Let’s start with a couple of Pedro Pagés questions, including one from our celebrity interlocutor.

The great Will Leitch of the Seeing Red podcast writes:

Sir! I hope you are well! Thank you for the great work as always. My question: Bernie and I had a semi-heated (for us) discussion today about Pedro Pages and, really, what to do with the catching position. I am a fellow Pages skeptic, to say the least, but Bernie made the case that we DO have to listen to the pitchers who love pitching to him, particularly with Pozo not doing much of anything and Crooks (and the other minor league catchers) not being ready yet. What SHOULD they do with the catching position if this team continues to contend but Pages still can’t hit? Do we not, as Bernie says, give Pages the same wide berth for poor hitting that we gave not just Yadi, but Matheny and Pagnozzi before him)?

And Bob writes:

We have been told that this year is to determine the players for the future, yet Pages is making most of the starts at catcher. Do you see him as the long term answer at catcher and if so, do you think the Cardinals will shop the minor league catchers, and if not do you think they should bring up a young catcher and see what they have?

Last time I checked in on Pagés, he was showing some signs of life at the plate, but thereupon he snuffed out those hopes with an 0 for 22 streak. That means he’s back to what he’s been for the span of his MLB career, which is a liability at the plate even by catcher standards — both in terms of top-line outputs and expected outcomes. Speaking of which, right now he’s in the fifth percentile in xwOBA.

Obviously, the Cardinals are enamored of Pagés’ defense, and, yes, he is a quality defensive catcher except when it comes to blocking pitches. As the esteemed Mr. Miklasz pointed out in the episode in question, the pitchers who regularly work with Pagés do indeed sing his praises. The reality is that he’s going to continue being the primary catcher until his lack of offensive production becomes such that it outweighs his defensive contributions and his “pitcher shepherding” skills. I don’t know what level of offensive production that would be other than to say he hasn’t apparently hasn’t reached it yet.

I do have a couple of thoughts about that timeline and then a couple of thoughts about how I’d like to see Oli Marmol adjust his usage of Pagés moving forward (and while bowing to the reality that Pagés isn’t going anywhere right now). My first thought is that Pagés’ poor offensive production would be a bit easier to tolerate if he weren’t so often batting in front of the even more punchless Victor Scott II (more on Scott in part two of this mailbag). Pagés has spent the vast majority of his 2026 lineup time in the No. 8 spot, and quite often Scott has been the No. 9 hitter behind Pagés. The Cardinals this season have gotten an OPS of .511 combined from the No. 8 and No. 9 lineup spots, and that ranks 28th in MLB. (Yes, those figures include Scott’s nifty Thursday homer in Sacramento.) That’s a problem, and it may mean Pagés’ offensive woes are more keenly felt by Cards fans than they would be if he weren’t paired with an even worse hitter in Scott.

This, for instance, might be a more palatable lineup by the time late May/early June rolls around:

1. JJ Wetherholt, 2B

2. Iván Herrera, DH

3. Alec Burleson, 1B

4. Jordan Walker, RF

5. Lars Nootbaar, LF

6. Masyn Winn, SS

7. Nolan Gorman, 3B

8. Nathan Church, CF

9. Pedro Pagés, C

My working assumption is that Church emerges as the primary center fielder upon Nootbaar’s return from the 60-day IL, and Church instead of Scott at the bottom of the lineup makes it easier to tolerate Pagés’ bat, which gets pushed to the nine hole.

The other supporting character in this story is Jimmy Crooks, the Cardinals’ closest-to-ready catching prospect. Crooks is a skilled defender behind the plate, and this season he’s working on a career year with the bat. (That’s saying something since Crooks was the 2024 Texas League MVP.) In 111 at-bats for Memphis, he’s batting .252/.403/.604 with 12 home runs, 24 walks, and 67 total bases going into Thursday’s slate of games. That’s obviously elite production, especially for a plus fielder at a premium position. The problem, however, is strikeouts.

Lots of walks and homers is a good way to overcome excessive strikeout tendencies, but Crooks does indeed K too often. This season, he’s struck out in 30.9% of his plate appearances versus a Triple-A average of 23.0%. That raises real concerns that he’ll strike out even more against MLB pitchers and thus won’t be able to get bat to ball often enough to take advantage of present capacity to crush pitches on contact (Crooks has a hard-hit rate north of 50%, and a barrel rate of more than 30%).

