Bernie Miklasz Show: Don't mess with Jordan Walker!

hey I'm back again on this Friday what time is it when I'm doing this I don't know we're going on six o'clock but I thought needed to jump in I wanted to jump in uh after a busy day um to talk about the Cardinals bringing Jordan Walker back to the majors he's uh as you know uh he's in Yankee Stadium with the cards three games against uh the bombers and uh we'll see should be a fun weekend just the matchup itself it's fun but but it's been an interesting uh couple of days because the Cardinals of course they uh they put Tommy fam on waivers and then today they announced they designating for assignment and the one thing I want to clear up at least in my opinion you know I know I know the money thing was brought up a lot by the media and I assume that there are some some of you some fans whatever saying well you know Cardinals are cheap they're doing this to save money listen it's not like Tommy fam had all that much left on his contract and the Cardinals were going to have to pay the rest of it for the remainder of the year the remainder the season I should say and um the only they only way that would have changed is if some other team signed him but I mean the amount of money we're talking about is just nothing nothing major nothing to worry about I mean this is like piggy bank money and uh I'm sure like with the piggyback money you know Bill the witz probably got armed security protecting it I get it but my point is that's not why they made the move first of all Tommy fam didn't listen I'm a fam guy from way back I loved it when they acquired him and man he started off with that grand slam home run had a couple other couple three other good games and I thought well this is uh this is really good you know um they got him to kind of boost this offense especially against left-handed pitching but after got off to a good start and that included a couple of home runs against left-handed pitching he really fell off and if you look at his 40 final 47 plate appearances as a cardinal this time around no matter where uh no matter where he hit you know he bat against right-handed pitchers or or left-handed pitchers final 47 plate appearances 077 uh with six strikeouts and I I should take that back of 07 7 with 13 strikeouts and his uh his stay his month with the Cardinals he hit 194 against left-and of pitching 194 and then his final 14 at bats against lefties he was 0 for 14 and had One RBI and I have to look at my notes I apologize um so as much as I love Tommy fam coming back I love the idea of fam you know strengthening a major weaknesses which is their futility relative relative futility against left-handed pitching uh he just wasn't really delivering and maybe he can latch on with another team and you know someone will use him as a platoon guy or whatever because he's been an effective postseason performer but the Cardinals ain't gone to the postseason so it's irrelevant I mean they got him to make a final push him and Eric fety and the Eric fety deal is entirely separate okay fam was fam was included in this thing because the Cardinals wanted him as an addin and the white socks had no problem doing it as this part of this three-weight trade I've seen some people try to put the fetty and fam thing together no fetty was brought in to help the team the rest of the way this year but Mo mostly the appeal was to have him in place for the rotation in 2025 but let's separate the two you know it's just let's just separate the two and U you know some people are you know complaining about Tommy Edmund giving trading up on him Tom Tommy Edmund is redundant because Brendan Donovan's doing the job that Tommy Edmund did and Tommy Edmund a real real possibility or there's a real concern about his ability to stay healthy I'm not sure I I I like him a lot and uh wish the best but he's been a below average hitter uh on the on the whole the last couple of seasons and um you know not real good against right-handed pitching so I I don't sit around and worry about that that's just me I don't mean to sound so cranky by the way maybe it's late in the day and I'm just like you know I'm gonna get this off my chest so that's what I'm trying to do so um the time fam thing um getting rid of him had nothing to do with money it had everything to do with something they should have done earlier this month which is you get Jordan Walker up here and you play him and you play him every day with the only exception being an injury will have to miss a game or two or something like that I still do not understand and nor will I ever understand and I did speak to Ali marmal about this and I still don't understand it even though he tried to explain it and I respect him very much for that you bring Jordan Walker up to the major leagues and he had been on a roll he had been pummeling pitching down at trip Triple A for about two and a half three weeks huge numbers and they bring him up and it's you know Ali marmal has this plan well we're going to make him a platoon bat why well he's going to we need we need help against left-handed pitchers and he can really help us there um Jordan Walker last season as you all know as a right-handed hitter was much better against right-handed pitching I mean it was by a substantial difference uh you know just because a guy swings a right-handed from