2022 United Cardinals Blogger Event report – Part 1

On July 15, 2022, the first in-person United Cardinals Blogger event since 2019 was held at Busch Stadium. I’d been looking forward to this for a long time. I missed seeing my blogger friends in person and I looked forward to meeting new blogger and podcaster friends. And I always enjoy watching the Cardinals play at Busch Stadium. So for me, it was a win-win-win situation. And watching the game in a party room when it was 103 degrees outside (setting a St. Louis record for that day) topped it all off.

The gates opened at 11:15 PM, so the son and I got there before the gates opened. The giveaway was a Mystery Nickname Jersey. The jerseys were wrapped in black plastic so you wouldn’t know which jersey you got until you opened the package. You could get either Simba (Ted Simmons), The White Rat (Whitey Herzog), Uncle Charlie (Adam Wainwright), or Yadi (Yadier Molina). I unwrapped mine and discovered I had received the White Rat jersey. Long-time readers know how much I love Simba, so I wanted that jersey. However, a nice lady had a Simba jersey and offered to trade the Simba jersey with me. My son got an Uncle Charlie jersey, which was great because his birthday is the same day as Waino’s.

My son and I were the first ones to get to the party room. The party rooms at Busch Stadium have been remodeled since we were here in 2019. They are larger and brighter. There still aren’t any bathrooms in the suites, which would have been nice since when you went out into the concourse, it was like stepping into an oven.

Another change to the party rooms is that draft beer is no longer offered. Budweiser, Bud Light, Shock Top, and Bud Zero were available and I think there was another brand but I can’t remember what it was. Mixed drinks were also available. George was our bartender and he was the bomb.

The menu said “Legends Club Menu,” but we were not in the Legends Club. I guess it was just easier to post the same menu in all the party rooms. The only thing on the menu not in the party room was the pasta salad, although there was shrimp instead. The BBQ brisket was awesome. It was so tender, and the BBQ sauce was just right – not too sweet, not too vinegary, and not too thin.

I had some nachos and a Coke to tide me over until the presentation was done, which started promptly at 12:00 PM. Bill DeWitt, III did not grace us with his presence this year. Maybe he didn’t have any new business to report. Only John Mozeliak spoke with us this year. I recorded the whole presentation and it was 45 minutes long, so this report will be split into two parts at least, maybe more.

Carson Shipley of the Communications Department was the MC. He asked that we not video record the presentation but audio taping was all right. Carson mentioned that the blogger event started in 2011. Carson recognized that the UCB has gone beyond just blogging – there are podcasts, analytical insights, coverage of the minor leagues, etc. The Cardinals pay attention to our work, even if they don’t get to see or read everything and they are appreciative of how we get the information and our opinions out there.

Carson mentioned that the Cards were 2 games behind the Brewers in the NL Central and that the MLB Draft would occur on Monday and Tuesday. Carson also mentioned the trade deadline of August 2, and that the Cardinals have 7 of the top 100 prospects, which is the most of any team, per Baseball America Carson then introduced John Mozeliak, the president of the Cardinals.

Mo said that it was always fun to meet with us. He self-depreciatingly said that he realized not all of us were his fans and that no one ever second guesses what he does. He says he has a hard job trying to keep people happy and there are always different ways to solve problems. He says he thinks the Cardinals put a high-quality product out there. The front office realizes that the Cardinals have a special fan base. Mo spoke briefly about Matt Carpenter. The process is pipeline driven, which means drafting well internationally, signing well and there must be players coming up. St. Louis is the 24th or 26th largest market in baseball. The Cards’ payroll is competing in the top 10. There is a big discrepancy between no. 1 and no. 10. There isn’t a level playing field. Mo said there are limitations as to how much he can spend or what he can do, but he thinks the way the Cardinals go about it, it’s still a great place to watch baseball.

Part of the charm of baseball is that there isn’t a salary cap, and all the teams don’t have the same level of operations. He knows some people would say, “No, no, go out and get X, Y, or Z and give it all up,” but thinking back to when we got a player like Ozuna, people said, “That’s great,” the Cardinals were willing to part with people. But in a way, Mo wished he hadn’t. There was nervous laughter in the room because we knew he was talking about Sandy Alcantara. Mo said that it would be sweet to run Sandy out there every fifth day. He gets it. There’s a cost to playing poker. In this business, he feels like that cost sometimes goes up depending on the time of year. Mo stated that if you understand trade markets in general, the worse time to make a trade is the trade deadline. Why? Because you’re probably going to have to pay an acquisition cost higher than any other time of year and you only get the player for, in the Cardinals’ case, the second half, which is 67 games. The Cardinals are actually not getting a player for the whole year. There are tons of things that go into how the Cardinals think about stuff. Mo stated that the purpose of today is to allow us to ask him how the Cardinals think about things and why the Cardinals think about things and to Carson’s point, you guys are certainly a media that is used to it. The bloggers/podcasters have subscribers and you have listeners or readers and so the Cardinals might as well inform everyone. Mo stated he was an open book. He said he would try to be as transparent as possible. He said that he appreciated everything we do to promote the St. Louis Cardinals.

Then it was time to ask questions. And the room was silent. No one wanted to be the first to ask a question. A note on the questions – if the person identified themselves and their blog and/or podcast, it will be posted here. If they didn’t, I will put “someone asked.”