Perhaps, though, the lefty-swinging Crooks should be thought of as a primary half of a catching platoon once he arrives in St. Louis. Crooks in 2026 is striking out 42.1% of the time against same-handed pitching, but against right-handers he’s striking out a much more tolerable 26.7% of the time. If we look at the 2023 season through 2025 -- including Crooks’ 15-game stint in St. Louis last year -- we find he struck out 22.8% of the time against RHPs and 25.8% of the time against LHPs. Really, Crooks’ strikeout issues in 2026 are confined to a big spike in platoon-disadvantaged spots across a sample of 38 plate appearances. Those swing and miss problems become a little less grave through that lens.

Also, consider how Crooks has fared against non-fastballs -- i.e., breaking stuff and offspeed stuff -- this season by handedness, as measured by strikeout rate, wOBA, and xwOBA:

The K% jumps, as it does for pretty much every hitter against those pitch types, but he’s thriving against the opposite side at both offensive output and expected production based on quality of contact. Stated another way, Crooks against right-handers isn’t just smoking fastballs. Crooks this season is slashing .250/.455/.625 against breaking and offspeed pitches from right-handers.

The front office is of course privy to more than I am, but I’m having trouble believing Crooks isn’t ready for a second look in St. Louis, albeit while being spelled against left-handers (at least as long as the team is contending and in need of such tactical advantages). Maybe that’s Herrera, which would mean he’d catch when a lefty is starting for the opposition as opposed to always being paired with Michael McGreevy and Andre Pallante. That would mean a third catcher role for Pagés, being optioned to Memphis, or shipped out in trade. Another option would be to scale back Herrera’s time at catcher and have him make spot appearances at the position while otherwise serving as the almost-every-day DH. Pagés would then become the light half of the platoon with Crooks. I think the latter would be the most likely path in the event of Crooks being recalled because I can’t imagine they’ll bring Crooks to St. Louis just for him to sit around most of the time.

And what if Crooks fails to develop against left-handed pitching? I can’t say I’m too concerned about that. He turns 25 in July, which means he’s not a high-upside prospect with a great deal of development left outside of the serialized adjustments every player makes at this level. He’s a potentially useful regular, and “regular” for catchers typically means catching 60-70% of a team’s innings barring injury. There’s no real reason those days off for Crooks can’t be arrived at through a traditional platoon arrangement.

In the event the status quo continues to hold for the time being -- my expectation -- I’d like to see Marmol tweak his usage a bit. As long as Yohel Pozo is on the active roster, he needs to be more than a silent protest spot for not being able to carry 14 pitchers. Give him a start a week behind the plate at the expense of Pagés. Also, Marmol should be more aggressive in pinch-hitting for Pagés. If the Cardinals are behind but within reasonable striking range, and Pagés isn’t, say, facing the starting pitcher for the third time in that game, then call him back, even in the middle innings.

This is a long-winded way of making two primary points:

• Crooks strikes me as ready for a promotion, both offensively and defensively, and he should be the load-bearing half of a catching platoon in St. Louis.

• I doubt this is going to happen until further notice, and it’s possible the reasons for that are sound, even if they elude me.

All of this remains a fascinating subplot of the season.

Dane writes:

Any idea about what they’re doing with Hunter Dobbins? How long before he might replace someone like Pallante?

First of all, you have a good name, and it’s spelled properly, unlike mine.

I think Dobbins is just filling the up-and-down rotation depth role that McGreevy filled last year, which means we can expect to see him in St. Louis when the schedule -- or injury -- demands. I do tend to agree, though, that if someone in the current rotation gets bumped at any point in the near future, then it’s probably Pallante. He hasn’t been terrible, but he also hasn’t really taken that next step despite persistent expectations that he’ll do that at some point. His next start will be the 70th of his MLB career. I can also see the Cardinals needing another bulk-inning relief arm at some point, which could also play into a Pallante decision (he could ably fill that role). A trade of Dustin May at leading up to the deadline would also open a spot, which Dobbins would presumably be first in line to populate.

Jibby writes:

What is the best book you have read so far in 2026?

I maintain a doc with the books I’ve read sorted by year. I don’t get into rating them beyond bolding the entry if I liked it/deemed it having been worth reading. Anyhow, it’s only the middle of May, and I already have a lot of bolded titles for 2026. I’ll highlight two of my favorites thus far. One is The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, which is a character-driven fictional exploration of the AIDS crisis in Chicago. The other is Ohio by Stephen Markley. Ohio is a relentlessly bleak novel -- I enjoy bleak, actually -- that centers on high school acquaintances and interconnected spasms of violence that in some ways reunite them years later. I’d describe each as literary in aspiration but also impossible for me to put down.

