2022 United Cardinals Blogger Event Report – Part 2

Here’s part two of my blogger event report. Mo stated that minor league games are fun to watch because of the pitch clock. When the pitch clock comes to the major leagues, the major league guys are going to have to adjust and adjust fast. Mo would like a faster game. On Friday night, he got home at 11:45 PM and he had to be back at the stadium by 7 AM on Saturday. The game was two and one-half hours long.

Someone asked continuing about what Mo talked about developments in terms of hitting. Mo stated that since he’s been the general manager of the organization, it seems that what the front office can do has really expanded. There’s so much more that he can do now than he’s been involved with in areas he hadn’t before. The person asking the question was curious about what was something that front office staff is involved with that they weren’t when you started that you’re particularly proud of. Mo said that the biggest difference for him was that his background is more on the scouting side as he came up. There have been some changes on that side. The front office has always had an involvement in that. He was negotiating contracts since 1996. But he thinks the biggest difference was how much the major league coaching staff and the manager want information from the front office. The influence of what the front office can do now is far greater than what it was like in 1996 when he joined the Cardinals. It was non-existent. When he thinks back to 25 years ago, the only person who really influenced the manager with the exception of the coaching staff was what was called an advanced scout. That was really it. Now,
because there is so much horsepower up in the front office generating so much information that you derive from the analytical point of view, the coaches are interested, and it’s anything from pitch calling, pitch selection, to defense alignment, to lineups. Mo said not to run with that, that he doesn’t make the lineups. We all laughed – my hubby thinks that Mo makes out the lineups. Wait until he hears about that. If the manager is curious about how the front office would think about something, we wouldn’t say, “oh, we wouldn’t do this.” We would say, “We would think about it this way because” and then present something more factual. It’s a lot less of “this is my feel” and we back it up with science, and if they want to use it, they use it. Those phone calls weren’t happening when Mo first started at all. That part’s super cool. You look at the toolbox that you carry and what you use to run your business and their toolbox has gotten bigger and better. What we reach for now gives us a lot more confidence about how they think about decision-making. Mo feels like his job has gotten easier but also, it’s a lot harder. And the reason it’s harder is that anything they do is just magnified. The general manager in 2007 would deal with local media but you didn’t feel like Twitter was judging you. Mo said he quit reading Twitter a couple of years ago. He was really getting depressed. Mo said he was usually very optimistic. He said he wasn’t an interesting guy. Mo then dropped the S bomb (which he immediately apologized for) when he spoke about his review of Twitter. All of you armchair managers out there on Twitter, you can just quit. Mo is not reading what you’re writing. He thought he could get some insight and keep abreast of things on Twitter, but it wasn’t worth it. The toolbox is getting better, but not everything you’re grabbing for.

Someone asked about Jordan Walker and that national media has caught on to how good he is. He asked how early on in his development did Mo notice that in him and what does he see in Jordan’s trajectory right now for Cardinals fans. Going back to the 2020 draft, and it was pretty good, where would those guys go if you redid the draft? Mo stated that Walker would probably be top 3, or top 2. He stood out and opened up a lot of eyes when he attended that mini-camp they had. He was competing against guys who were swinging between camps between the big leagues and AAA. He was having competitive at-bats. The other thing that was super unique about him was how hard he hit the ball. No matter how smart all of us think we are on hitting, it’s really pretty simple. If you hit the ball hard and often, that’s pretty good. That’s what he did. They didn’t have to be clever or smart to figure it out, but when a guy’s hitting a ball at 18 years old at 115 or 116 MPH, that’s insane. That gets passed around the front office pretty quick. They all realized that he was pretty special. He’s a unique player. He’s got that skill. In terms of where Jordan ends up playing, that’s to be determined. He’s a super talent.

The next question was about Mo’s thoughts on Oli Marmol’s managing and where does he see that going through the rest of the year. Mo’s thrilled about what Oli’s done. He thinks Oli is an impressive young person that jumped into something that most people don’t get the opportunity at 35 years old. But more to the point, he just understands the players, he understands how they think about running the game, so he’s super open-minded. He is very interested in how they can make him better and that’s pretty cool. Mo thinks the way he runs his clubhouse, most of you would probably agree that it’s been pretty smart. He’s doing it the way you expect. There are times when people say, “why isn’t he using someone?” but you don’t have to be all that smart and you don’t have to overthink it. It just means that player isn’t available. It’s not because he’s that stupid. They know who can pitch and who can’t and why. Mo feels from the overall from day to day of how he’s running the lineup to the bullpen, he thinks Oli’s doing an outstanding job and he’s fun to work with.

The next question was, with the current deadline market, how do you assess what you’re willing to give up for what you’re willing to get? Mo said it was a hypothetical question. For example, if Mike Trout was available, you might give up something or pick a player. He suggested VerHagen. We all laughed. We know that the Angels are not going to give the Cardinals Mike Trout for Drew VerHagen. Mo said he learned a long time ago not to speak in absolutes. He said he used to say, “I would never trade X.” That’s not a very smart statement because there probably would be a player on Earth that you might want to trade him for. He thinks the way we ought to think about the trade deadline is they have a way of understanding value proposition. It might be different than how we think about it, but they use math and they try to be as smart about it as possible. It’s not like they have to win every deal but there is a practical approach to think about it. It’s pretty clear that this team needs to find some innings (he was talking about pitching) and so that’s what they’re going to do. Now will it look like how it did last year when they took two guys that were aging veterans that ended up getting a little bit of enthusiasm when they joined the team and allowed them to have success or do they look for something bigger, maybe something with more control, who knows? The market itself hasn’t quite developed yet and he thinks that when the market does develop, then they’ll have a better idea. But clearly, when you look at the current club, they need something more than just guys that can eat 5 a week. (Translation: a starting pitcher that can pitch 5 innings a week.) They understand that there’s probably going to be some cost to it, but he wouldn’t (Mo’s words were covered up with laughter, so whatever he said must have been very funny).

Note: In relation to the question above, this gathering occurred on Saturday before all the trade rumors started up about Juan Soto being traded to the Cardinals. It was nice of Albert to be all chummy with Juan during the Home Run Derby, but that doesn’t mean he’s coming to St. Louis. If Juan turned down a $44 million-dollar deal from the Nationals, can the Cardinals really compete with that? Rumors are that the Nationals want whoever gets Soto to also take Patrick Corbin, a Nationals pitcher who is 4-12 with a 5.87 ERA. The Cardinals have some bad pitchers already. They don’t need any more bad pitchers. The Cardinals no longer have Dave Duncan to make a reclamation project out of picked-up, worn-out pitchers.

I really thought this report was going to be completed in two parts, but the original recording session is 41 and a half minutes long and it takes a while to transcribe. Then I edit what I transcribe so it’s more readable. I hopefully should be able to complete this report in the next post.

Thanks as always for reading! See you next time!

Diane