Masyn Winn is Turning It(us) On

217fmv

===

Nate: hello everybody and welcome back to talking about Birds. The only Cardinal podcast that like the Cardinals. Everyone is shocked when they do well. name is Nate Heininger and I am joined by my co-host Ben Samora.

Ben: Hey, Nate. Oh.

Nate: If you have an idea for the opening bit, text or leave us a voicemail at 8 4 8 48 birds. Or you can be like Ryan s from the bird scored who submitted that via the bird scored. You can join that by checking out our Patreon at patreon.com/talking about birds. Thank you, Ryan. Um, yeah, it's, nice of him to say that we do well sometimes, I guess is my takeaway there.

Ben: Yeah. No, I think that's a nice positive outlook. Um, you know, haters to the left,

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: Benny to the right.

Nate: Uhhuh box, put, Bennys in the box to the left.

Ben: that's right. And Ryan, you know, just watch it pal.

Nate: How? Yeah. Actually, I don't think we've been aggressive enough against the people who take the time to

Ben: I think.

Nate: opening bits.

Ben: A lot of people don't realize that Nate and I have hair triggers.

Nate: Yeah, we've talked about how many fights that I've been in, uh, several times on this show. I, I, you know, I have a pretty imposing overall, um, vibe and demeanor, I think, you

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: yeah. Ryan, you're on notice.

Ben: Yeah. I mean from the neck up. Huge guy.

Nate: That actually that happens to me. I get that a lot. 'cause I, uh, like a lot of people, I spend, uh, a fair amount of my life at this point on video calls and has been, is referencing, uh, I got a big neck to support the big old no. So, uh, people will ver I get the, I thought you'd be taller a

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: I see people and I'm, I'm five 10, I'm not short, but I'm not tall either.

I'm like exactly western male average height. Uh, but I get a lot of, I thought you'd be taller. And I think it's because they see me filling 90% of the screen, um, and they say, oh, that guy must be, I mean frankly he must be six, eight or

Ben: Yeah,

Nate: to, to be able to support that, that, um, me in there,

Ben: he has to have custom shirts to fit that neck.

Nate: It's true, it's true.

They, I, they, when I buy, if I get a shirt and it needs to be like a suit or tailor or something, they start at a large and then tailor it down to a small and every other facet.

Ben: Yeah, it's shocking when you see it in real life. I hope most of you don't have to.

Nate: Terrible neck pain. I'm constantly in, um, in discomfort. but, you know, such

Ben: Heavy. Heavy is the crown, eh?

Nate: Yeah. Heavy as the head, uh, on the shoulders.

Ben: Wow.

Nate: Wow. Uh, ham bone. You are fresh from the desert. You, uh, you went to Coachella last weekend. Uh, tell me about it. How was it?

Ben: I, I would not use the word fresh. I,

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: you know, I'm get, getting older, Nate

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: older four days in the desert.

Nate: Uhhuh.

Ben: the bounce back is a lot slower than it used to be when we first started going.

Nate: And, and you, mean, I know it's all day outside, but you also are, you're like luxury attending Coachella at this point, right? You're, you have your little private jet, you've got your little, um, they build a little hotel there for you. And, and I, I believe you're being hosed down most of the time you're there.

Is that correct?

Ben: yeah, that Patreon, uh, Patreon money doesn't spend itself baby, you know?

Nate: Uhhuh? It's a business write off

Ben: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Um, trying to get us to play at one of the stages some year, but it's, it's taking longer than I had hoped, you know?

Nate: Yeah. Um, so, so, you know, you're living the, you're living the luxury life, but how was, was it anything, um, I guess to be more specific, like what any standout performances.

Ben: Yeah, I mean, it, it was, it was a really good year, especially the first two days really had, um, jam packed schedules. I think on Friday I was watching music happen, live from two until 1:00 AM 2:00 PM till 1:00 AM it was. Yeah, just a crazy, crazy day. Um, yeah, I think like, uh, a, a couple or, or one thing like May, maybe my biggest surprise of the weekend was something called the Bob Baker Marionettes, which is a, apparently it's like a marionette theater that exists in West la uh, I guess kind of in the middle of nowhere.

But they had a performance at Coachella and it is a bunch of marionettes playing, like, kind of like doing a jukebox musical, but there's also like a master of ceremonies that's a cat. But they were all marionettes and like aliens eventually came and started singing and dancing and abducting us. But

Nate: that.

Ben: that was very fun.

Um. And then I had, uh, maybe one of the best runs of just concerts in a row that I've ever had at a coach. It was in about two and a half hours, three-ish hours. I saw, uh, nine inch noise, which is nine inch nails and boys noise together, but it's basically just remixed nine inch nail songs.

Nate: Okay.

Ben: Um, and then I saw it was when Nine inch noise, the strokes David Byrne Interpol back to back, to back to back.

Nate: good.

Ben: It was, uh, you know, the strokes nine inch noise and Interpol I'd never seen before. All three very important bands. Bands that I really love.

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: Um, and then having David Burn squished in the middle there was just great. So had some really, really, really good times. Some huge bucket list bands, um, that I got to see.

Uh, the xx, which is a band that was important to me back, like in, like high school, early college. Seeing them come back together was a really good time. Um, yeah, it was great. It was great. Strokes were that, that's like, I think I said this last episode, like maybe my favorite band that I haven't seen and they kicked ass and it was, it was a good time.

Nate: So were they, and, and I, I worry about becoming, uh, moving into old man, talking about old rock bands at this point, uh, conversation here, but they, so did they play before Interpol on the set list?

Ben: Yeah, it's, it's always weird, like, so the way that they do it is like, uh, like your main headliner, like your Sabrina Carpenter and Justin Biebers, they'll play at like 10 or 11 or something like that. And then the sub headliner, whatever you wanna call it, who is the, was the Strokes and the xx? Um, they play at like eight or nine and then chaos happens after that.

Like I saw Blood Orange started their set at like midnight,

Nate: Okay.

Ben: which is a band I really like Interpol. I think they started their set at midnight or 1130 or something like that. So

Nate: I, I

Ben: yeah,

Nate: and I, I don't think they've played out for a long time so I could see them maybe being higher build, just out of like a legacy thing, but still kind of surprised if they

Ben: it there

Nate: of the strokes.

Ben: getting too much into it, it's also like. The size of the stage and like, you know, the strokes played at the main stage. There was probably 90,000 people watching them, and Interpol played at a much smaller stage and there was probably 5,000 people watching them. Yeah. This, it was the, uh, I think there were 250,000 people there over the two weekends.

It was one of the biggest ones that have ever happened. It was crazy. Yeah.

Nate: Um, I see David Byrne this Tuesday, uh,

Ben: Very cool.

Nate: and I am incredibly excited. That is a bucket list. for me, a massive talking heads fan, as you know, and I missed him on the America Utopia tour that came through of

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: know, years ago or whatever. And I've regretted it every day.

So I'm very literally every day I wake up and I

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: Um, so I'm glad to catch it on this round. Um,

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: excited. Uh, any good, any good bites out there in the desert?

Ben: Yeah. Uh, I had some good bites, man. I had some really terrible beer. It was like one of the first things I ate. It just had no flavor to it. It was,

Nate: to mess up.

Ben: I know.

Nate: bomb. How do

Ben: They also, it didn't come with consummate either. It was,

Nate: it's not beer.

Ben: it was, well, they, it was advertised as,

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: um, outside of that, God, it's, it's a blur. I had some, oh, no, I know what it was.

It was, uh, these like, uh, Korean steak kimchi fries. It was like

Nate: now we're

Ben: kimchi with some type of really spicy, tasty Korean, like beef on french fries. Uh, covered in, and yeah, it, it was, it was really good. Um, I also had a really good, like shaved ice. Type thing that was hidden in the middle of the day with that, that sun up, even though I was being hosed down by my servants or whatever you were saying earlier.

Nate: I was, I was about to ask if you had your personal assistant, uh, handing you each individual fry or if you were lifting a finger to consume them or

Ben: Now I, I do it, I'll get a, a fork, they fork it into my mouth, they throw the fork away, they get another fork. They fork it in. Yeah. Yeah. You get it.

Nate: forks. Uh, were, were, I know you're big on that.

Ben: Yep. Yep.

Nate: Each one in a, it's shrink wrapped and in a plastic, uh, packaging,

Ben: think it's fair to say that once it touches my mouth, it is no longer clean, obviously.

Nate: Right.

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: better for everyone if those are immediately, that's why you carry around that tiny little incinerator.

Ben: Yeah. Um, I liked all the music we saw. The only thing that was kind of a bummer was Moby. We did, we caught the end of Moby Set and,

Nate: what you really expecting at this point

Ben: no, I know. I, I, you're right. Um. But it, you know, it was like, when am I ever gonna see Moby? We had no, you know, we had a gap in the schedule and,

Nate: That is part of the point of the giant festival, I think, is

Ben: yeah,

Nate: you, you can just go and dip into a set and be like, well, I perceived Moby. I

Ben: I've,

Nate: I did that.

Ben: yeah. And unsurprisingly, he talked about being vegan, like within the first five minutes of us walking up. It was very funny. Um, Divo was there.

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: was, it was a really good one. It's like, I think we're getting to the point. I, I think also like millennials are at the age now, where like, we have a little bit of money to spend, but it's like, it was like millennial cello this year.

It was, obviously the headlines are all for young folks.

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: but, uh, you know, in between all those bands I've, and artists I've just listed, it was, it was pretty good, pretty, pretty good.

Nate: Pretty good. Well, I saw Project Hail Mary while you were gone. Have you seen this? Have you heard about this hand

Ben: I've, I have seen this.

