn't seem to be dogging it. Is this part of the Cardinal Way now? Do you expect O'Neill to be on the team after the trade deadline?
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O'Neill clearly was not running at full speed. I don't know how anybody who looked at the replay can argue otherwise. And I believe you are trying to connect way too many dots there. Albert left because he was sick of all the fan hate on social media and in chats like this. Maddux was tired of the grind. Holiday's kids are fully grown. Bucknor is a terrible umpire whose arrogance matches his incompetence. So you piling on a bit here.
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What do you see happening if Contreras has to DH say 50 games this season? Doesn't that push Gorman those games onto the field at 2B because if he plays 3B that would have Areanado sitting? In that case Donavan would have to either play SS which doesn't sound defensively responsible or move him to the OF which really limits the 2remaining spots? I guess a good problem to have but isn't the key to keeping a long lineup this year dependent on Contreras catching say 120-125 games?
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With starting pitching looking lean and I think everyone knows that Yepez,Burleson, O'Neill, Carlson, Knizner, are all trade possibilities. So is it now safe to say that Nootbar is a trade candidate? How about Edman or Donovan? They need pitching bad and Mason Wynn is knocking at the door and Kramer Robertson is also doing well. Kramer might be getting influenced by his Mother's success.
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I don't Nootbaar is high on the list of players John Mozeliak is mostly likely to trade. The team is still trying to determine what his ceiling is. He could have a lot more to give and he is still cost-controlled for a long time. Masyn Winn figures to get a big league look at some point this season unless he craters at Triple-A. But I expect him to remain in the minors for the bulk of this season, barring multiple infield injuries in St. Louis.
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Listened to Goold's podcast and he and Benfred alluded to issues in the clubhouse including Oli having discussed issues with O'Neil before calling him out for lack of effort. They also wondered who are the leaders in the clubhouse among the players now that Molina and Pujols are gone. Are you aware of such issues and who are the clubhouse leaders and could they have helped with this?
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Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt should be the leaders, but are they willing to step into the Pujols/Molina void and be verbally proactive? Nolan leads with his effort and intensity while Paul leads with his preparation and consistency of approach. I'm sure younger players look to them. And Willson Contreras has willingness assumed some of that as well.As for O'Neill, when a manager goes as far Marmol has with public comments, they don't come out of left field.
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I have heard comments about the weather conditions playing a part in how O'Neill was running. The reports I saw said it was raining. Does that not factor in how O'Neill was running? Also comments from former players were they were surprised by how hard O'Neill was running after hearing he was dogging it. I guess there are two sides to just how much he was dogging it.
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