Matthew writes:

When I read about the Cards taking over their broadcast ad sales, I figured it would help offset the revenue lost from ending their RSN deal. However when I watch the MLB produced games, the commercials are almost entirely house ads. Is there a reason the team isn’t/can’t sell more advertising against their games?

I do recall reading that the Cardinals are controlling their local ad inventory under the new broadcast arrangement. However, I’m out of market, so I watch through the MLB.tv package that lovingly includes blackouts. The MLB.tv ads have been a persistent wasteland thus far. I especially hate this one:

Infernal jingle, I say. And then there’s a Jeep commercial with AI talking animals that moves me to contempt. The eagle with the faux redneck accent is the latest cultural nadir confronting us. I can’t speak to the local commercials you’re seeing, but I do sense we’re in a bit of a dark period for television advertising quality in general.

Chris writes:

First time, long time. A question and a statement for you - feel free to reply to one, both or neither:

1. Something I’ve wondered and never hear about - do teams send starting pitchers ahead to the next city in an upcoming series? I recall this was definitely a thing during playoff baseball, but not sure if it continues during the regular season. It seems to me that if you’re about to play in, say, Colorado or on the opposite coast, it makes sense to get that guy acclimated to the new time zone and/or altitude.

2. It’s because it was Castellanos that it hurt so much. I know I’m not alone in that. Machado would have hurt, too, but not as much.

Love the newsletter - thanks!

And thank you!

1. This is an interesting question, and honestly I have no idea. How’s that for a roundly unsatisfying answer?

2. You speak of this the recent San Diego Shakedown in the series finale. I was able to avoid too much gnashing of teeth over that one because the Cardinals have so ably outplayed their run differential thus far in 2026 and, as such, I suspect we had one of these coming. There was no need for Castellanos to be the one to do it, though.

All right, that’ll do it for this time. Back soon with the rest of your mailbag submissions.

You know how this goes. To contribute, you may reply to this email if you’re reading via those means, leave a comment below, or just hit me up at daynperry@gmail.com. Give me your questions and or thundering declarations about the Cardinals or anything else that’s on your mind — video games, books, movies, other sports, the human condition — and I’ll respond to your mailbag contributions in an upcoming episode.

Until then remain healthy, defiant.

dp

Now for this week’s temperature check ...

• Record: 21-14, second place in NL Central, in top wild card spot

• Run differential: plus-three

• Third-order record: 17.4-17.6

• FanGraphs playoff odds: 29.3%

• Strength of schedule: .504 opponents’ average winning percentage, 11th in MLB

• Remaining strength of schedule: .521 opponents’ average winning percentage, fourth in MLB

• Average home attendance per game: 27,326, 18th in MLB

Now let’s talk it out.

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“Boston Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said Monday he’s open to feedback about his communication style, which drew criticism a day earlier after the team’s surprise firing of manager Alex Cora and five members of his coaching staff.

“Veteran shortstop Trevor Story called Breslow’s explanation of Cora’s firing when Breslow met with the team Sunday morning not “satisfactory.” Reliever Garrett Whitlock noted that Breslow didn’t give players the chance to ask questions during that meeting.”

This is just the latest example of dysfunction going back for the better part of a decade, roughly coincident with John Henry’s devolution from one of the best owners in Major League Baseball to one of the worst. As Joon Lee summarized by anecdote:

“Multiple executives and former Red Sox employees described the organization as a high-pressure environment with diminishing internal support, particularly over the last five years. Current front office staffers noted the job listings posted by the Washington Nationals, now led by former Red Sox assistant general manager Paul Toboni. Washington’s job posting this winter emphasized joy, humility, integrity and competitiveness – values that read less like corporate boilerplate than a corrective to the environment Toboni experienced in Boston, according to people familiar with his thinking.”

I’m talking about the Red Sox only to make the point that I’m happy for Chaim Bloom on a personal level that he’s no longer subjected to this kind of serialized nonsense. In frank terms, he was done dirty by Boston, and one has to suspect he appreciates the simple normality in place in St. Louis right now. From the sweeping expansion of front office and coaching staff to all the cash included in off-season trades in order to improve the returns, he’s had the support of ownership during a time of uncertain revenues. It remains to be seen what the support level is once it’s time to contend and spend on player payroll, but for now it seems like an ideal fit between club and exec in light of the recent experiences on both sides.