Nate: Yeah. I was thinking if you ever are. Like doing something to try to make Mary your wife, feel really, really good about herself. You could call it Project Hail Mary.

Ben: That was really good. Yeah, that was good. Yeah.

Nate: Uh, I loved it. Absolutely loved it. One of the, I think one of my favorite movies I've seen in a while. Um, but I got a little, I've got a little, I lament for you. I saw it at the Alamo and uh, I ordered, I got my bottomless popcorn, which I love and ordered a water, a little lemon wedge.

'cause I like to party and they never brought it. And you know, I feel really awkward about the phone thing now, not wanting to bring out my phone. And I was like, whatever, I'll just, I am going to be ordering a strawberry shake later because I got a free strawberry, a free shake as an Alamo guy. Uh, so I'll just get that later. And I pull out my phone. Her ordered that and they never brought that either. So had to do the whole movie as a dry guy. I am like, what? What am I seeing? Dune here. Not, not a, not a, not a drop of water in sight. That's all I got for you.

Ben: You're doing like shtick at me. Just talk to me Nate,

Nate: That was a story. Um, and it was, it was, it was annoying. Uh, but I loved the movie.

Ben: Okay. Yeah, I like the movie too.

Nate: Dune here?

Ben: Yeah. Um, I think Rocky would do pretty well on Dune.

Nate: I think Rocky would do very well on Dune. Is Ryan Gosling our best? Ryan?

Ben: I, Ooh, um, Ryan

Nate: is. Oh, well that's a good one. Brendan

Ben: of any other, are there other, Ryans

Nate: Ryan Reynolds.

Ben: don't like him?

Nate: I get my phone service directly from him. Of course. Um,

Ben: So I guess I like him for that. Um. Ryan, I don't, I can't, I can't think of a single other Ryan in the world right now.

Nate: Meg Ryan.

Ben: Meg Ryan is technically, or Ryan,

Nate: Uhhuh. That's a good

Ben: if I just start typing Ryan into Google,

Nate: should

Ben: some

Nate: we just get into

Ben: Ryan Air. Ooh, one of your best, um, budget airlines.

Nate: Oh,

Ben: Garcia is a professional boxer.

Nate: Okay.

Ben: Um, you know the rest,

Nate: think it comes down to Meg Ryan or Ryan Gosling,

Ben: yeah.

Nate: I

Ben: Brenda? Yeah,

Nate: Yeah,

Ben: pretty good. It's, this is good. I like this. We should change the podcast to this.

Nate: to talking about Ryan's. right. Let's, well, I'm glad you're back from Coachella. Um,

Ben: Are you,

Nate: around. Why?

Ben: are you glad?

Nate: Eh, um, all right. Let's talk about, uh, the Cardinals. Uh, I mean, while you were out Hamon, the Cardinals managed to sweep the Houston Astros and continue, uh, to play above their expectations. Play above their run differential, play above their Pythagorean theme.

Basically play, uh, Pythagorean record. Basically play above everything right now of what we thought would happen and frankly, what most of the underlying metrics say should be happening. Um, which, you know, there's some things to unpack there, but, uh, we're a, we're a positive show. We're an optimistic show.

I think, uh, to start this season has been considerably more fun than we expected it, and I would not have thought. in the first month the Cardinals would sweep Houston Astros. Of course, they have their own problems, um, but they have been mashing and still the Cardinals man managed to hold them, or at least score more runs than them, uh, and are in second place in the division.

Uh, I mean, everybody in the division is over 500 right now, which is wild. Um, frankly they're just in a better spot than they've been, uh, or than we expected them ever really to be this season, uh, you were completely away from it all, but how'd you feel coming back and looking at, uh, where the Cardinals kinda accomplished while you were out?

Ben: Yeah, I, I mean, I was, I was obviously surprised. I, I think it's, you were hitting on this, but it is worth noting that the Astros have really stumbled out of the gate. So I do think that this was a little bit of like the Cardinals magic is, is working right now in Houston's kind of trending the wrong direction.

I do think that, um, Houston will probably be just fine. Um, they still have a lot of pretty solid players. They still have some young guys that I ex have high expectations for. They have some. Pitching that if and when healthy. Um, I have a pretty high expectation for, um, and there's some names in their bullpen who are, are very good.

So I I I do feel like they'll, they'll turn it back around. But yeah, I, I don't know what to say as far as like the, the offense not being the problem is kind of crazy. The fact that the Cardinals have, um, and arguably one of the better offenses in baseball, like top half at the very least, is, is a little surprising, especially when you look at the average age of our, uh, position player group.

Um, and then I also think when you turn it around to look at the way that the bullpen has been performing for the entire beginning of the season, um, you know, these are, this is kind of amazing. Uh, I, I think that we are definitely, um, getting lucky on some timing, like some sequencing of events right now.

And I don't expect that to stick around forever, but. We, you know, we talked about it with C 70 a couple of weeks ago. These are banked win. You can't take 'em away, Nate, you got, we have 14 wins. You cannot subtract from that number. And the fact that they are doing better than we expected, I think projects the rest of the c like, you know, there's, the, the gambler, gamblers fallacy does not exist, right?

It's like, just because they're having a relative hot streak right now doesn't, um, 100% guarantee that they're going to have a corresponding cold streak. So, um, it's kind of fun. It is showing development. I think we have to be really young with the way that the, the really young guys that are, are, are structurally part of this team's future are performing.

Like JJ and, and Yvonne, we, we've seen him kind of break out a little bit since we last chatted. Um, Burley is really smacking him around.

Nate: you called out in last week's episode that Yvonne had all the ingredients for the breakout and he had a couple home runs this year and it was just, or this week, uh, including one today. And also just one quick correction 'cause I pulled it up while you were talking, uh, because the Cardinals lost today.

We are recording after the Wednesday loss. They're now in fourth place, uh,

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: everybody is basically separated by two games in the NL Central. Um, you know, so

Ben: Yeah. Uda thunk that the NL East would have like no competitive competition this early in the season, and it would all be located in the central. It is very funny how early baseball has played out.

Nate: Yeah, though, uh, three of the N'S teams have better run differentials than the Cardinals right now. Um,

Ben: Run Diff ain't record.

Nate: Run Diff ain't record. Um, but, uh, a couple things on that. Uh, the Cardinals currently have a negative 11 run differential,

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: which is one of the worst in the NL bottom, bottom fifth, I believe. Um, or like bottom third. Um, and they are, they've allowed basically 30 more runs than anyone else in the NL Central. Uh, and they have not played. A single game against a team with a record over 500. Yet partly they are winning. So they are helping keep that, you know, they're playing a lot of teams that are like in the middle of the pack and they're beating them.

So they're keeping those teams below 500. Um, but they haven't really faced any real competition yet. Um, or at

Ben: Well,

Nate: when they have played good teams. It's been early and they've been beating them. So kind of jury's still out on that.

Ben: yeah, I, I mean, I don't think we've seen anything that is evident that the Cardinals are, uh, a true talent. You know, uh, uh, what's their winning percentage right now? A a little well over 500. I I don't think any, anybody who's watching these games is thinking that, or at least you, you shouldn't be thinking that.

Um,

Nate: 5 83 by the way.

Ben: you, you are seeing, I, I think that the arrow trend in the right direction, but there is just not enough quality pitching on this team for anybody to really be hopeful about. Uh, that, and, and, you know, that's, like I said, the, the bullpen has been, um, hard to watch, not hard to watch. You know, it is kind of hard to watch.

'cause when you lose games like this, it really stinks. It, it is, it's, it's hard to hold a lead. Um, and even with Yvonne and Burley and Walker and, uh, uh, Mason and Church all contributing offensively, it's hard to overcome the Ryan Stanek meltdown.

Nate: Yeah. Well, I wonder if after last night's game, um, which he didn't even come in in a high leverage situation. It was a leverage spot. He came in with a four run lead in the ninth. but it was the, the sort of. Standard Ryan Stanek experience at this point, which is, uh, walking a ton of guys and getting a few strikeouts and, you know, usually giving up a few runs. Uh, but the fact that he came in and not a, um, typical high leverage situation in that moment, uh, and then still really struggled. I suspect that we're about to see a, uh, another reshuffling of the leverage ladder because the, the good parts of the bullpen, Riley O'Brien, Jojo Romero, they've been consistent.

Brule is looking good, soriano's looking good. I wonder, frankly, if we just had not been using Ryan Stanek in all

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: uh, the, the, the standings would be, or the, the record would be even better and probably give up what, 10 less runs or whatever. Um,

Ben: GCE has been a nice little surprising, uh, success story early in the season.

Nate: Yeah, it's surprising or just nice to see, you know, 'cause I think we've all been pretty high on cefo as a, from a skill standpoint. It's just like having him here and healthy and, and contributing. I'm not super surprised he's doing well. I'm just really glad that he's actually here and healthy and contributing.

Ben: Yeah, I, I, I, I feel the same way, I think. Um, so yeah, to kind of round out the, the way that you opened. Yeah. It's, it's been very fun. The fact that they swept the Astros was kind of crazy. I think the Astros are better than the Cardinals. Um, but, you know, you saw Homers from what felt like everybody on the team during that series.

Uh, you saw good defense all over the place. I, I think that as the season has gone on, we are feeling really good about, uh, the overall defense of this team. Even with the kind of less exciting spots of, of Nolan Gorman and Pedro Paes hasn't really been like, as good as we expect from him to start the season.

Um, but the, everyone else on the team has been so darn good that, uh, it's been nice.

Nate: Well, let's dig into some of the specifics. Um, you know, I think one of the, one of the nicest, uh, um, sort of surges over the last week, one of the most exciting to me, and frankly kind of relieving in some ways is, uh, Mason, Wynn is maybe starting to turn it on a little bit. He's had a, he's had a, a good little run here.

