Time For a Break

The Cardinals come into the All-Star Break, allowing for some reflection.

The Cards just dropped a game they probably should have won to the Atlanta Braves. A 4-3 decision meant the Cards couldn’t split the home stand (in the most insane way possible) and that they finished the first portion of the schedule with a 50-45 record. (Talk about a strange wrinkle—last year they went into the All-Star Break having salvaged the final game of a series they lost to the Braves at home, bringing them to a 51-46 mark. Basically the reverse this season, so make of it what you will.)

If you’d told most all of us that the club would have 50 wins at the break, we’d have wondered if something pushed the All-Star Game to mid-August. (Some would have thought the break was coming in late September.) The team has played over expectations, even though it’s likely very little about the end of July is going to change.

I was really fortunate to have St. Louis media icon Bernie Miklasz join me on Meet Me at Musial this past Friday. Bernie brought a lot of numbers that I wasn’t aware of (that’s kinda his thing) but he pointed out that the club might be over .500 for the season but they aren’t for certain periods. I don’t remember exactly his endpoints, but for example, their record since:

July 1: 6-6
June 15: 11-14
June 1: 19-18
May 15: 24-27

They were tied for second, 2 1/2 games out on May 15 (and 2 1/2 games clear in the wild card). Now, 8 1/2 games out and a game shy of being the third wild card. While the trending down has been fairly soft and gentle, it’s been consistent. The last time they were nine above .500 was June 16.

That said, the Brewers series really did a number on them. Win one of those first two, even, and it feels a little better. Win today as the Pirates are pounding the Brew Crew (how is it the Pirates have their number and the Cardinals are confounded by Milwaukee?) and even 7 1/2 feels better, especially after being 10 1/2 back earlier this week.

Still, while this team is fun, it doesn’t feel like there’s a rocket thrust coming, does it? I’m still hopeful they can finish the season over .500, but I’m pretty sure whatever Chaim Bloom wants to do at the deadline, he’s going to do it and not be concerned that he is short-circuiting a resurgent team. It’s great that they’ve gotten this far above water, but as Bloom has often reiterated, that doesn’t mean they’ve accomplished anything. It’s a nice step. The next step may be being resilient when certain pieces are out of the picture.

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Bloom also has a way of having his cake and eating it as well. He can trade Lars Nootbaar, bringing in some prospect capital. We all love Noot and he’s played pretty well since coming back from that heel surgery from this winter. He’s still getting on base, the power is there, and if you have Nootbaar on your team, you feel pretty good about it.

That said, Nootbaar will face his final arbitration year this winter. It’s only a year and a half before he reaches free agency. If you don’t think that he’s going to be around or be viable for the next great Cardinals team, moving him makes a lot of sense now, when teams can get more control and, in theory, then pay more for him. He’d be a great help to a contender that needs a bit more on-base in their lineup and a good glove to boot.

Also, a trade of Nootbaar frees up a spot in the outfield for Joshua Baez, the belle of the minor league ball right now. We all know the power he’s shown in the minors, torching Triple A for 28 home runs to this point. There are some weaknesses in his game, but they have been slowly closing. While losing Nootbaar would be a blow, it would be significantly cushioned by the promotion of Baez, giving him a head start to see if he can be the guy he’s looked like the last two years at the big league level.

The other big piece might be Dustin May. May’s been a little inconsistent as of late, going just four innings today for instance. That said, he’s shown that the talent is there and he’s been relatively healthy. There’s always a need for pitching at the deadline and May could bring back a nice return, especially if some other names don’t actually make it to market.

That would put a big hole in the rotation, there’s no doubt about it. However, that hole could be filled by promoting Quinn Mathews to St. Louis to take his place. Mathews has been on a run as of late, including his start Thursday which saw him throw seven scoreless innings with seven strikeouts. To this untrained and slightly ill-informed eye, Mathews has started to regain the luster he lost last year.

Could he pitch as well as Dustin May has been pitching? I don’t know. However, Mathews would perhaps keep any torches, pitchforks, and “what is this front office doing” comments at bay if a deal gets made. Much more than if you traded May and just plugged in Hunter Dobbins.

The bullpen pieces—do you pull the trigger on a Riley O’Brien trade after he gets back from the All-Star Game, do you ship out Ryne Stanek or JoJo Romero as originally expected—are a little less interesting when it comes to replacements. Obviously Ryan Fernandez would get promoted. Brycen Mautz might get a shot as well. I don’t know there’s any buzz-worthy names you could put out there besides Tink Hence and the Memphis results show that wouldn’t be a wise idea. Perhaps Cade Winquest, though I’d have to check with Mr. Reis to see how viable an option that is.

The point is, this would be different than the John Mozeliak teardowns of the last couple of years. This wouldn’t be necessarily a free fall as the recognizable parts are shipped off. This would be an opportunity to see prospects we’ve been waiting for, albeit at the cost of some solid contributors. I’m very interested to see how Bloom approaches this deadline. While I don’t know that things on the field would impact what he did very much, not currently being a playoff team does make those moves easier for some people to swallow.

