Al Hrabosky on young Cards team

[Jatalk]

Al is a propagandist. I don’t give his words much credit. He makes good points about youth but can’t watch him.

[sikeston bulldog2]

Al is a propagandist. I don’t give his words much credit. He makes good points about youth but can’t watch him.

Mad Hungarian.

[last deadhead]

wait, they are not teaching kids in little league ball, legion ball, high school ball, college ball, minor league ball, winter league ball not to try and score from third on a hard hit ball at the 3rd/1st baseman ?
what are those coaches doing if not teaching fundamentals?

[Rojo Johnson]

In pregame show, they showed graphic of Cardinals being 3rd youngest team in MLB . Al mentioned team had several 1st, 2nd, and 3yr guys playing. Stated young guys make mistakes both physical and mental. Said the mental ones you hope the player learns and doesn’t repeat it.
Cited example of Saggese mistake going home on grounder to 3rd yesterday. Ball was hit too hard to 3rd and you can’t go home on that fir easily thrown out..added the team trailed at the time too.
Al said Saggese hopefully will learn from that and not repeat it.
On side note, blurb in paper said Oli met with Saggese after thr game to discuss it. Hrabosky said fans don’t like to hear it but patience is needed with younger players .
Al sees a lot of progress this year. Thinks the young guys have a lot of talent. There will be growing pains with young guys.

Maybe a competent 3b coach instructs the runner to stay on a grounder to 3b. You'd think a MLB player would know that, but they have coaches for a reason. Pop Warner costs us too many runs with poor coaching.

No coach tells a runner prior being hit, don’t go home if grounder to 3rd.
If a ball to 3rd is a chopper, slower ball the runner goes.
That ball was very hard hit one hop type.
The runner himself must judge the difference immediately.
Though Pops has had his issues Saggese running home is on himself.

Sure. But a well coached team goes over these scenarios in ST. I'm not sure what oli and staff cover.

Know what you are saying. Who knows? But if you are my coach and say hard hit balls direct to fielder u can’t chance it and slower balls or balls hit between fielders you can , the player still must instantaneously make a quick judgment.
It’s a learning experience. The game happens fast.
He will probably will be better next time.

I agree. I'm sure Saggese will learn from it.

I doubt he will. How many times has he been in that situation? You’d think dozens if not more. When you’re 8 years old, you go on most everything hit to third. When you are playing in the best league in the world, you need to be discerning about those situations. You can’t fix stupid.

[Goldfan]

1985 WS team over 100 wins
Nieto 24
Clark 29
Herr 29
Smith 30
Pendleton 24
Coleman 23
McGee 26
Van Slyke 24

Avg age 26.125

2025 YUTES
Pages 26
WC 33
Gorman 25
Donovan 28
NA 35
Noot 27
Scott 24
Walker 23

Avg age 27.625

With the ‘85 SP staff being younger than 2025

Those poor YUTES just trying to learn how to win………

[rockondlouie]

From Bernie:

DON’T PLAY THE AGE CARD:

That was another theme to the weekend flop at Flushing Meadows.

As first baseman Alec Burleson said in a quote published at STLtoday: “You’ve got guys in here who are still trying to find their way. I throw myself in that group. Trying to figure out who we are, trying to establish ourselves, and move on from there. Close the gap? We’re not far.”

During the series, there were other references to the “youthful” St. Louis team. As Katie Woo (The Athletic) noted, Marmol and his coaches are doing a lot of teaching and instruction on the fly. And it’s more teaching that’s been done than in the recent past.

There’s always a place, and a need, for teaching instead of allowing lapses to go on without intervention. And over time, the extra attention to detail could pay off.

But this only goes so far. Granted, the STL position players have the sixth-youngest average age (27.1) in the majors. And the average age of Cards pitchers (30.3) is 10th highest in the majors for experience.

The Cardinals have more age and experience than the Brewers in both hitting and pitching. But the Brewers have a 12-10 record. The Cardinals are 9-13.

The same St. Louis hitters that struggled against the Mets have series wins over three more experienced teams this season: the Twins, Phillies and Astros. Plus, in six games against the Angels and Red Sox – two older opponents – the Cardinals averaged 6.3 runs per contest.

No one played the age card when the Cardinals won their three series. But all of a sudden the age card gets played 0-4 set at Citi Field? Get that out of here.

The Cardinals are inconsistent, yes, but that shouldn’t be attributed to age. The only hitters with fewer than 1,000 big-league plate appearances are Thomas Saggese, Victor Scott II, Jordan Walker, Luken Baker, Michael Siani, Pedro Pages, and Yohel Pozo. But among that group the only true regulars are Walker, Scott and Pages (with starting catcher Ivan Herrera still on the IL.)

The inconsistency applies to every age group on this team. No one put an emphasis on this team’s “young” age during the triumphs over the Twins, Phillies and Astros – or when the offense was piling up runs against the Angels and Red Sox.

So you don’t get to play the age card when the team fails to get a single win against the Mets in a long weekend series.

And how can anyone bring out the age card when Saggese – age 23 and with only 30 big-league games – was the best player the Cardinals had against the Mets? In 36 plate appearances for the Cards this season Saggese is hitting .400 with a .600 slug, four doubles, a home run and seven RBIs.