Um, you wanna run us through some stats?

Ben: Yeah, I, what I really liked, uh, is that he was, they were talking about this on the broadcast last night and he was just talking about sticking, you know, on his backside, hitting the ball the other way. Um, and Mason win, not a traditional power hitter, but I do think that he has enough power to be dangerous and, and hit some doubles.

And obviously we saw a nice little Crawford box home run over the weekend. Uh, but since you and I last talked, he has got 10 hits, hasn't walked. Since we last chatted, but who needs to walk when you're racking up hits, um, to that degree. And, and it's kind of like he, you know, we're so early in the season, like one week of him being maybe a little lucky, but ball's landing in the outfield completely turned his season around.

He raised it up to a 1 71 17 WRC plus. Um, like I said, that Homer, by the way, he's got three steals already on the season, which if you extrapolate those numbers for the rest of the year, that's, we're looking at a career high for Mason win.

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: and by the way, he is walking more than he is ever walked, um, at least so far in the season.

So I think we're still seeing like when he was coming up in, in 23 or, or when we talked about him taking over the role in 2024. The thing we kept saying is that he always improves, he always finds a way to get better. He always finds a way to, you know, you know, take his game to the next level. Last year it ended with a whimper with the injury and everything like that.

I think we might be witnessing at least some of the signs of Mason's game offensively evolving again, and, and, and that's patience.

Nate: Yeah, I certainly hope so. I think everybody, every single Cardinal fan absolutely loves Mason Wynn, and we've perceived him as the face of the franchise, at least. The hopeful face of the franchise for a very long time. Um, and the defense is obviously there, um, but you could start, there's just this little inkling of worry starting to build of is he never really going to hit other than maybe a a a reasonable batting average?

Um, which frankly, with his defense, he doesn't need to be a offensive superstar. But the dream, you know, like the Rapha Alpha call comp was

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: a lot. Um, and I think that that is still the dream for him. And it's nice to see him starting to turn it back on. And even if he's just sort of a hit machine, you know, that is stealing bases and every once in a while is getting a home run with that defense, like truly valuable player.

We saw the floor last year with what, 3.5 F four

Ben: Yeah,

Nate: a lost

Ben: mean,

Nate: offensively.

Ben: I think if he could just keep, if he can WC plus around 1 10, 1 17, what he, what he has right now, like you're talking about a perennial all star type player. Um, and I'm fine with that. And, and

Nate: high. Yeah,

Ben: I, yeah, and I do think that he will have a, uh, he will have like a MVP type season at some point. I think the bat, like he'll have a season where he hits like 25 homers, um, and play is one of the best shortstops in baseball.

And we'll start banging the drum for MVP. Hopefully that's in a Cardinals uniform.

Nate: I hope so. I, I, nothing would make me, nothing would make me happier than, uh, it Mason for us banging the MVP drum for Mason Wynn.

Ben: And that's just 'cause you like drums so much. Right?

Nate: I do, I do like drums.

Ben: He likes the, uh, bass drum, um, snare.

Nate: one of our top drums. Ooh. Right there. Next to it.

Ben: Tom Floor. Tom Tom Floor. Tom, what are they called?

Nate: roll. Yeah,

Ben: bongos.

Nate: some people call him Tom Toms.

Ben: That's good.

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: Uh, symbols. Is that a drum?

Nate: Not a drum

Ben: No.

Nate: key part of a drum kit.

Ben: Right. Well, if we're talking about the drum kit, the little chair that you guys sit on,

Nate: Uh, crucial

Ben: gotta have that.

Nate: for a long time because I was stupid and broke. I, I played drums in a band for, you know, for a long time. And I used this little shitty painter's chair and it was so stupid and so bad. But I didn't wanna spend the like $45 for a chair a, a throne. They, they call 'em a throne

Ben: That's good.

Nate: 'cause, ' cause drummers need everything possible to make themselves feel better about their role in the band.

So they call the, the chair the throne.

Ben: Yeah, that makes sense.

Nate: I, uh, I finally got one after a while. Um, and, uh, you know, downgrade

Ben: sticks.

Nate: sticks.

Ben: I mean if we're talking about, you gotta say sticks,

Nate: definitely a integral part, although you can play drums without sticks, but you can't play drums without drums.

Ben: right?

Nate: less important.

Ben: Um, I want to talk about Nathan Church.

Nate: Yeah. You know, I always say we meet on Sundays, but we've been meeting every day of the week. This week.

Ben: Nathan Church. Yeah. He, he really, he had a great start, right? Homer, first game and then just fell into a pit. It was,

Nate: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Church. Yeah.

Ben: uh, uh, the, the 15th is, I, I believe that's the day you and I last chatted since then. Um, he's been picking up hits. He had three hits that day.

Uh, he had a homer on Tuesday of this week. Uh, or yeah, yeah, it was last night, Tuesday of this week. Um, he's been playing his great defense. I think his arm is something that's surprising me a little bit out there. Uh, but he's had a really nice little week and kind of turned it around and it is like, you know, same thing with Mason Win.

You have one good week and it does really make your season look a lot better.

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: And I'm not, you know, I'm not calling for MVP Nathan Church anytime sooner or anything like that. But I do think this is more representative of the type of play that I expected. You know, he's got decent bat speed. All of the tools are there for Nathan Church to be good.

Uh, you look at all of the underlying tools. You look at all of, uh, uh, like the exit velocity numbers and everything like that. It all could happen. Can he hit lefties? I'm not sure. Um, can he be consistent at the plate? I'm not sure. Um, but I do think he can do damn near everything else pretty well, or, or better than pretty well

Nate: Yeah, I think there's a reason why the Cardinals have committed to him so much early this season, and partly is of course just a lack of overall options, but also partly is, let's see what this guy has. Um, and he, a few of these home runs have been quite clutch, and when he gets it, he gets it. You know what

Ben: he does.

Nate: have not, these have not been, you know, tiny little shots right over the wall. He absolutely crushes it sometimes. So, uh, he's another guy like a Mason win, you know, if he's in a defense, a premium defensive position, you don't need that much at the bottom of the lineup, uh, alongside that defense to make him, uh, not just sort of this fringy fourth outfielder type guy, but an actual contributing member to the team long term. Um, I, you know, I'm not there yet. Uh, we need to see it more consistently and, and for longer periods, It's, it is, like you said, it's funny how much a week can change, you know? Um, I think we had it on the outline for last week to talk about our concerns about Nathan Church. Uh, we didn't, we ended up not getting to it for time.

I know that sounds crazy, but we actually do, uh, edit for time a little bit, uh, on this show. Um, and, uh, we ended up cutting it. Uh, but, uh, here we are a week later having an inverse conversation, which I'll just, just speaks to the, um, absolutely, uh, absurd, uh, effort of trying to do a weekly show about baseball and also the fact that it's, uh, three and a half weeks into the season or whatever it is.

Ben: Yeah. Yeah. And there's something that's like each, is it two weeks or three weeks of baseball is equal to one NFL gamers or something like that? Like, there's just so much,

Nate: I think there's what, 18, uh, 18 games in, in football now, and 162 in baseball. So it's like 8% of the season is one.

Ben: right.

Nate: Uh, yeah, something like that. So

Ben: You guys get it. You, you get what we're saying here.

Nate: we, yeah, they, they get everything we're saying.

Ben: You can, you can put it together on your own time. You don't need us.

Nate: counter to the fact that they listen to this show, is pretty obvious that our listeners are probably the single smartest people in the world, I think

Ben: The world.

Nate: in the world. All of

Ben: Hmm. Okay.

Nate: And they, they, they feel, they, they dumbed down a little bit to listen to our show, to feel connected with the people

Ben: Okay. So this is an act of charity.

Nate: Yeah. Yeah. And they all float around in their little hover cars.

Ben: Interesting. Um,

Nate: They all have Baron Harkin and style, um, whatever. Hover pods.

Ben: yeah. To kind of slide around there. Body that is too large to move.

Nate: While they, while they laugh at me not getting any drinks in my movie,

Ben: yeah. You're comparing them to Baron Haren.

Nate: but like a good one. Yeah.

Ben: Okay. Um,

Nate: It makes

Ben: Jose Ferme.

Nate: get it.

Ben: Jose for me, Nathan,

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: he hit a homer. He also played in center field, which why?

Nate: was, I was thinking about that earlier, how you at one point said one of his advantages

Ben: Yeah,

Nate: is that he's bad at defense.

Ben: that, that's, that's a mischaracterization of what I was trying to illustrate. But the fact that he is not tied down anywhere, the fact that he has optionality, you know, he, he's got a go bag at all times. He can moments notice apparently play center field.

Nate: Yeah, I was surprised as well. Um, I guess anything goes in a rebuild, you know?

Ben: Sure.

Nate: Let's give it a shot.

Ben: I'm a big fan of Vic or of, uh, Jose Ferin. Um, I think that he's capable of anything.

Nate: Uhhuh.

Ben: he is not the fastest player on the team. And again, I was out in the desert. I was, I was distracted. I wasn't fully locked into the, uh, uh, the meta that was happening in Cardinal's world over this weekend, but I found that to be a bizarre move.

I can't imagine we're gonna see it anytime soon. Um, I guess it speaks to the issue of like, not really having a right-handed outfielder that could play center field is, is the only thing that I can possibly think of. Um, that being said, I am on Josh Baez watch. That's, that's going well down in AAA right now.

Nate: Mostly

Ben: I, yeah,

Nate: out a little bit more than you would like, but you

Ben: we all do though. Who doesn't? You know?

Nate: me,

Ben: but I did think I found that bizarre.