Now for the temperature check coming off a thrilling and needed ninth-inning comeback win in Pittsburgh:

• Record: 15-13, fourth place in NL Central, 3.0 games out of first place, 1/2 game out of third and final wild card spot

• Run differential: Minus-13, 21st in MLB

• Draft lottery position: 17th (0.44% chance at top overall pick)

• Strength of schedule: .478 opponents’ average winning percentage, 28th in MLB

• Remaining strength of schedule: .531 opponents’ average winning percentage, first in MLB

Now let’s talk it out.

Walker’s take

Since Jordan Walker’s last home run on April 13, he’s slashing a grim .190/.306/.238 with a K% of 38.8 and a chase rate of 34.8%. Overall, that’s a disappointing step back for Walker after his magma-hot start to the season. It’s not cause for panic by virtue of the sample size, but it’s also not nothing.

In light of the above, any cause for encouragement is welcome, and Walker gave us just that with a single take on Monday night in Pittsburgh. In that top of the ninth, when the Cardinals’ bats went from having been fully suffocated by a parade of Pirates relievers to putting four runs on the board, Walker came up with the score tied 2-2 (thanks to JJ Wetherholt’s homecoming homer) and runners on first and second with one out. Confronting him was veteran right-hander Dennis Santana.

Santana started him off with three straight sinkers inside. Walker yanked the first just foul -- inches from being extra bases down the line. The second pitch was further inside at the knees, and Walker took it for ball one. After an inside-move pickoff attempt on pinch-runner Victor Scott II at second base, Santana threw his third sinker, and Walker chopped it foul. That put Walker in a 1-2 putaway count, and with Santana on the mound that meant sliders were incoming.

Walker has of course been bedeviled by same-handed sliders away for much of his career, and Santana rationally attempted to exploit that weakness. Following Walker’s pro forma two-strike timeout, Pirates catcher Henry Davis set up middle-middle, but then dropped to a low and outside target. Santana indeed delivered a slider, one that appeared to leave his hand aimed at the inside corner. Fifty-four-ish feet and almost three feet of drop later, it landed low and away as intended. Walker didn’t flinch and evened the count at 2-2.

Davis again set up middle-middle and waited an instant longer this time to drop his mitt to low and outside. This slider had almost an identical shape as the prior one -- a bit of glove-side movement and a whole lot of drop -- with just a tad more ride. It was also, though, in a more tantalizing location. PNC Park has a an excellent center-field camera angle -- all MLB parks should have such angles -- and it gives you an idea of how how alluring this pitch must have looked to Walker as it neared the plate:

Walker buckled and dropped the bat-head just a bit, but he picked up the spin in time and didn’t offer even though the slider wound up in prime “chase and whiff” territory:

Since joining the Pirates prior to the 2024 season, Santana has a 48.1% chase rate on his slider when it’s thrown to a right-handed batter in two-strike counts. Walker, though, somehow resisted what had to be an immense temptation to offer at it. I don’t think I’m indulging in overstatement when I say that the 2024 and 2025 versions of Jordan Walker absolutely swing and miss at that pitch.

Having seen Walker spit on back-to-back well executed sliders, Santana went back to the sinker for the sixth and final pitch of the plate appearance. It was far inside, and Walker easily took it to draw the walk and force Scott and Alec Burleson into scoring position just ahead of José Fermín’s clutch go-ahead double. During this aforementioned homer-less stretch for Walker, he’s now drawn a walk in 12.2% of his PAs. In terms of skills growth on display, this walk may be his most impressive.

There are of course still concerns about Walker at the plate right now -- he may not be blocking off his front leg on contact as effectively as he had been -- but if there’s such a thing as one pitch that crystallizes the growth of a hitter, then it may be that 2-2 slider on Monday night. I don’t think he’s the hitter who homered eight times in his first 16 games, but I also don’t think he’s the hitter who hasn’t homered since. You can live in that middle ground.

xwOBA thoughts

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• Record: 14-9, third place in NL Central, 1 1/2 games out of first place, in third wild card position

• Run differential: Minus-11, 18th in MLB

• Strength of schedule: .481 opponents’ average winning percentage, 25th in MLB

• Remaining strength of schedule: .534 opponents’ average winning percentage, second in MLB

Now let’s talk it out.

