Latest news and updates about the Cardinals
I saw a little bit of surprise that Leonardo Bernal, voted as the sixth best prospect in the system, wasn’t voted in the top 5. I am not surprised. Doing this for three years, catchers usually end up lower than I expect, not higher. Bernal was ranked 8th last season and that definitely surprised me […]
From Viva El Birdos | 8 days ago | 2 reads
Sean McVay will once again have to hire a new offensive coordinator and for the second time he’s replacing someone in the LaFleur family: The Arizona Cardinals are hiring Rams offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur to be their new head coach according to multiple reports on Sunday morning by Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero. LaFleur will […]
From Turf Show Times | 9 days ago | 0 reads
Before you immediately run to the comments and simply put “YES”, hear me out. The St. Louis Cardinals have spent the entire offseason actually committing to the (re)build, but have done so by trading away high-priced and/or underperforming veterans and restocking the minor league pitching staff. Those deals have created opportunities around the diamond, except […]
From Viva El Birdos | 9 days ago | 0 reads
Becoming a major league baseball player is extremely difficult. I know, breaking news… It definitely helps if a major league team signs you to a professional contract and sends you to one of their minor league affiliates, but even so, the odds are against you. With the recent excitement in Cardinals nation around the signing […]
From Viva El Birdos | 10 days ago | 3 reads
As my mind’s eye turns to Spring Training, hope stirs. What once seemed so far away is now just around the corner, even though it hasn’t moved one iota (for those keeping score at home, iota is the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet and is proxy for really, really small amount). My mind wanders […]
From Viva El Birdos | 11 days ago | 0 reads
As of today, we’re almost exactly two weeks from the day when pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training. I would say there’s at least an even chance that Brendan Donovan will remain a St. Louis Cardinal once the season begins. If that’s the case, what do you think the St. Louis Cardinals opening day […]
From Viva El Birdos | 11 days ago | 5 reads
In the vote for the #4 prospect, Quinn Mathews did not win by a lot. It was a two-man race and Joshua Baez was only 14 total votes short of Mathews’ total. He received over double the votes of the third-place vote getter. It is not a hard and fast rule, but it was a […]
From Viva El Birdos | 12 days ago | 1 read
2026 baseball projections are out now, so I’m going to begin to take a look at how the crystal ball of statistical projections sees things for the coming year. Sure, we might lose one of our key players in Brendan Donovan, so I will probably do this again (plus ZiPS literally just came out a […]
From Viva El Birdos | 13 days ago | 0 reads
I know not everywhere got dumped on by 21 inches of snow like we did, and then immediately followed by sub-zero temperatures, but I am going stir-crazy. The kids are all home, we can’t really go anywhere, and I think we could all use some fresh air. Worse, the brutal cold isn’t turned for, at a minimum, another 10 days apparently. I’m grateful our furnace is working, but I would also be grateful for enough of a break in the roads/temps that everyone can safely go back to school … The Fr...