Nate: yeah. Yeah. I think what I just said is anything goes in a rebuild and they're

Ben: Yum.

Nate: well, this is the lineup we want, these are the bats that we want and this is the way for us to do it. the only way that it makes sense, I guess. I also think he looks slow in the outfield. Uh, he

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: very slow in left field. Very slow. In center field, typically a skill that is synonymous with good outfield defense is speed. Um, particularly in center field. So I've been surprised. I would be surprised if it happens again outside of some sort of break glass situation. But I imagine right now it's just all about prioritizing at bats and line up consistency or something like that.

I don't know.

Ben: Speaking of speed and center field. How concerned are you with Victor Scott? We're 23 games in, played for Victor Scott. He is a 43 WRC plus. He has three stolen bases. Um, he's walking at an okay clip. He's striking out maybe a little too much for my liking, for his skillset. Um, there is almost no thump at all.

He has one extra base hit on the year so far. Um, what, what, what, when is, when, when do you, how, what, how long do you keep doing this? Do you just Yeah.

Nate: It is rough. It's rough hand bone after a full year last year, uh, where he put up a 2 96 OBP over basically a full season. So, um, I mean, I think the leash is longer than this. I, the re who's the replacement is Jose for me, I guess so. Uh, or, or Nathan

Ben: Nathan Church. You put church there? Yeah.

Nate: You put church there and then, uh, what, so JC in left more regularly, um, or forme in left more regularly or, or whatever it may be? Um, I think this was always on the table after last year. The, the hope of the. Like standard growth and, and, uh, takeover of centerfield from the long term, uh, for Victor Scott. Like that really started, my hopes for it started to diminish, but of course it's a new year coming in, hyped on everybody. Um, fully ready for the Victor Scott breakout. Um, he was supposed to be the guy who not only is elite defense, but has a little bit of offensive upside. I remember early, again, these are like peak numbers. He's a very young guy now, but people had put, put on him a 20 home run ceiling. Um, again, I would say that's like when he is 26, 27, 28. It was, I would never have expected it right now. But for a guy to have that type of power later, you normally see a little bit better of a played approach at this age. Um, and just better overall numbers at this age and and time in the league. not feeling great about it. Um, but I don't think you really do anything about it just yet. I do think that upside is still there.

There's nobody knocking down the door unless you Nathan Church. I know, but that it doesn't like open the door for someone else who we're really excited about, at least not yet. Josh Baez notwithstanding. Um, so I think you just keep doing it. Um, but it's rough. And then you take into consideration that he has a bunch of these like bunt singles that are actually elevating that WRC plus, uh, that can only get you so far. Um, people will adjust. I mean, I think he would be pretty successful at it if he did it all the time. But there's only so far you can go with that. Um, so we need to see a real adjustment, some real consistency at the plate before you do start to say like, well, I don't know, option or whatever, um, to, to let him work on it somewhere else.

Ben: I don't know if I'm calling for the option to AAA or or anything like that, but it has been like. It's a black hole. It's, it is about, you know, you, you can always get worse, I suppose. Um, but there ha, the, the one extra base hit is what really kind of caught me off guard. Especially a guy with his speed where you think he'd be getting cheap doubles all of the time, but he's just not making contact.

So, you know, if you're not making contact, you can't really do much with it. You can't utilize your speed almost at all. Um, and it's, it's been disappointing. He is great and center, um, there's no argument there, but, um, it's not coming together quite yet and hopefully he can click in.

Nate: what are we looking at here? 72 plate appearances,

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: you know?

Ben: Well again, it goes back to the same conversation that we were having about Nolan Gorman. You know, if I didn't have a season and a half of this kind of Victor Scott previous to it, I would really wouldn't even think about it or bring it up. But I do. Um. And it's, it's, it's been just like trending down for a few weeks.

It's like there hasn't been a sign of life for a bit, and, and that's why I, I even bring it up.

Nate: And to contradict my own point, he is 25, which is still young in baseball, but 25 with a couple years in the bigs, like He's, he's not the 22-year-old or 20, even 23-year-old Jordan Walker, right? Like he is, he's one of the older ones of that group. I know it's only a matter of a couple years. Um, but those prime years, 26, 27, 28, that's next year, right?

Ben: Yeah. Yeah.

Nate: like I said before, if you are expecting prime year power, you'd start to see it more at 25. Um, and he's nowhere near that. Um, but I don't know, I think you just gotta keep running him out there, um, at least for a little while. Um, what I am inter will be interested to see the Cardinals continue to win.

Do they actually start to make those sorts of decisions to try to win or will they be able to stay locked in on development as their key priority? Um, because that also changes the equation. I hope they stay the course. I don't think you let a four games

Ben: No.

Nate: start change your plans. Um, but if we are com still competing in June or July, that that equation might start to change.

Ben: I wonder 'cause how like I have to imagine that blooming goons are like, this is really fun. This is great, let's keep going. But the bottom is gonna fall out.

Nate: young, because the whole team is young, so them

Ben: right,

Nate: it's their young guys doing it. It's not like last year where when they, you could say some of the wins were because of Sonny Gray, uh,

Ben: right.

Nate: things like that. You know, the, this team winning is the team outside of Dustin May, you know who we'll talk about.

But, um, like everyone is here for next year. So them winning today is. Prep for winning next year, um,

Ben: Sure. Sure.

Nate: but, but yeah, I mean we saw the raise, was it last year or the year before? They were like two games, over 500. And they sold at the deadline.

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: had a plan and they stuck with it.

Um, I, I think you're right. I'd be very surprised if, uh, blooming goons, change the plan. But the deeper

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: the season, and I am getting way ahead of myself here, but the team that's, uh, you know, negative 11 run differential or whatever, um, but you might see some of those decisions made a little bit quicker.

A little bit differently.

Ben: Um, speaking of this early success, something that I found fascinating is the Cardinals are 11th and MLB and Homers so far. Uh, they have 26. Obviously that's really held up by a, uh, a big tent pole that is Jordan Walker and his eight homers that, you know, again, you can't take those away. Um, but I think overall, even subtracting Jordan Walker's home runs, I think the team has exhibited a little more power, um, than I expected.

You know, uh, JJ having three is really fun. I, I think a huge question for this year is, can Alec Besson take the power step forward?

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: you know, what is, can we get Yvonne Herrera 500 plus plate appearances and how many homers and, and what can he do with that kind of time and, and that kind of runway?

Um, but I thought that that was kind of fun. You know, these young cardinals are kind of slugging right now, which just really did not think was gonna be an option this year.

Nate: Yeah. If you pull up Alec Burleson's, uh, Statcast page, right now, it's a lot of red.

Ben: Looks he's, I mean, he looked great also. Yeah.

Nate: Eye test as well. 3 93, expected woba, uh, a 50% hard hit rate. you know, probably his expected slugging is at five 60, so like he's hitting the ball with authority and it is going over the wall. So, uh, he still doesn't have the best bat speed. Um, nor does he hit it at the right angle consistently enough for me to really think he's like 30 home run power guy. But if we talk about power in the general sense of doubles and, and just over slugging, he certainly seems to be making a, a step forward over previous years.

Ben: Just eye test alone. It just seems like so often he is hitting a ball really hard somewhere. Um, and that's fun. Um, Walker has slowed down a little bit. He struck out, uh, he hasn't hit a home run since we last chatted. He struck out 12 times in the last six games. Um, I'm not concerned just yet. I do think that the approach is still there.

I do think that he, you know, the, the, uh, the defense, sorry, is, is sticking around as well.

Nate: Yeah, the game last night? He,

Ben: oh my goodness.

Nate: gunning down

Ben: I.

Nate: at third. It ended up di not mattering because it was actually a home run, uh, which was disappointing considering how good that play was. Um, but he was a part of a assist later in the, in the game where, they didn't, they forgot how good of an arm he has.

So he's, he's still making a difference out there, which, we get, we've talked about the floor with Mason Wynn, you know, like him being not just maybe league average defensive, but maybe actually really good defensively. also just. changes the overall profile of Jordan Walker and your ability to leave him in the lineup when he will inevitably go through these sorts of streaks because, I think the changes he's made are real.

And I think they will consi cons, uh, they will sustain to some degree through the entire season. I think he has become an offensive threat. But the reality is, is with that swinging, uh, strike, uh, the swinging strike rate and overall K rate, strikeout rate, he's going to have periods of just bad luck. Um, I don't think you

Ben: Well,

Nate: a near 30% strikeout rate, uh, and not go through a week where you just don't connect the way that you did the week before. Um, and you're not gonna hit any home runs. Um, but if he keeps the approach that works, which is maintain, which is having that high of a strikeout rate, the variance of it all will come back around and he'll go on. streaks again. Um, and so like when you're watching it, attention to what he is swinging and missing at, because in the game last night, he struck out several times, uh, and a couple times I thought he got fooled on pitches.

He wouldn't have gotten fooled on earlier in the year, but he certainly didn't get fooled by a whole bunch of pitches that he would've absolutely been fooled by last year. Like the difference to me last night was that he struck out on a full count, uh, at bat, which started out oh and two, and he worked it all the way up to full count.

And then he struck out last year it would've been three pitches, maybe four before he struck out.

Ben: Yeah, I, um, I, I, I think it's worth noting that even though he had those 12 Ks over, um, those six games, you know, looking at the stuff that he can absolutely control, which is his swing and launch angle and exit velocity, that kind of thing, he still had only 13 events. So it's obviously a small sample size, an average exit velocity of 92.

Um, he maxed out at almost one 15 and he had a launch angle of a little over 20, um, over that time. So there's, there's some bad luck. There's just, uh, things not falling the way that you'd want them to, but he's still hitting the ball hard. He's still getting under the ball just enough. It is one week, I'm not worried, but it's all.