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JJ Wetherholt isn’t a prospect anymore, having graduated off the lists earlier in the year, but people still want to see him and they are going to be able to for quite some time to come. It’s fascinating that Wetherholt becomes the core player of the new Cardinal era. Not that it isn’t deserved—Wetherholt has stepped right into the major league life without missing a beat and is a strong favorite for Rookie of the Year. He’s remarkable in all aspects and the Cardinals are lucky he slipped down to them a couple of years ago.

However, while Wetherholt fits in age-wise with Jordan Walker, Masyn Winn, and others, he’s also a rookie. The Cardinals had him under control (unless the CBA changes things) for five of the eight years his extension covers anyway. While it’s great to get him locked in and at a rate that very well may feel like a bargain in a few years, I’m just surprised that they went to him instead of Winn or Walker first, given that they are closer to free agency.

Maybe they were going down those paths with all those players and they arrived at the destination with JJ first. Maybe the other two aren’t ready to lock themselves into St. Louis yet. There’s all sorts of reasons why this is the first long-term agreement of the new regime. It’s not a bad one at all and it is kinda fun knowing that you can get that Wetherholt jersey now and not regret it.

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I don’t tend to get worked up about the All-Star Game. I have always held that it is an exhibition (which is why I hated when “it mattered”) and the fans should see who the fans want to see. I like that every team gets one representative, because I remember the times when Ozzie Smith was the only Cardinal you were going to see. (That feeling has been around the last few years as this rule is the only reason a St. Louis player suited up.)

That doesn’t mean it’s perfect—the large markets dominate now in a way that they didn’t as I was growing up and before. I’m not sure how you mitigate that, because I do think fans that can’t get to a game should have the option to vote. (Maybe not 5 times a day, mind you.) Maybe it’s a rule where no more than two players from the same team can start, I don’t know. Of course, nowadays the bench players may get more time than the starters do.

Which leads me to the other thing that I wish the All-Star Game was that it will never be again. One of Stan Musial’s most famous moments was his game-winning shot in the 1955 All-Star Game. That came in the 12th inning. Sure, Stan didn’t start but he still played almost all of the game. It used to be that getting selected for the Game was the true honor and playing in it was a bonus. Look at that box score, for instance. Red Schoendienst got six at bats. The AL used four pitchers. The AL might use four pitchers in one inning this coming Tuesday!

In my mind, this really accelerated in 1993. Cito Gaston was managing the team and didn’t use Mike Mussina. Which might not have been an issue except that this game was in Baltimore and folks wanted to see the hometown hero. Gaston was booed for keeping him off the field, especially since the game was not close enough to be concerned about extra innings. Mussina wasn’t the only player to not play, of course. Darryl Kile and Tom Glavine didn’t pitch for the National League and hitters Robby Thompson and Andy Van Slyke stayed on the bench for the NL. (In fairness, I’m going by the box scores and at least a couple of these might not have been eligible for the game due to injury replacement. They are still listed on the roster, however.)

It seemed to me that after that, the starting pitchers started going two innings instead of three and there was more of an emphasis of getting everyone in the game, which directly led to the debacle of 2002 in Milwaukee, when both sides ran out of pitchers after 11 innings and Bud Selig threw up his hands, called it a tie, and then tried to make the game mean something in the future. It wasn’t his smartest idea.

So yes, I would like to see the starters play more. Only Riley Greene from last year’s starting lineup got three at bats. Freddie Freeman only got one! What’s the point of being a starter to get one at bat? And no pitcher went over an inning, some went just a third of a frame because the three-batter-minimum rule gets waived for this game. For a sport that wants to showcase the game, all this winds up doing is showing off the worst aspects, constant breaks for pitching changes and the inability to really showcase anyone since everyone needs their share of the spotlight.

Ideally, they’d cut the roster from 34 to something more like 26. Will there be more snubs? Sure, but you have that anyway now and the game would be much better. At least let the starting pitchers go two innings—if that breaks them, they were going to break soon anyway. Don’t sub a starter until the fifth inning at the earliest. Let people know that they may not get to play. It would be nice if every team got a rep on the field, but somebody from the 18 Dodgers that are going can take a load off and just be glad that they are there.

I didn’t mean to get off on that tangent, because I really wanted to just highlight that the Cardinals went from getting one player via commissioner edict (Jordan Walker) to getting three after injury substitutions were made. Walker, Riley O’Brien, and Ivan Herrera are all worthy of representing the club, even if Wetherholt is probably the one that would have gone if you were taking the second-best Cardinal in this situation. I look forward to seeing what they do in the game—not literally, because I don’t have a way to watch FOX, but I’ll find the highlights later. Good luck to Jordan Walker in the Home Run Derby as well—I’ll be watching that (on Netflix)!