Jason Hill of Viva El Birdos asked about Mo’s comment about being pipeline driven. Jason said he saw a report earlier that week where the Cardinals were leading baseball in production by draft position by expected value. The Cardinals are getting more out of the draft than any team in baseball through the last 10 years. What are some factors? Mo replied, “That’s a good thing,” Jason continued by asking during Mo’s tenure, what were some things to make that happen? Mo replied that the Cardinals have a great draft model. But he wanted to recognize how they think about that model. It’s very much analytically driven. It’s also very heavily based on what their scouts send them. They’re fortunate to have a very progressive, aggressive scouting team. Between what they’re getting out of the scouts and that information and what they’re really able to manipulate for performance, the way the Cardinals combine the two allows them to optimize the draft. He wasn’t overly surprised at that. Look at some other major league clubs – you can always see some former Cardinals sprinkled around. That’s a compliment to the
scouting department. It’s also a recognition of Player Development as well. There are times when the Cardinals go out and draft players and they don’t have the success you expect but under Gary LaRocque’s leadership, they’re extremely patient and they’re always trying to find ways to help a player take that next step. They really try to get the most out of them. The balance between the modern and progressive way people think about the game of baseball, the Cardinals balance them pretty well by understanding their past and traditions and trying to blend the two. The Cardinals are fortunate to have great people working for them and they do a great job.

Daniel Shoptaw of Cards Conclave mentioned that five years ago, Mo had moved up to president of baseball operations. He asked how Mo’s day-to-day has changed and has it changed as much as he expected. Daniel stated that Mo was still here with us rather than sending Michael Girsch and sparing himself. Mo said he thought it was trending like he thought it would go and then the pandemic hit. And then things changed a lot for everyone. The Cards were playing a sixty-game schedule. The team went to Minnesota, and then they went to Milwaukee and he went on the first trip to see what it looked like. And then at 10:00 PM that night, his phone rang and the Cardinals had their first positive COVID case. He realized that he couldn’t pass this off to someone. So many moves, so many transactions, and his relationship with the manager at the time, it took him more backward than forward. His job is still to position the organization in good standing, and he feels that’s where they are. The Cardinals have a lot of good people working for them, Michael Girsch, Randy Flores, and Gary LaRocque, to name a few. Under their leadership, the Cardinals are in a good place. He understands that he’s not going to be around forever and his job is really to make sure that when the time comes that the Cardinals have
people that can succeed and step right in and do that. Mo said we’re stuck with him for a little
bit longer but like anything, things can change.

Tara Wellman of Gateway to Baseball Heaven asked a question about player development. At the last blogger event, there was talk about reorganizing the mentality and the hitting approach going all the way from the very lowest levels up through the major league level. Tara wanted to know how that transition and the rewriting of the approach to hitting has gone and if it’s consistent at this point from those minor league levels up to what they’re getting all the way through to what he sees here. Mo asked if she meant Jeff Albert and Tara said yes. Mo said that Jeff Albert was brought in and at a very high level, he’s done what the Cardinals thought he would do. Mo stated that thirteen months ago, people were calling for Jeff’s head or to be fired, and there seemed to be a lot of tension between Jeff and the Cards’ manager (Mike Shildt at that time – DMS). Mo stated that obviously, the manager has changed, and all of a sudden people aren’t calling for Jeff’s head and they are liking where our offense is (I guess Mo didn’t read my blog post here.) Mo said the thing about Jeff is he’s more like a scientist than a pure hitting coach, but that’s what the Cardinals needed. The team was coming from an archaic approach and they were stuck in a time where they weren’t leveraging modern tools, whether it’s analytics, technology, and allowing the players to grow that way. As you can imagine, when the Cards get these kids from college programs, they have stuff and when they were coming to the Cards, the stuff wasn’t there. They would say, “Oh, we’re investing in this and we’re investing in that,” but if you don’t have anyone who is an advocate for this stuff, it doesn’t work. Getting Jeff to do that, whether it was top-down or bottom-up, he accomplished that. From a hitting standpoint, Mo thinks that they are all on the same page and it doesn’t mean that everything is for everyone. It’s the biggest misnomer about how people should think about hitting. In other words, they do understand exit velocity, for example. You have a hitter who’s hitting the ball 105 on average or the top 20 percent. So okay, let’s think about his launch angle because he’s hitting the ball hard enough that it should clear the fence. Mo then discussed exit velocity and launch angle and how it varies. There was one change at the major league level and that was a game-day strategist who is someone players can bounce ideas off. Everything in baseball is moving super fast. There is a lot out there.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of my blogger event report! (I have to transcribe it first.) In the meantime, here’s some news. Albert Pujols beat Kyle Schwarber to advance to the semi-finals of the Home Run Derby, although I suspect Schwarber choked so that Pujols could move on. What was even better was how at the end of the first round, all of the players gathered around Albert to pay their respects to the GOAT. It was very touching.

The 2022 MLB Draft ended today. The Cardinals’ selections by position included 13 pitchers, a catcher, two infielders, and four outfielders.  Of the 13 pitchers, eight are right-handed and four are left-handers.

This year’s draft marks the first time St. Louis selected college players with its initial 19 picks since the 2004 draft when the first 26 selections were college players. Randy Flores can take some well-deserved time off now that the draft is done.

The All-Star Game is on, so I’d better wind up, and I don’t mean pitching. Hopefully, Miles Mikolas burned some sage at Dodger Stadium since the National League hasn’t won the All-Star Game in a while. Thanks as always for reading! See you next time!

Diane