Looking like he is continuing to have the same approach, the same attack angle, um, the bat tilts, the, all of that stuff. So yeah,

Nate: I would,

Ben: worried just yet.

Nate: I would love to see him increase or rather decrease that whiff percentage,

Ben: Yeah,

Nate: because that is,

Ben: I.

Nate: that is the root cause of the problem. And most of the true elite offensive players in the league don't swing and miss that much. Um, but this is nitpicking and otherwise, uh, you know, 4 0 8 expected woba or whatever.

So, uh, but if he wants to go from what'll probably be a streaky hitter who does extreme damage when he is on and suffers from really bad games when he is off, if he wants to go from that to like consistent, he's gotta work on the whiff rate. But I'll take this. We'll get to that George. We'll get to that when you're 26.

26. You know, let's, you could just do what you've been doing for the first, uh, you know, month and don't worry about anything else.

Ben: Well, it, I think it's worth noting that even on this week where he is striking out, seems like every at bat he still carried a over 10% walk rate. He's still walking at well over his career norm, so it's not all happening at this. Same time, but it is still trending upward, I think, overall. So, yeah, I, I agree.

Um, all right. Uh, Stuckey, talk about pitching for a second. Justin May put two starts, uh, solid starts together. Only allowed two earned runs over those two starts. I think that's by far the best we've seen him pitch. He really is a string, beanie, whippy, weird looking kind of guy. Um, but it's going the right direction.

Again, it, it's trending well. I do think that, uh, uh, when he is landing that breaking ball, that sweeper, I mean, he is, he's had some really, um, um, bad looking swings on that pitch, especially low and end to left-handed pitchers where they, they are 100% sure they're about to make contact with it, and then they don't.

It looks really nice. The velos been good. Um, obviously we'll always take more strikeouts. Um, but, uh, I think overall been pretty solid and he's been in the zone and competitive, not walking guys either.

Nate: Yeah, the fastball cutters looking good. It is those secondaries with movement that have been inconsistent and have been the, um, missing key to the real strikeout rate that I think most people believe he could accomplish. Um, but based off of like, you'll, we'll take these last two starts also, um, but certainly you can see the path to like the real unlock and the real breakout that have been, you know, placed on his shoulders since he's a prospect, you know?

So it's kind of fun to see it. Um, I hope we see it or it's fun to see the ingredients to it. Really hopeful we start to see it for real as he gets more and more into the season.

Ben: Yeah. Yeah. Under 5% walk rate over the last two starts. Uh, uh, only I think it's one homer over that time and the 3.23 FIP,

Nate: Yeah, that Homer

Ben: all good things.

Nate: the very first pitch or whatever, uh, or at least the first at bat of, uh, last night

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: um, was barely just off the top of the wall.

Ben: Oh God. Yeah. That I, I remember that. Yeah. That, that home run was annoying. Yeah. Yeah. I hated that.

Nate: not a home run on the field. Jordan Walker gunned him out at third,

Ben: Yep.

Nate: then they, and then they called it a home run. Then they reviewed it, confirmed,

Ben: We already dunked on the, uh, the bullpen, but just to stick to the outline really quick, uh, the Cardinals have the worst caper nine in MLB for the bullpen. Uh, and they have, uh, sorry. They, sorry. Overall, the Cardinals have the worst caper nine. Their entire pitching staff, the bullpen has the 29th worst Cape Orine.

Um, so we're still doing that thing right now. That's, that's still happening.

Nate: What that reminds me is that the Cardinals the future of their pitching this off season. We are still mostly seeing the guys from last year pitching right now, though Dustin

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: one of the few, uh, that is still, is just been added on and he has not striking people out yet. Outside of him, like everybody was the low K for nine from last year.

It's

Ben: Yep.

Nate: uh, Sinja and, and Clarks and Liam Doyles and all that, that we hope down the road will bring the K rate. Um, but right now it's McGreevy

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: None of these guys strike anyone out.

Ben: Yeah. Um, well, since you just brought him up, I wanted to talk about this anyways. Dangelo Sinja just made his first purch pitch switching start of the 2026 season. Um, earlier this week,

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: an out from both sides of the mound. He went four in two thirds innings. Um, he allowed one earned run and three hits while striking out four.

Um, I watched a little bit of the replay and you know, it, it, the stuff on the right hand side looks good. The stuff on the left hand side looks really junky and funky, but he went down and, and was throwing from behind a left-handed hitter and got him out and looked all right. Um. With a guy like Seja, your timeline is probably longer than most prospects.

I don't, I don't really feel strongly. I know we've talked about this ad nauseum, but I did think it was pretty interesting that the Cardinals encouraged it or allowed it, or were in party to him doing that.

Nate: yeah, it's very intriguing because the Red Sox, uh, sorry, Seattle, um, the few, one of the few trades we made with not the Red Sox, uh, had. Within days before the trade had announced that they were no longer going to have him switch pitch. Uh, and so at least it was still to me a bit of an open question. I know we saw him in Spring Switch, but that was spraying and he'd just been acquired. Uh, so it was an open question, at least to me. Uh, maybe it also misreporting somewhere, but seemed like the Cardinals had not actually made a statement on it. So now here in actual baseball, if he's doing it, that has to be at the, um, acceptance of the Cardinal organization, which is fun. You know, I, I'll, I'll trust them on this. Like you can make every argument for either side we've done that.

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: uh, and if the cardinal sink, it can work. I think I'm here for it. Who doesn't want this? You know, everybody wants to see it at the major league level.

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: so, I hope it works.

Ben: I also hope it works. It would be fun to watch and talk about, uh, Dickie. Fitz goes down,

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: um, looks like he is going to have season ending lat surgery after going two one oh with a 1.76 ERA 11 strikeouts over 15 and one-third innings, uh, and three starts for Memphis this year, high on Bloom. Said unfortunately, it is a season ending.

Long-term prognosis should be good. We're confident he's going to bounce back and be fine, but he's not going to pitch again this season. So

Nate: Yep.

Ben: a bummer. Uh, obviously he was dealing with something that wasn't so big of a deal that he couldn't pitch, um, but ends up being season ending lat surgery.

And I, I will say, I hope that heim is correct, but it all just makes, anytime I hear about the lat. Um, and a surgery like this, it makes me think of Alex Reyes and I think his like lap match muscle, like detached from his skeleton or something like that a few years ago and, um, never really came back. So,

Nate: really want anything detaching from your skeleton.

Ben: um Hmm. Interesting.

Nate: if it's attached to my skeleton,

Ben: If it's pre-attached, no, no. Yeah.

Nate: I want, yeah. If someone has like, me with a sword, I want that

Ben: Detach that.

Nate: detached that

Ben: Yeah. But if it came attached,

Nate: If it was pre-installed,

Ben: stay there. If it's stock, yeah.

Nate: Uhhuh. Yeah. OEM please. Um, yikes. Yeah, it's a bummer.

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: you know, there's no such thing as a pitching prospect. This is the life of building a rotation and acquiring a whole bunch of, uh, interesting pitching. and, and near MLB level players is, a minefield.

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: 'em are gonna make it, and then half of that are gonna be good, and then half of that are gonna be really good, you know?

Um, so that's why you acquire in volume. Um, so hopefully he comes back next year healthy. I think we all are pretty hyped on him long term. Uh, there's a reason the cardinals went and targeted, targeted him. Um, but see you

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: guess.

Ben: Yep. Um, all right. Last Cardinals thing I wanted to talk about. Just shout out for John, John gdo, 'cause he has a good name. Um, but also he is at a good start over the first few weeks of aa. Uh, he is got a 1 29 WRC plus. He's walking, um, almost 12% of the time. He's barely ever striking out. He's already got three homers.

Um, and he is a right-handed utility infielder. This is, this is kind of fun.

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: nice to see John, John kind of, uh, uh, come onto the scene a little bit and have a nice start to the season. I don't think I'd ever really heard of him until he hit that Homer in spring training. Um, but good name. Uh, good start.

Um, good defensive versatility. He's a right-handed hitter. We like it folks, don't we? We love, we love all of that.

Nate: we're having a great time with John. John. Any other names that

Ben: Great.

Nate: say twice and it work? Okay. Ben.

Ben: Ben, Ben. Nate. Nate. Um, John. John,

Nate: better than Nate. Nate,

Ben: Nate. Nate. Ep. Um, it's pretty good actually.

Nate: I actually love it. Now call me Nate. Nate.

Ben: Hey, Nate.

Nate: all right.

Ben: Bob, Bob,

Nate: Uh, Bob. Bob.

Ben: Joe, Bob, Jim, Bob.

Nate: sounds, seems like maybe a lot just

Ben: Maybe every name works better that way.

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: All right, Nate, that's all I got.

Nate: well, we're going to talk about the upcoming series, hit a little bit of league news, and then play a little game, as always. But before we get to that. We want to remind our listeners again that this show is listener supported on patreon.com. You can subscribe

Ben: You can.

Nate: the show just like new subscriber Jordan.

Thank you Jordan, so much for subscribing. We appreciate you. Uh, welcome to the Bird scored, and thank you for, uh, for signing up. Uh, if you subscribe, you get access to the our, the Bird score. That's our private chat, uh, group. It's a, it's really become our replacement for most, like social media. Um, there's a bunch of great folks in there.

Like I already said, some of the single smartest people in the universe. I'm

Ben: Wow.

Nate: to the universe. Hamon all floating around in their little barren harkening pods, uh, just chatting on their phones to us

Ben: Smarter than Rocky.

Nate: Oh, yeah, yeah, I think

Ben: Wow. Damn.