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We’ve been talking about the 2026 MLB draft for a long time now, especially after the Cardinals added picks in the Brendan Donovan deal that gave them a lot of options up front. I hope you all got a chance to listen to David’s special Gateway about the draft and I’m sure we’ll touch on that some this evening as well.

From all accounts, the Cardinals did very well in this draft. The first pick worries me a bit, though. Not because of the talent, because Trevor Condon seems to be very talented. It’s because he’s drawn comparisons to Pete Crow-Armstrong. There are few players that I really don’t like, but I have a visceral reaction to PCA. It’s not rational, but I feel like even if he wasn’t a Cub, I wouldn’t like him.

Condon is very confident in himself, which is a good trait to have unless it falls over into arrogance. As a less-than-confident person myself, that sort of apparent hubris can rub the wrong way. However, I also know that the Cardinals have been remarkably good judges of character for a long time and they haven’t been ones to put talent over who the person is in the past. If they felt that Condon was going to fit in well in the Cardinal system, I have no reason to believe he won’t. I’m sure if he’s putting up PCA-like numbers in the majors in a few years, I’ll come around. As long as he’s a little less crude to opposing fans and can come up with a celebration after an extra base hit that doesn’t feel….wrong.

For actual draft analysis, there are a ton of places to go. So many people on Twitter that give great analysis and information. You know you will get great stuff from Brian Walton and Kyle Reis, but there’s also Kareem Haq, Redbird Farmhands, and Adam Akbani, among others. We are truly blessed in the Cardinals community with excellent prospect coverage!

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As I noted above, this week Allen took to Hawaii and Bernie filled in on Musial. I think we could probably talk for at least two hours once we get started. It’s always a joy to have Bernie on and I know we’ll do it again soon. I also had a chance to talk to Randall Sullivan, author of The First All-Star Game. I’ve made it about a quarter of the way through the book and I was glad to talk it over with the writer, especially someone with the background he had. It was an interesting conversation and I hope you check it out. There’s a contest in there if you are interested also!

On the book front, I finally started Project Hail Mary yesterday. I’m about 150 pages in and I can see why folks were enamored with it. I’m very interested to see where this goes and it’s been a very enjoyable read so far. I only expected to make a small dent in it but I couldn’t really put it down.

This has gone on so long that I doubt anyone makes it to this part, but tomorrow (July 13th) marks 19 years since I first sat down and wrote a post at a blog called C70 At The Bat. Kip Wells had ruined my post-ASG hopes for the team (I didn’t get into how much it bugs me when people try to compare players doing something “before the All-Star break”. The Cardinals were 40-45 that year at the break, they are 50-45 this year. That’s 10 extra games! No wonder more people can do X before the break now!)

At that time my son was a little more than two and a half, now he’s about to start his senior year of college. My daughter was less than two months old, now she’s in college as well. I don’t know what I was thinking, starting up a dedicated Cardinals blog when the term was still fairly new to the vocabulary, but I’m very glad that I did.

I’ve gotten some really fun experiences out of this whole thing. I got press credentials to the FanFest when the All-Star Game was in St. Louis in 2009. I got to interview Ozzie Smith in the lead up to that game. The behind-the-scenes tour given to myself and two others from FOX Sports Midwest (as it was then) is still something I think about often. Just this past spring training, I got to be on a Zoom call with the Cardinals manager. That’s not to even mention the 15-year run of Blogger Days and the interactions with John Mozeliak, Bill DeWitt III, and now Chaim Bloom.

The best part, though, has been the people that I’ve met in this community. My co-hosts Allen and David are true friends that I talk to much more than when the record button is on. I think of those that went before them, of Dan Buffa, Bill Ivie, Tara then Wellman now Nichols. All of them made me better on air and helped me build the niche I have in this Cardinals fan base.

Then there are the folks that are so great to me. Kyle Reis has never met an inappropriate comment he couldn’t make, but he’s also amazing about answering my questions and pretending not to like my puns. The Talking About Birds crew of Nate and Ben that are always great about having me on their show and coming onto mine. The Twitter “feuds” I have with people like Brenden Schaeffer. If I kept listing the people that bring me joy in this space, we’d be here for another twenty paragraphs—and that’s not even including the media folks like Bernie and Jeff Jones who have been so kind to me!

And I can’t forget you. Yes, you. I have over 450 people that subscribe to this sporadic output where I open a vein and bleed all over the screen. That’s not counting the folks that come via the links that I spew out everywhere. To hear that you agree or disagree with something but that you enjoyed the read always makes my day. I appreciate those that just open the email and read, even if you don’t respond. You haven’t unsubscribed, so I must not be too terrible.

Nineteen years is a long time. There are times when I wonder if it’s worth plugging along at this. Then I write another 2500 words, jump onto another podcast, and can’t imagine ever not doing it. Here’s to another year—twenty years is sure to get me on that Cardinals Hall of Fame red ribbon committee, isn’t it?