Walker’s first checkpoint

Not so long ago, Jordan Walker led the majors in homers. Over the next seven games, however, he struggled. Since his last home run on April 13, Walker has slashed .207/.281/.276 with a 40.6 K%, a 23.4% whiff rate, and an xwOBA of .214. Those are bad numbers. Do they concern me? Not really, mostly because it’s a minuscule sample and even the best hitters go through feeble stretches that are longer than this one. It’s information in a limited dose and nothing more. Yet.

What I do find interesting is how pitchers have attacked Walker during this cold snap. From Opening Day through April 13, Walker faced hard stuff -- fastballs and sinkers -- almost half the time, 49.2% of the time to be precise. Since he hit his 10th home run of 2026, he’s faced hard stuff just 30.6% of the time. Sure, some of that difference may be repertoire-driven based on the pitchers he’s faced, but that certainly doesn’t explain all of it. To fill the gap, opposing pitchers since April 14 have fed him modestly more offspeed stuff and a lot more breaking stuff. They’re treating him differently.

At the same time, you can see a “low and away” drift to how pitchers are locating against Walker lately. Here’s Walker’s pitch location chart from March 26 through April 13:

And here it is since April 14:

This is not an especially drastic difference, but you can make it a subtle tendency to go right at Walker’s weakness, which is offering at pitches located low and outside the zone. The big thing, though, is how many fewer fastballs he’s seen over the last week-plus. That’s of course a sign of respect, and it’s also an adjustment. It’s now on Walker to adjust to those adjustments. This is why I like the idea of giving Walker that two-day reset thanks to his not being in Oli Marmol’s getaway day lineup on Wednesday followed by Thursday’s off day. According to Walker’s own words, he struggles to stay out of his head when it comes to his fine-tuned swing and his efforts to keep those old bad habits from sneaking back in. This upcoming stretch, after pitchers confronted him quite differently and after his brief respite, will be an interesting one for Walker.

Wetherholt’s walks

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Let’s start with some questions about the catcher situation.

Ken writes:

It seems obvious what the Cardinals have in Pedro Pages: a solid defensive catcher …

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Mark N writes:

What to do about LF?

Church seems hugely overmatched at the plate while playing good defense. While wins may be less important in 2026, being hapless at the plat…

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You know how this goes. To contribute, you may reply to this email…

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For me, the game was an intriguing one even before the first pitch was thrown, and that was because of Oli Marmol’s lineup:

1. JJ Wetherholt, 2B

2. Iván Herrera, DH

3. Alec Burleson, 1B

4. Masyn Winn, SS

5. Nolan Gorman, 3B

6. Jordan Walker, RF

7. Nathan Church, LF

8. Pedro Pagés, C

9. Victor Scott II, CF

As I’ve declared before, I’m partial to lineups that alternate lefties and righties as much as possible in this, the era of the three-batter minimum for relievers. The above goes lefty to righty from top to bottom, with the only lane for a lefty specialist coming at nine to one when the lineup flips.

The most discussion-worthy wrinkle is Winn as the cleanup hitter. He does have a bit of thump, as he tallied 15 homers as a second-year rookie in 2024, and there’s hope for improvement now that he’s had his knee surgically repaired. Let it be noted that Winn on Thursday had a 104-mph double in the game-turning bottom of the sixth and in the eighth lined out on a batted ball that had an expected batting average of .650. On the day, Winn’s average exit velocity was 93.4 mph.

No, I’m not declaring him to be a central-casting cleanup hitter based on a single game; I’m merely saying that he acquitted himself just fine there in the opener. The real point of putting him there was to allow Herrera to bat second while maintaining the lefty-righty stagger, and that’s the best spot for a team’s best hitter, which Herrera probably is (although Burleson may eventually have something to say about this). The hope is that Walker at some point is able to rise to that cleanup role and give the four spot more power than Winn has while, again, preserving the lefty-righty nature of the lineup. It’s of course tempting to want Gorman in Winn’s spot, but I don’t like having your three-four hitters vulnerable to being platoon-disadvantaged by a reliever in crucial middle or late innings. With all this said, there will probably quite a bit of fluidity to Marmol’s lineups, at least for the initial weeks of the season.

As for the game itself, the early headline was Wetherholt’s first big-league home run, which came in his second big-league plate appearance:

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You know all the reasons that spring outputs are not especially meaningful – the sample size, the quality of competition, the fact that players are often working on mechanical and repertoire changes to the detriment of in-game performance, and the fact that players know the games don’t count, among other reasons. For those very reasons, I’m obviously not prepared to say Jordan Walker has bottomed out or that he’s plainly un-fixable or that he’ll never find anything approaching his expected level of performance. “He’s 23,” will be the refrain here until such time as he’s not 23.