Nate: I would, as I, I did, I would kill at least a third of the population of, of Earth to save Rocky though.

So

Ben: That's good.

Nate: what do you think about that?

Ben: Cool.

Nate: patron com slash talking about birds. If you wanna support the show, we truly appreciate it. Uh, if you wanna support the show in a different way. Uh, we also really, really do appreciate anyone who takes the time to leave us a review on their favorite podcast platform.

It just takes a minute and it helps. Uh, and of course, tell your friends, tell your family. Cardinals are fun right now, and you're probably talking about that with your, uh, friends or family. So tell 'em about us. That is still how most podcasts spread. Um, ham. Where else can people find us?

Ben: Yes, you can find us on the socials. We have a blue sky. We're on Instagram and TikTok. Of course, you can watch this show on YouTube if you prefer that. You can check out all the podcast links, t-shirts and more. I know there's a new. T-shirt up available right now. I'm not gonna spoil it. Go take a look,

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: all that@talkingaboutbirds.com.

Of course, you can email us questions or anything to talk about birds@gmail.com. And you can call us and leave a voicemail or send us a text message to 8 4 8 48 birds. That's 8 4 8 4 8 2 4 7 3 7.

Nate: 8 4, 8 48 birds. And yeah, on the t-shirts, I had realized there was a, there had been an issue with our site. I have refreshed it, I have dropped the prices on the shirts.

Ben: Oh,

Nate: you

Ben: yes.

Nate: everything is so damn expensive right now. Our shirts are less so than they were before. How about that?

Ben: Yeah. Uh, what, 20 bucks for a t-shirt right now? There you go.

Nate: Um,

Ben: And you know what you should do is if you're smart, you sign up for the Patreon, uh, you get, you do the $4 tier. You wait for us to send you the T-shirt and then you cancel the Patreon and then you get a $4 T-shirt and you screw us over. Um, so consider that.

Nate: that is on the table and readily available to anyone. Uh, you do get a free t-shirt for subscribing at the Adam Wainwright tier, which is $4

Ben: Yep.

Nate: month. And I think you, again, do all of our patrons sent out some t-shirts the other day. Um, and yeah, they are free to cancel

Ben: Yep.

Nate: it.

Ben: You could do it.

Nate: You could do it. I'll do it.

Ben: I think you'd be funny if somebody did it. Um, don't do it though, folks. Come on now. Um, all right.

Nate: All right. The, the, uh, Mariners coming to St. Louis for a three game set. Fun team. The Mariners,

Ben: team.

Nate: uh,

Ben: team.

Nate: Good team. What are we

Ben: Yep.

Nate: in this? Uh, moving on.

Ben: Yep.

Nate: what do you, what are you, what are you looking to see outta this weekend series against the Mariners?

Ben: Yeah. You know, Nate, it feels a little lopsided, um, uh, bad news for Cardinals and, and winning games is that Cal Rally has, uh, found his power stroke, uh, recently. He is Donking dongs all over the place, all of a sudden. Um, and, and they're pretty much, you know, relatively young and good all up and down the lineup.

Julio Rodriguez is, uh. A superstar, um, Randy a Rosana is playing nicely. Luke Raley's kind of having a bounce back season. They got a lot of power, um, in this lineup, um, that maybe people may, maybe lesser known guys that are providing a lot of power. Uh, Josh Naylor's bat is slowly turning around and the Cardinals are going to have a Friday, Saturday, Sunday games.

We're gonna be George Kirby against Andre Ante that feels, um, lopsided Brian Wu and Matthew Lior, and then Emerson Hancock against Michael McGreevy. Um, I'll tell you what Nate, I really like this Emerson, Hancock. It, I like all those guys. Uh, I pretty much like all of their starters. Um, but Emerson Hancock seems to be really coming into form this year.

He is another good,

Nate: the, the

Ben: yeah.

Nate: he had looked like he'd maybe been relegated to the bullpen. They had an injury. He gets a spot, he gets a chance to start again. Former top prospect had struggled. Comes in this year, brand new guy looking

Ben: Yep.

Nate: the hype machine that he was before, uh, and is expected to probably come into St.

Louis and cruise. Uh, now everything you said is true. They are projected to be one of the best teams in baseball. They have some of the biggest stars in baseball, but they have also started slow. Uh,

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: they will continue to be another team that the Cardinals will play that are not technically over 500.

They are 10 and 15 right now. Um. No one thinks that will last. Um, they're good on both sides of the ball, but you never know. And maybe there's a chance for the Cardinals to, uh, keep their bad record going. Um, but I think, Brian Wu is one of the best pitchers in baseball. Curvy also, and maybe Hancock also. Um, and all of their offense is coming online, so this could be tough. But again, they have started slow.

Ben: Uh, to the point in the Cardinals, uh, direction. I, I think unfortunately JP Crawford might be cooked from a, a defensive and offensive standpoint, and he is still an important part of their current lineup. Um, so, so that's a thing to look forward to, I guess. Um,

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: yeah, they're, they're a good little team.

Nate: I think, we see Donovan or is he hurt right now?

Ben: Brendan Donovan is currently down, so we will not see him. Uh, he is on the 10 day IL with a str strained groin. Um, and Patrick Wisdom also down, we talked about him last week. The new, uh, the new Mariner. He is also on the IL currently.

Nate: Yeah. Which is a bummer. I was very

Ben: Yep.

Nate: forward to seeing Brendan Donovan back in the back in St. Louis. You know,

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: got a very well deserved and expected, uh, you know, extended standing ovation in his return to Bush, and I think Donovan probably would've gotten even bigger when he was even more of a fan favorite.

Um, so hopefully they, he'll, you know, he'll get a chance eventually for that, but it would've been nice to see him already.

Ben: Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, I guess next year I don't, I don't imagine the Mariners are coming back again. Um, so anyways, after that series, so that's in Bush, uh, Mariners are coming to Cardinals and Cardinals head out to Pittsburgh. Uh, you've been watching the Pit Nate, big pit guy.

Nate: No, I've not been watching the pit. Um, but I know, I hear it's great.

Ben: We, Mary and I just watched the, uh, the season finale last night. Oh God. I hope Robbie's okay.

Nate: You know, I've been watching maybe the opposite of the pit, which is task Master,

Ben: oh, I thought you were gonna say like the hill or something like that. The, the, the mound.

Nate: Well, project Hail Mary's kinda like the opposite of a pit. It's a, it's going into space.

Ben: Yeah, that's kind of the opposite.

Nate: Sure.

Ben: your Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Pirates, Nate, they, uh, are a baseball team. Um,

Nate: That no one can refute that. One of the

Ben: yeah,

Nate: true things you've ever said,

Ben: I, I, I feel like, you know, we've talked about the Pirates a lot. I, I don't love the way that they've organized their team. Um, it seems like, you know, they came out really hot, um, which was cool, and then everyone started to strike out and, and cool off. You know, Brian Reynolds is kind of being Brian Reynolds.

Brandon Lau is striking out quite a bit. Marcelo Zuna has heated up ever so slightly. Um, Connor Griffin, I think maybe a little surprising that his start has, you kind of just expect these super prospects to come outta the gates just crushing. Um, and unfortunately, you know, he just hasn't been absolutely crushing on fire.

Um, but you know, this, this is a, they're at the bottom of the NL Central, which means there are two games behind the Cardinals right now.

Nate: Yeah, they're, they're two games back from first place. They're

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: behind the Cardinals.

Ben: Yeah. That's what, yeah. Thank you. Um, and the Cardinals, you know, unsurprisingly are going to be on the wrong side of the, uh, pitching matchups. Um, again, it's a four game series. On the Monday game, we got Braxton as craft against Dustin. May Tuesday is Bubba Chandler and Kyle Leahy. Uh, Wednesday Paul s skis.

Andre Ante, wooey Wooey. Woo. And I guess this is breaking, but I'm looking at the schedule right now. And Thursday it is scheduled to be Mitch Keller and Hunter Dobbins. I don't know how accurate that is. I'm just looking at this right now on the scheduled pictures list. But we might have a Hunter Dobbins,

Nate: Uh, I think it's

Ben: season de.

Nate: I have not seen that officially confirmed by, um, that that's a, that's conversation right now. Who, and we, we even could have done a segment on it in the show this week, but Dobbins is expected to be back and called up here shortly. So who's he gonna take? How are they gonna handle it? Um, so that is not confirmed as I understand it, but probably even by time release this episode or within a few days of that, that will all be confirmed. Um, Dobbins will be in the rotation, which I'm excited about. I'm very, very

Ben: My guess just because of the run of games, you know, there's no off day and everything like that. My guess is it just six man rotation and we bo down one of the relievers and, and rock it that way. Um, but this is all coming at me live and I, I don't know, but that, that's cool. That's exciting.

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: Dobbins Keller, I mean, who ain't tuning into that?

Nate: uh, yeah. You know, the O'Neill Cruz continues his really hot start. One of the better, uh, when he's on one of the better players in baseball. Um, so we'll see their offense, know, they're, they're doing okay. They have a, a plus 21 run differential or whatever. So doing better than the Cardinals in that regard. Um, and they look like a competitive team. Now, how long that will sustain, we don't know. But that pitching is legit.

Ben: Yeah, no argument there.

Nate: I do think we can just kind of go for the rest of the season at, for now. Just say you open that by saying this is going to be a tough pitching matchup for the Cardinals. I think that's every team.

I don't know if there's a team that we would go against where I'd be like, eh, I think we got the pitching advantage right now. Um. Yeah, maybe especially after we trade every single player to them for, uh, for James Wood. Um, and then they

Ben: not every single player,

Nate: every starter.

Ben: every major league pitcher. I still think that's a sound idea.