From Bleacher Nation | Chicago Sports News, Rumors, and a Reasonable Level of Obsession | 14 days ago | 2 reads
How do you weigh the cost of opportunity when it comes to a long-term build? When I talk to Cardinals personnel, the consistent theme remains “long-term focus.” What exactly does that mean for players who continue to accrue service time but are not quite to the point where they are rental assets? We know that […]
From Viva El Birdos | 14 days ago | 1 read
The St. Louis Cardinals are preparing the way for Spring Training which is now just over two weeks away. The team announced the 27 non-roster players that will officially be a part of camp. Here’s the share that the St. Louis Cardinals just dropped on social media today. In case you can’t see the Cardinals […]
From Viva El Birdos | 14 days ago | 2 reads
The Giants have reportedly signed outfielder Harrison Bader to a two-year deal, $20.5 million deal, that includes another $500,000 in incentives. The Royals had been reportedly interested in Bader earlier this offseason, but later reporting by Ken Rosenthal indicated they were being priced out on his market. Bader was coming off a career-best season at […]
From Royals Review | 15 days ago | 5 reads
The JJ Wetherholt hype train continues to pick up steam as the St. Louis Cardinals get closer to Spring Training as Keith Law has just ranked him as the #7 prospect in baseball plus he makes a bold prediction about his future. Ken Rosenthal shared the news of Keith’s top 100 prospect list which was […]
From Viva El Birdos | 15 days ago | 2 reads
The Orioles roster seems to be in pretty good shape. Mike Elias has beefed up the rotation and, if reports are to be believed, he could still bring in Framber Valdez. The additions of Pete Alonso and Taylor Ward should provide some pop in the middle of the lineup. And Ryan Helsley feels like a […]
From Camden Chat | 15 days ago | 3 reads
Our first real battle happened in the vote for the #4 prospect, with Quinn Mathews winning by a mere 4%. Last year’s #2 prospect, he had a bit of a down year, or at least a year that didn’t go as well as hoped, but his drop to 4 actually had less to do with […]
From Viva El Birdos | 15 days ago | 3 reads
When I evaluate the St. Louis Cardinals actions during the offseason so far, there’s only one thing I’m certain of and that’s the fact that President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom and his team are smarter than I am. That realization gives me peace because otherwise I would have to wonder if the Cardinals are […]
From Viva El Birdos | 16 days ago | 2 reads
Coming away from the St. Louis Cardinals Winter Warm-Up event, there was plenty of buzz among fans about how excited they are to see the young guns get their opportunity to light up Busch Stadium. Even in a season that is sure to be full of growing pains, Cardinals Nation is ready for Spring Training […]
From Viva El Birdos | 16 days ago | 5 reads
On Friday morning Dan Szymborski released the long-awaited Cardinals 2026 ZiPS projections and gave us all a short break from refreshing MLB Trade Rumors to see the latest on Brendan Donovan. ZiPS is the gold standard for publicly available projection systems and has been continuously refined to improve accuracy since Szymborski originally developed it in […]
From Viva El Birdos | 17 days ago | 0 reads
The Milwaukee Brewers play big. The zythophilian juggernauts of the NL Central have the same number of division titles as the Dodgers over the past half decade. They’ve been punching down on the incompetent and/or uncompetitive clubs in their division, while managing to outmaneuver the Chicago Cubs, and pushing the St. Louis Cardinals into their […]
From Lookout Landing | 18 days ago | 6 reads
Earlier, I described the various technologies that I’ve found are being used in baseball in general, and mostly, by the Cardinals. As I followed the trail of breadcrumbs around, I began to discover that it wasn’t so much the technology the Cardinals had fallen behind in (yes, there was and still are some deficits there), […]
From Viva El Birdos | 18 days ago | 2 reads
It’s hard to tackle a topic like this without unintentionally disrespecting the current manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, but I have to wonder if Yadier Molina might be the leader the team needs once the ongoing rebuild is complete. But, I also have a few reservations about why I fear that it might not […]
From Viva El Birdos | 18 days ago | 1 read
Morning, all! Jake Burger is hoping to have a bounceback year in 2026 after a career worst performance in 2025, and is hoping that being reunited with Skip Schumaker is the key. Cody Bradford is expected to be ready for the big league mound in May after a little over a year recovering from internal […]
From Lone Star Ball | 19 days ago | 1 read
I don’t think I quite realized how defined the top 3 in the Cardinals system would be. It makes sense, after the votes had been tallied, and I definitely knew that JJ Wetherholt was the favorite for #1 and Liam Doyle the favorite for #2. I didn’t even think about who #3 would be, but […]
From Viva El Birdos | 19 days ago | 1 read
The St. Louis Cardinals are bringing back a legend, but not in the way that many thought it might happen. The team has announced they have hired Yadier Molina as a Special Assistant to President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom. Here’s the statement shared by the St. Louis Cardinals today about Yadi’s return to the […]
From Viva El Birdos | 20 days ago | 3 reads
According to family lore, the first team I ever rooted for was the St. Louis Cardinals, the football version. See, I entered this crazy world on a Sunday around 11 a.m. back when the Cardinals still played in Missouri, and about an hour later, my parents and I—well, I’m guessing just my father—turned on the […]
From Royals Review | 20 days ago | 5 reads