This isn’t to say I’m optimistic about him – I’m not especially, while still dreaming on his elite exit velocities and bat speed – but that has little to do with Grapefruit League performance. He has major issues at making contact, recognizing spin, and elevating the ball. One of those would be hard enough to solve, but having all three of those deficits at once? Fixing all that is a titan’s burden for Walker and the staff tasked with developing him. Let’s also note that, yes, his spring results have been grim. Going into Friday’s tilt against the Mets, Walker had a slash line of .162/.205/.162 in 40 Grapefruit League plate appearances with a K% of 38.5 and an xwOBA of .185. He’s also got an average launch angle of -4 degrees against right-handed pitching and an overall ground-ball rate of 68.2%. That’s quite ugly, and at one point his performance prompted the club to pull him from the lineup for multiple days in the hitting lab.

These are additional data points, even if they’re not nearly as meaningful as those we get from regular-season play. Taken as a whole, there’s a lot of uncertainty right now. Do the Cardinals commit to steady and season-long playing time for him at the highest level even if he continues looking utterly adrift at the plate? Or do they at some point burn that final option year of Walker’s (thus undermining his future trade value, should it come to that), and hope that he finds his legs in Memphis or even a lower rung?

It’s not productive to autopsy why this has happened given the front-office turnover and that the past is the past. No doubt, his premature promotion in 2023, in which he was skipped past Triple-A at the age of 20 based on a couple of weeks of a high but somewhat empty batting average in spring training, played a role. Walker has also been somewhat reluctant to embrace the changes being pushed on him by the organization, although that no longer seems to be the case.

All of that isn’t really the point of our present discussion, as implied by the headline. This is about a question that, while grim to contemplate, seems increasingly plausible in its assumptions: What if Jordan Walker doesn’t pan out?

The Cardinals have infamously struggled to identify and develop young thumpers in the outfield in recent years, and Walker’s difficulties threaten to perpetuate that trend. That said, this isn’t the NBA, in wwhich one high pick’s failure to meet expectations can set a club back for years. This is baseball, in which any one player’s contributions are structurally limited – a mere four or five trips to the plate in a given game, one start on the mound every five days or so, an inning at time out of the bullpen maybe three times a week. Yes, there’s much riding on Walker’s development, but there’s less riding on it in the context of what baseball is, which is a sport that blunts the ability of any single player to determine the outcome of a game or a season. You know this, of course, but it’s easy for multi-sport consumers (like me, for instance) to apply faultily our basketball or football mindsets to this game.

So that’s good. What’s also good is that the Cardinals have multiple places to turn in the event that Walker isn’t able to make the necessary improvements. There’s a related discussion about whether young Victor Scott II can improve his batted-ball outcomes – via either hitting the ball harder or, in light of his tremendous speed, putting it on the ground more often – and be a long-term solution in center. His tremendous defensive value certainly lowers his offensive bar, but Scott needs to improve his on-base skills significantly. As such, it’s possible the Cardinals will need to find not one but two outfielders – three in the event that the convalescing Lars Nootbaar is traded at some point this season. So keep that in mind as we run down the possibilities to come.

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Eric writes:

Borrowing from my comment on the post about Marmol’s extension, how would define success for 2026 season? Marmol’s definition of success for 2026? Bloom’s definition of success for 2026 (I believe Bloom is on the right track myself)?

As you can probably …

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Jibby writes:

If all 30 MLB mascots had to participate in a WWE style Royal Rumble, who wins and why?

This is a compelling hypothetical. Are we talking about the actual/anthropomorphic versions of t…

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You know how this goes. To contribute, you may reply to this email if you’re reading via those means, leave a comment below, or just hit me up at daynperry@gmail.com. Give me your questi…

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For the Cardinals, the first checkpoint on either side of our rebuild coin – it’s an investment-grade bullion coin of precious metal – has largely been satisfied. Gone are the club’s leading four trade candidates (although JoJo Romero and eventually Lars Nootbaar will likely follow at some point) and in place are broadly impressive prospect returns in those trades. As for the farm system, it was hardly barren before the rebuild took full hold, and now it’s objectively one of the best in baseball. Let’s talk about that, shall we?

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Cardinals get: RHP Jurrangelo Cijntje, CF Tai Peete, OF Colton Ledbetter, two competitive-balance Round B picks

Mariners get: Donovan

Rays get: Who cares (3B Ben Williamson from Seattle)

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