Nate: I think so too. Um, so it'll be a big, it's our fir our big first big in division matchup, four games against the pirate. It's always fun.

Ben: It's a must win situation, Nate. They absolutely have to pull these games out.

Nate: there's going to be at least one, uh, sports writer in St. Louis who calls this the first important series of the year or

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: that.

Ben: Yeah. Must win from now until September. Baby. We got this. Yep.

Nate: PN C's. Beautiful. Always like to see him play there.

Ben: You'll love it.

Nate: Okay. Uh, uh, let's go into some league news.

Ben: All right. Uh, a little bit of news this week. Edwin Diaz of the. Dodgers, uh, has to undergo surgery for loose bodies in his elbow. He'll miss about three months. Um, and the world cried for the Dodgers,

Nate: I know. Poor it. They're, are they gonna be okay now they have to use their $80 million contract reliever Tanner Scott instead of their $130 million reliever or whatever it was. Um,

Ben: and I don't know if you've noticed, but Tanner Scott has had a really nice start to the year. So it's, it's like they're just getting Yeah, it's every, yeah.

Nate: Uh, loose body is another thing. If it's supposed to be on my skeleton, don't be loose.

Ben: I'll tell you this. I don't want any bodies inside my body. Oh, I don't mean that entirely.

Nate: There's a lot of, there's of, there's a lot of angles to go with that, that I'm just gonna walk right by

Ben: I'm talking chicken wings. Nate, you know I gotta get those chicken wings.

Nate: sure. We're not that kind of show. Okay.

Ben: No, that's filthy and disgusting.

Nate: I know. Whatever. I know what our brilliant listeners are thinking right now. Sweating in their little hover pods right now.

Ben: Sweating. Um, alright, well that's the thing, uh, we'll move on The Mets. Nate, they have not won a game since April 7th.

Nate: they're, they're approaching a baker's dozen, my boy. They're at, uh, they're at 12 losses in a row. Uh, boy. Doesn't it feel good? I mean, it's a feel, it's a feel good story of the season that we were all hoping for. You just love to see the sorts of things. I, I, I mean, it's, it's truly wild, one of the better teams on paper. Uh, Soto has been on the IL he is back today. Um, but even without him, he, they, their team should be incredible and yet they just keep fucking it up and we could be happier about it. Could we, folks?

Ben: Yeah, it, it's funny, isn't it? Um, I saw, uh, uh, Lin Dor Pit, a big old Homer yesterday, but, uh, Bette Lin do, uh, Francisco Alvarez, Beatty, Simeon, they've all been trashed. Carson binge has come out really, really slow. They do have Nolan McLean. Um, but man,

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: I see, I, I, I saw like there was fans in the stands wearing like, uh, grimace costumes and stuff, and I think people are discussing whether or not they should sacrifice Mr.

Met and a ritualistic, uh, type ceremony. But, um, it's going, it's going bad.

Nate: we were walking around in Tower Grove Park the other day, and, uh, I thought, like, from a distance, I thought I saw you in the park. it's like, what the hell is he doing here? And I got a little bit closer and it was Grimace. Grimace was in Tower Grove Park.

Ben: Wow.

Nate: there was some sort of McDonald's thing going on. And he was there, himself was walking around in the park. I said, that's not Ben, that's just grimace from the McDonald's cartoon show.

Ben: Hmm.

Nate: Yeah,

Ben: Okay.

Nate: took a picture. I was gonna do this whole thing in the birds cord, but the picture's pretty shitty, so, so I didn't send it. Um,

Ben: I, I don't care.

Nate: I know you don't,

Ben: Have you had the big arch?

Nate: No, I haven't been, I, I, I haven't been to McDonalds in a while.

Um, but I thought, you know, we have our fishing trip coming up, ham bone, and, uh, we, we started a tradition last year of burger in, and burger out of the, uh, of the

Ben: I forgot about that.

Nate: So I, I might, I might see a, a, a big arch here in my future,

Ben: oh. Uh, one other thing that, uh, Coachella, sexy Red played Coachella and she had a huge arch on stage.

Nate: Oh,

Ben: Felt, felt like I was back home.

Nate: Yeah,

Ben: the Padres bring in Lucas Galito, um, in a, uh, interesting kind of early season move, uh, trying to obviously bolster their rotation. I don't really have much to say about it other than I thought that was interesting.

Nate: yeah. He keeps bouncing around. It feels like at some point he's gonna have like a good moment again, but it

Ben: Now,

Nate: happened years in a row now. So we'll see.

Ben: speaking of the Padres, it looks like the Seidler family is nearing a deal to sell the team to Jose e Philiano, an estimated cost of $3.5 billion. Nathan, um, you know, it's, it's.

Nate: hope the Seidler family will be okay.

Ben: Oh, no. Seidler. We like Seidler. Seidler was a good owner before his untimely passing. I, I thought that he really did a good job.

Nate: I just hope that family will be okay,

Ben: Oh, yeah, yeah, of course.

Nate: billion

Ben: I do think that this is an excellent data point to have right before going into a potential lockout so that all of the players and everyone can point at this kind of deal. And, uh, you know, obviously that amount of money is staggering.

Nate: yeah,

Ben: so

Nate: new ownership group or owner, owner family or whatever is someone who cares about the team in the way. I, I do agree with you. know, as far as these billionaire groups go, there are ones that are better than others as far as their care and concern for the organization, and I hope that, uh, they do, that they care about it and it, it's not just a real estate purchase like some of the

Ben: yes,

Nate: groups are.

Ben: normally I am happy to dunk on a dead billionaire, but I do feel like. Peter Seidler was at least slightly different.

Nate: Sure.

Ben: Alright, final piece in news. A little sad news. Garrett Anderson, um, who was a fixture of the angels, uh, throughout at least our, our younger, uh, high school days. Um, a World Series winner.

Uh, all star passed away just 53 years old. Anderson passed away from an acute necrotizing pancreatitis. Um, but really just wanted to mention that, um, like have a ton of, like, when I was first getting into baseball, uh, when I was playing baseball, video games, um, when the angels were good in the early two thousands.

I, not that he was like a star, star, but somebody who I liked, somebody who I watched play.

Nate: If you were a

Ben: and it's weird.

Nate: that time, you knew who Garrett Anderson was.

Ben: Yeah,

Nate: percent. Yeah.

Ben: yeah. Um, but yeah, only 53, obviously. Very sad. Um, but, uh, yeah, Garrett Anderson.

Nate: Uh, well let's go from that into one of my, uh, dumb games here. Hamon. Are you

Ben: Perfect.

Nate: game? Um, so and I are both baseball freaks. We watch way too much baseball. Um, we're not just watching the Cardinals. I'm, I'm putting on a game or tracking, a game, kind of. If there's baseball happening, I'm probably paying attention to

Ben: Sure.

Nate: uh, today. Playing a little game. I'm calling rotation. Rotation. We're going to, uh, pick our personal rotations of what teams we're watching right now.

Ben: Oh, okay. Sure.

Nate: think of it like, way I'm thinking of this is that you have your, your number one, who are you watching? And I think we both are Cardinals,

Ben: Right,

Nate: So that's the ace of our staff.

Ben: right.

Nate: from

Ben: I see.

Nate: and I, you know, if the might use this structure for future games too. We're basically picking our top five. Um, but I thought it'd be fun to start over our, uh, what, what other teams are you into right now? What are you watching? What are you following around the league? so I'll say like for me, after the Cardinals, which would be the ace, it has been the Mariners. So this weekend will be, uh, quite convenient for me. I can watch both teams at the same time. Um, really, really like a lot of the players. It's been fun while Donovan has been healthy to have him over there. And just that pitching is elites, and I love Julio Rodriguez and Cal Rally. Um, so they're just, they're the team that I've been watching the most after the Cardinals. I don't expect you to actually have memorized exactly like your viewing order,

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: what comes to mind to you first for like, what teams are you watching?

Ben: Uh, yeah. I mean, you're gonna hate it, but I pay for Rocky's tv.

Nate: Yeah. Yeah.

Ben: a lot of Rockies. Um, you know, the Rockies are a little more exciting, even though like that doesn't mean a lot to a lot of people. But like the Rockies are a better team than they were last year. They have guys who are currently hot that maybe they're going to stay hot.

Maybe TJ Rum Field is a real player. Maybe Troy Johnston is a real player. Um, and it's, you know, it's really easy to root for guys like Jordan Beck and Ezekiel Tovar. Mickey Moniac kind of bugs me, but that's okay. Um, and I'll tell you, like the Rockies baseball, I don't know, have I talked about this on the, on this, on the show yet, but they have changed to having a three long men type deal in their bullpen.

Nate: No,

Ben: so obviously not how most teams do it. Uh, but if the Rockies are up by a reasonable amount or down by a reasonable amount, they will use a long man to preserve their other pictures and. I'm not saying they're changing baseball or anything like that, but they're actively thinking about organizing their team in a way specific to their situation.

And I'm feeling little bits of hope and stuff like that. Yeah, it's,

Nate: for the Rockies, but I wanna make sure I understand this a little bit better. So you're saying if they're, up, they're just having guys go three in it. Like how is that different than what it a long man is typically doing?

Ben: I'm saying they have three of them instead of one. Most teams have one. Yeah. So,

Nate: the, so that would only really come into play though if they're, if they're ahead by multiple runs, several games in a row. Right.

Ben: uh, it depends on the situation. Like, I went to a game where they were up by two runs and they had a guy pitch the final four innings of the, of the game.

Nate: I see. So it's not just blowout wins or big wins. It's like they'll go for four innings if they're up by one or two.

Ben: Yeah, like Anton Antonio, Ella has racked up a shocking amount of innings for a reliever so far, and he has been even more effective, which isn't saying a lot again, um, but they are doing some interesting things with bullpen usage.

