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Viva El Birdos

A St. Louis Cardinals Fan Community

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Projecting The St. Louis Cardinals 2026 Opening Day Roster

Earlier in the spring, I took a swing at predicting how the final roster was going to be constructed for opening day, and it’s important to note that the roster on March 26th could wind up looking a lot different on May 1st or even August 3rd. This exercise is intended to take a snapshot […]

Yhoiker Fajardo is your #19 St. Louis Cardinals prospect

I don’t believe there has been a time in Cardinals history where a prospect with the resume of Yhoiker Fajardo has been considered the 19th prospect in the system. The closest comparable player in recent years is Darlin Saladin, but Saladin was 21 (not 18), he pitched at both Low A and High A, and […]

MLB

St. Louis Cardinals Manager Oli Marmol on Viability of a 6-Man Rotation

The St. Louis Cardinals offered us an unprecedented opportunity to have direct access to the thinking of manager Oli Marmol. We were given a 30-minute online session to ask questions and one of the top recommendations from the community here was the viability of a 6-man rotation for this season. Here’s what Oli had to […]

Spring Training Statcast Notebook: Liberatore, Baez, and Gorman

More than half the Spring Training games are in the books. The Cardinals have played to a winning record, showed off some top prospects, and avoided catastrophic injuries. This is the first year that all spring games have been Statcast tracked, giving us plenty of data to keep an eye on while we wait for […]

St. Louis Cardinals 2026 Spring Training Observations on the ABS system

Introduction This short article continues my effort to articulate some of the observations I made during my visit to Spring Training, 2026. Short Topic of the Day I will start out with showing my bias. I’m a fan of the system. Although I’m an old guy, I tend to like new technology. I’m not a […]

St. Louis Cardinals 2026 Spring Training Observations, Ramon Urias

Introduction As part of my 6 days in Jupiter, I collected lots of observations and I’ve given to breaking them down and passing them along in manageable (ie. readable) chunks. I passed along some nuggets in game recaps if they were short and relevant to pre-, in- or post-game happenings. Last week, I published an […]

Deniel Ortiz is your #18 St. Louis Cardinals prospect

I am genuinely kind of surprised Ortiz is this low and it’s not necessarily because I disagree with his ranking so much as he certainly felt like a prospect that would be ranked a lot higher based upon the last three top 20s I’ve run. Speaking for myself, I think what hurts him is that […]

Who Should Be the St. Louis Cardinals 4th & 5th Starters?

As Spring Training rolls on, the St. Louis Cardinals roster is starting to come into focus, but there’s still no obvious choice for what the back of the rotation will look like. Who do you think should be the 5th starter? The same question could be asked about who the 4th starter will be, too. […]

St. Louis Cardinals vs Washington Nationals Game Discussion

The St. Louis Cardinals will travel to the Spring Training home of the Washington Nationals on Wednesday, March 11. According to MLB.com, Dustin May will get another start for the Cardinals while Cade Cavalli will take the mound for the Nationals. Here’s the starting lineup according to the St. Louis Cardinals website:

St. Louis Cardinals vs New York Mets Game Discussion

The St. Louis Cardinals are traveling to the New York Mets Spring Training home at Clover Park. According to MLB.com, the Cardinals will have Jared Shuster take the mound while the New York Mets are expected to start David Peterson. The game today will not be televised.

My (Somewhat) Bold Offseason Predictions – 2026 edition (revisited)

With only a couple of weeks remaining in spring training, I think it’s time we revisit how we did with our predictions from the end of October. https://www.vivaelbirdos.com/st-louis-cardinals-sabermetrics-analysis/65354/somewhat-bold-offseason-predictions-2026-edition#comments If you were one of the participants who included your predictions, here is a quick link to help you find them! Like last year, this is a […]

The Viva El Birdos Podcast: Episode 55 – Interview with Ben Clemens

Old friend, formerly of VEB, Ben Clemens of FanGraphs, stopped by to talk some ball! Ben covered several topics including: his VEB lineage and career arc, Ivan Herrera dealing with lower body injuries again, Josh Baez and where would make the most sense to begin the season, Dustin May looking like he’s returning to form, […]

Yairo Padilla is your #17 St. Louis Cardinals prospect

It’s kind of unfortunate for Yairo Padilla that he came up at the same time as Rainiel Rodriguez. Some sites had him as the better prospect entering 2025. And then, well, 2025 happened. I think the perception of Padilla was certainly negatively affected by Rodriguez’s rise, even though that doesn’t really make sense, just because […]

MLB