That’s a nice endorsement, and it isn’t crazy. The Cardinals offense: MLB.com recently listed STL as having the fourth-best offense in the majors going into the 2023 season. What will his stats look like on that day? The rookie hits the ball damn hard, but must elevate more pitches instead of hitting so many ground balls. That list includes Julio Rodriguez, Adley Rutschman, Michael Harris II, Brendan Donovan, Vinnie Pasquantino and Oscar Gonzalez. Last season we saw a group of impressive rookies deliver immediate impact for their teams. It can be a problem and a struggle for young hitters to adapt to big-league pitchers. But what can we expect from Walker in the early stages? Was his late-March slump merely a blip? Like most of you, I believe Walker is an exciting talent who will have an outstanding major-league career. The Cardinals have so much confidence in Walker, they put him on the opening 26-man roster, even though he’s never played above the Double A minor-league level. 333 OPS, no walks, no homers, two doubles and a 30 percent strikeout rate. Over his past eight games before Monday, Walker was slumping with a. 813 slugging percentage, 1.251 OPS, three homers and three doubles. Jordan Walker: Seven games into the exhibition schedule, the young phenom was batting. Now that I’ve established the premise of this exercise, I’ll dive in. The Toronto Blue Jays will provide the first of many tests over the next six months.Ī team doesn’t begin the process of facing and learning the truth until the regular season gets underway, and the standings and statistics count. Thankfully, the Cardinals will play real baseball on Thursday. In spring training, you get a free pass to day dream, and that’s a beautiful thing. Where have you gone, John Nogowski?Īll of the things I’ve mentioned here are fun. The 2011 Cardinals were 14-16 in the Grapefruit League but somehow recovered to win the World Series.ĭuring spring training, it can be awfully challenging to separate the reality from the fantasy. Media have taken note of this, as if it’s a portent of things to come. The Cardinals go into Monday with a 16-7 record, the best in the land this spring. If he looked good, he was back! If he looked bad, it was a crisis. Gonna take me a couple of weeks to recover from all of the excitement.)įor starting pitchers who have something to prove, we view each springtime assignment as a make-or-break episode. (This year, the battle royale for the backup catcher spot between Andrew Knizner vs. We take the bait on trumped-up job competitions. We overreact to journeyman no-names who get a few hits as if we’ve discovered the next Frankie Frisch. We flip out over promising young stars, inducting them into the Hall of Fame in our minds. It is a safe space for going absolutely bananas over everything. The annual spring-training ritual is a time of hype, hope and speculation. ![]() After playing their final springtime exhibition game Monday afternoon, the Cardinals vacate Florida and head to St.
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