They Are Who They Are

The schedule gets softer but does it matter?

This past weekend was the annual Blogger Day at Busch Stadium, currently rebranded as Blogger and Podcaster Day given the expansion of the audio (and sometimes video) medium. We’re a long way from when we informally called it UCB Weekend as the United Cardinal Bloggers don’t really exist any more, but it’s really wonderful that the club has continued to invite us, fans who have taken their fandom to another level, to a day at the ballpark.

As part of this, John Mozeliak made his annual appearance, taking questions and dropping some knowledge. (Apparently Mo speaking to an audience has been a rare occurrence this season.) You can hear the entire audio over at Viva El Birdos and a number of the podcasts that were there (including David Jones and I on Gateway) have talked about what Mo said. I don’t want to go through everything, though there were a lot of interesting points. I do want to get into one point he made, though.

Speaking about the next month or so, he said “we have a very favorable schedule and we have to take advantage of it.” I think it’s fair to ask the question, is the schedule actually that favorable?

On the face of it, Mo’s comment makes plenty of sense. He was speaking before the third game of the Rockies series, a team that currently has a .353 winning percentage. As I write this, the team just finished game two of the Pirates series, which has Pittsburgh at a .478 mark. Then it’s the Cubs (.485), Marlins (.343), Giants (.493), Braves (.538), Cincinnati (.485), Pirates again (.478), Washington (.478 as well), Kansas City (.574), and the Cubs again (.485) between now and the All-Star Break. Save for Atlanta and the Royals (wait, the Royals?), nobody seems like any big contender.

Except that the Cardinals, after tonight’s game, also sport a .485 winning percentage.

It makes sense that, if you think a team has a true talent level of, I don’t know, say .550, that they could get somewhat healthy against weaker teams. Except a team that wins at a .550 clip is an 89 win team. Almost nobody thought this team was capable of that even back in spring, when optimism abounds. What about this season so far has indicated that the Redbirds could be that sort of team now?

The Cards split with the Rockies. They have split so far with the Pirates. It really feels like they are just playing at their level, doesn’t it? If they are a .500 team, playing teams also around that mark isn’t an easier schedule, it’s a matchup of equals. It’s much harder to make hay against teams that are just as good as you than it is teams that should be significantly weaker.

---

In fairness, the National League is basically a big ball of mush.

The division leaders (Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Los Angeles) are the only teams with 40 or more wins yet. Currently Atlanta is three games clear in the wild card race, the Padres 1.5, and the entire NL Central, plus Arizona and Washington, are within one game of the last spot currently held by the Giants. At this rate, it really feels like a sub-.500 team is going to make it into October.

Perhaps someone will separate themselves from the pack. Perhaps the resurgent Cardinal offense will do just enough to put them in a position that a key trade at the deadline will be the catalyst for a strong August and September. Or maybe the powers that be around the league will realize that they don’t really have to do much to get a shot in the playoffs and we’ll spend the last few weeks watching .485 teams slug it out.

John Mozeliak was pretty adamant this weekend that the Cardinals would be buyers and I believe that’s the case, in part because I don’t think they are bad enough to bomb this stretch of weaker teams. A .500 record through this part of the schedule might be enough to put them into a wild card spot and ahead of everyone but the Brewers in the NL Central. I don’t think that’s what Mo was considering “taking advantage” but it might be all we can ask for from this group. At least it’s better than last year’s fire sale.

---

After the series with Baltimore, the Cardinals had a .669 OPS as a team. Five series and one game (before tonight’s outing against the Pirates) since then and it’s risen to… .677. It’s nice that it’s increased, but claiming the offense is back is probably a little overstating things.

Willson Contreras will be back soon (I heard speculation he might be back by next week, though it seems definitely by the end of the month), which will help. I’m no big fan of Tommy Edman and given the lack of playing time and a wrist injury it’s questionable exactly what he can bring to the table. Whatever it is, though, is probably more than Michael Siani, at least in the overall package. Dylan Carlson has shown a little bit of life as of late, but the club didn’t trust him enough to hit in the ninth Tuesday night, so obviously there are some issues.

All that is before you get into the pitching staff, with no clear fifth starter (though hat tip to Miles Mikolas for stepping up his game lately) and a bullpen that runs the risk of burning out the big arms. It’s hard to imagine how this team would get on a significant run. I’ve been wrong often and could be again here, of course. They did put together a 12-3 run last month, after all. If they could do that again, they could take command of the wild card race. It just feels like asking for that again is stretching things.

Stick around and see what happens. It’s not unheard of for that to work. Hopefully it will again.

---

If you are someone that is interested in past talks with Mo, I’ve got some links below. I’m the only person that is still active from the initial 2011 group, though Diane Schulz of Women Who Love Cardinal Baseball has actually been to more of these than myself, starting in 2012 and never missing since, whereas I missed 2015 (due to the passing of my father-in-law) and last year (my family’s schedule didn’t allow for me to take off). (Diane also does a pretty good transcript of things, so you can always check her site for various years.) There was no Blogger Day in 2021 due to COVID, though the Cards did a Zoom version in 2020. I don’t seem to have written up every year (though Allen and I discussed 2022 on air) but what I have is here:

2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2019, 2020 (which is fun to read with the knowledge that it was a day or two before the first COVID positives on the team came out)

---

On the personal side of things, it was wonderful to get to see some old friends and meet some people I only knew as voices this weekend. It was a great time of talking baseball, talking podcasting, watching a game, and everything else that went into it. For some reason, people wanted pictures with me. Somehow, cameras didn’t break.

My Gateway co-host and I. We drove from Arkansas and Tennessee to Missouri, saw each other, drove home, and then did a show.

Nate and Ben from the excellent Talking About Birds. Always enjoy talking with these guys, even though this picture makes me look like the old grandfather flanked by some young kids.

Definitely check out some podcasts this week to get a feel for how everything went!

Oh, and I asked for a picture as well. Katie Woo of The Athletic was gracious enough to meet me before Friday’s game for a few minutes. Thankfully the expert took over when it came to selfies!

---

The Acolyte has released three of its eight episodes so far. If you haven’t watched, I’ll not spoil it for you, but so far so good. I am not sure that doing a flashback show for the third episode was the greatest thing but it definitely has set up the mystery. There’s a lot going on in the show and every direction seems pretty intriguing.

Also, the latest book in the High Republic era dropped yesterday as well. Temptation of the Force promises to be an interesting look at attachments among the Jedi. I have gotten through the first chapter or so but not enough to really get a feel for how things are going to go.