Nate: so what you're saying is they're slowly inching towards maybe building some sort of bullpen that everybody goes around two to three innings every time, and you just sort of rotate through those depending on game, uh, the, the, the moment in the game,

Ben: You,

Nate: exactly what I've been calling for,

Ben: no, you are, your plan devalues the starting pitcher and takes innings away from the best pitchers in baseball, which is why it's so stupid. I've explained this a thousand times.

Nate: What if instead of six innings every five days or seven innings every five days, Teek, Scobel goes three innings every other day?

Ben: He couldn't do that, his arm would fall off.

Nate: We don't know that.

Ben: Okay.

Nate: I'm just saying

Ben: Okay. How many, so that would go, he would throw, um, what is that, 80 times three that I don't know what the, I can't do that met off the top of my mouth. Off the top of my head.

Nate: I mean, that would be 240.

Ben: He would throw 240 innings throwing every other day,

Nate: Sure,

Ben: think?

Nate: gaps there depending on the game situation, but you'd get to 200 innings or whatever. You're just using him more strategically instead of seven innings straight,

Ben: And using, having him just win a game for you is not good strategy.

Nate: Maybe, but I bet there was a, a game, three games late, a moment, three games later would've been really awesome to have Tarek Scobel and having

Ben: Every situation would be good to have Teek scobel in it. You dump piece of shit.

Nate: but having him pitch against the bottom of the lineup in the sixth thinning or whatever, is not necessarily the best effective use of his skills. I'd rather have him be brought in to the top of the lineup in a game three days later than having him go against the bottom of the lineup for the second time or whatever in a game where you're up by four or whatever,

Ben: Okay.

Nate: mixing and matching way more like what the Rockies are doing.

I got a call. Dave Podesta. Sounds like he's onto something. Sounds like he might've been looking over my shoulders circa 2016 on MLV, the show, because that is a version of what I'm talking about.

Ben: I guess.

Nate: it's a, it's a step in that direction.

Ben: Okay. Whatever makes this conversation end. I will say yes to.

Nate: Uh, what were we talking? Okay, so you did the Rockies,

Ben: Jesus Christ.

Nate: after the Mariners. I will say, uh, the team I'm watching the most is the Blue Jays sticking in the Al I find myself, don't know if it's just like a weird, unnecessary loyalty to the Cardinals, um, but it's like I almost never have like a real favorite team in the NL outside of the Cardinals, you know? Um, so a lot of the games I watch outside of the NL or outside of the Cardinals are Al Games. Uh, and it is the Blue Jays. Um, Vladi is locked in. He is not hitting a ton of bombs, but he is hitting like three 40, uh, and just crushing the ball. So, uh, they're looking really good. They obviously, uh, almost won the World Series last year and are continuing to play well.

So, uh, I'm a big fan of the Blue Jays and they're a lot of fun to watch.

Ben: Yep. Uh, I like the Blue Jays. My second team is going to be the dads. Um,

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: two main reasons for that. Uh, they're on the West Coast, which means that after all the other games are over, uh, I can keep watching the Padres. Uh, number two is Don, or they're play Byplay man, um, who I think is hilarious and one of the better announcers in baseball.

Uh, outside of that, those things like they, they do have a fun, interesting team.

Nate: Yeah.

Ben: they are doing weird things, uh, and they are generally pretty talented up and down the lineup. Uh, I mean really just Fernando Tatis and Jackson Merrill are, are worth watching and they have Machado and Xander and all those other guys.

But yeah, I love the love the dads watch a lot of dad's baseball.

Nate: Yeah. Um, I like, I like watching them too. I, they've been. I, I definitely, they're somewhere in my top list. I don't know if they're making the top five for me. Um, I think my next team is the athletics, um, who are having a really good start to the season, at least compared to maybe expectations They are currently in first place and the a l West, although they are only 13 and 11, um, but they're doing that without Nick Kurtz really doing anything just yet. Um, Tyler Soderstrom has had a slow start as well, some of their masters from last year. Brent Rucker is on the il and despite all that, um, they're still playing pretty well. Um, uh, what's his name? Um, Shay Lingle ears is, uh, crushing the ball, which is a ton of fun. Um, I think their jerseys are sick. Uh, I think they've been fucked over.

Um, and so I like to watch the, uh, to watch the athletics.

Ben: Uh, I think my next team is probably the Orioles. Um, I've kind of just like, I think because of the St. Louis ties, I've been a fan of the Orioles since like high school, just kind of glommed onto them. Back in like the Brian Roberts, uh, era, um, Nick Markuss, like those guys I, I was really into. Um, also really like their, their hats and jerseys, their, their, their style, their ballpark, all of that stuff.

Um, and, you know, they could be really good. Um, you know, sometimes their games are extremely frustrating if you're rooting for them, but I really only root for the Cardinals, so it makes it, you know, not too big of a deal. And I get to watch all the other ales teams, which is, is fun seeing judge and, and that.

Nate: Yeah, is my last one and part of me wants to say the Yankees, 'cause I find myself watching a lot of Aaron Judge at bats.

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: I, I just like watching him hit. He's one of the, maybe one of the best of all time at this point, like he's in the process of making the case

Ben: for sure.

Nate: being one of the best hitters in baseball history. but what I'm actually watching more is the Red Sox, even though that's been kind of tough. Um, I, I wanna watch Wilson Contreras. I wanna watch Sonny Gray. I think that they are a fun, they have the potential to be a fun young team. It's been not the best start, but I like watching games in Fenway. Um, I think Roman Anthony will be a star.

There's a lot of people to like, on that team, even though as a Cardinal fan, you know, I hate the Red Sox with every, uh, every fiber of my being. they know what they did, but. The players on the team. I like a bunch of them, so I

Ben: Right.

Nate: watching a bunch of Red Sox. Um, what's your last one?

Ben: Uh, I don't even like to talk about it. It it's true. So I, I won't lie to you. Um, because of the time zone thing and because of the shhe otani factor. I watch a lot of Dodgers games. I do like the, the announcement crew for the most part.

Nate: yeah.

Ben: but like, I don't know, when I look, when I'm browsing through the app and I see Shohet's up to bat, I just, I turn the game on, then I end up watching some Dodgers.

You know, there are a lot of,

Nate: know?

Ben: yeah, there are a lot of things that I don't like about the Dodgers, um, and, and I find frustrating. Um, but, you know, I wanna watch show hey, Tani Play and, and Yo Nobu, uh, play and see what Roki Sasaki is going to do. Uh, max Munsey has had a really nice start to the year. Like, um, they have a bunch of stars and I guess I like shiny things, so I just kind of like

Nate: yeah,

Ben: find myself drifting that way.

Nate: They're the best team in baseball. They've won the World Series two years in a row. They are, it is Chockfull of Hall of Famers. Um, if you are just a fan of watching good baseball, you are

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: inevitably be looking at the Dodgers, whether you like it or not. If you wanna watch some of the best baseball being played, you have to be looking at the Dodgers.

So,

Ben: Yeah.

Nate: which I will repeat. My take is that the Dodgers aren't the problem. It's every other

Ben: No, no.

Nate: participating like the Dodgers, you know, but.

Ben: I agree. It is just hard to root for a team bringing in Edwin Diaz and Kyle Tucker like it, and it, you are right though. It comes down to other teams should assign them. I do think that the Dodgers have this like, advantage of momentum thing that no other team could compete with right now, except for with oodles and oodles of dollars.

Nate: yeah.

Ben: 'cause like, you think about it, you,

Nate: win,

Ben: they did

Nate: over. Yeah.

Ben: fully and like, you know, if somebody's offering you $150 million, uh, let's say that, you know, the, the Dodgers are offering you, uh, one 50 and the Mets are offering you 200 over the same period of time. Where would you go? Where would Nate Heiner the baseball player go?

Nate: Um, yeah, I mean at that point probably the Dodgers 50 million is a pretty big difference

Ben: Yeah,

Nate: any understanding of what that actually does to a individual lifestyle. But like your point being like, we already know Mel, multiple players have taken less money to go to the Dodgers. That's part of how they get this like flywheel going is they're, they're uh, um, people just want to play for 'em.

'cause why wouldn't you? Everything there seems better. Um, and to be fair, they clearly have access to money at this point that just some teams don't. Even if they truly, even if the owner was like, I will commit a hundred percent of my wealth to building the best baseball team, they're not gonna be able to compete with the Dodgers.

So it is getting to a point where it's a problem. Um, but most teams could compete way more like the Dodgers do than, than don't.

Ben: yeah. And I think. That there was those other things that you hear players talk about of like the way that Dodgers take care of family members, the technology that they have. There's all these other things that teams could get better at if they cared to.

Nate: you'd be like the White Sox and put in a bidet for Murakami

Ben: that's pretty good, man. How good has he been?

Nate: he's at a great start.

Ben: Oh my God.

I was looking at his, uh, I was looking at his stack cast, uh, yesterday and holy shit, he hits the hell out of the ball.

Nate: yeah. He is doing the, it's a Kyle Schwarber thing, you know?

Ben: I want him to win. I want good things to happen to Murakami. I want him to

Nate: yeah,

Ben: keep going.

Nate: yeah. Um, alright, well that's gonna do it, uh, for this week's episode. Thank you everyone for listening. Uh, we'll be back next week, as always with another episode. Check out the Patreon at patreon.com/talking about birds. Shout out to the patrons, uh, links to everything@talkingaboutbirds.com. Um, we will continue our coverage next week.

Hopefully we have a good series against the Mariners and the Pirates, and until next week. Go Cardinals,

Ben: Go Birdie boys.

Nate: birdie, boys