the right-handed side of the plate doesn't mean oh well we need him to beat up on those lefties it doesn't mean mean it's going to happen there are all kinds of examples in baseball of guys I don't know if you want to call it a full reverse split but the whole righty versus Lefty thing doesn't apply to them and you actually want Jordan Walker in the lineup all the time against right-handed pitching because last year he put up really good numbers against them I mean really good numbers you know including um like a 478 slugging percentage high high U average he had an extra base hit every 11 at bats this is last year you know um against right-handed batter so this hole as I described it at the time and I'll use the word again because I like the word uh this was a cockamamy plan it made no sense so he was here for a week and the Cardinals had six games and he only started in three of the games um and he didn't play in two of the games like he got into four game started three didn't play at all in two I think I have that right but you get the point and of course he he went one for three against right-handed pitching when he was with the Cardinals for a cup of coffee earlier this month he didn't do anything against left-handed pitching and that's exactly what I said before he came up and so what do you mean you're gonna plun for this guy to fully develop man he's got to play every day you got to quit fooling around and messing around and screwing around with this guy so I like the fact that Ali marmal told the the reporters on the scene covering the Cardinals Yankee Stadium that he's going to play uh we're not GNA platoon him he's going to have a nice run here he's going to have a month and he's going to play every day no no platoon no no no well number one you know what that is that's I do I give them credit for this in a way give him credit for what Bernie give him credit for basically admitting they screwed up up by bringing him up to the majors and making him sit on the bench and watch when he was like on a roll down there Triple A you're going to interrupt that to to turn him into a part-time player what the heck were they thinking so to me they get him back up here really soon to me I take it 100% among other things they're admitting they made a mistake with this stupid plan that they had and now now oh no he's playing every day well he's got to play every day he's 22 years old uh we saw what he could do even with some struggles last season I mean his final 30 Games as a cardinal in 2023 the numbers were fantastic and his overall rookie season was fantastic in terms of his inexperience he had never played above the double a level before and he had a good start he cooled down and and he spent some time in the miners and he got things straightened out and he was better when he came back up and he was really really good down the stretch so you got to build on that and you you know the Cardinals put him on obviously they put him on the roster start the season he he played what 22 games and he wasn't very good I'm not going to sit here and make stuff up he wasn't very good but I see the Milwaukee Brewers for example with their young outfielders or young players and they're just one example there's many examples you know these guys that are really really young they struggle not all of them but there's a lot of them struggle and you see a team like the Brewers you know with u Tero their their their Phenom outfielder you know he was awful the first couple months he hit 200 you know just awful they were like well that's okay I mean he's our future we know he's going to be a terrific player we're going to invest time in him we're gonna invest patience and it's going to pay off and it and it has paid off I don't have the numbers with me right now but he's been an outstanding hitter and player since the All-Star Break um but the Cardinals like pulled the plug on Walker right away in April and it took him a while to kind of get his swing where it needed to be his plate approach and all that and he was making you know bombs away progress in Memphis they bring him up and then they put him on the bench and they don't play him every day and they think that his strength is hitting left-handed pitching when it's actually hitting right-handed pitching so are they going to screw this up again I mean if you're Ali mormal and John mosac and if you're the hitting coaches and I'm definitely looking at the hitting coaches you know it's okay out other players you don't have to obsess over Paul gold Schmid why don't you obsess over these young guys who fail under your watch way too often they get they break down because young hitters do that they go into slumps they lose some confidence they get lost why is it that other organizations can fix these guys and get them back on track well one thing maybe you don't allow your veteran hitters to hire the batting coach okay just a thought maybe you make sure you have batting coaches in place who are excellent at teaching young hitters and saying hey this is the plan I know I know this will help you let's go let's go we're going to do this this organization man it's just uh it's just mindboggling it's just absolutely mindboggling so I'm glad they've seen and they realize they made a really ludicrous mistake by giving the bums rush to Walker after they brought him up and sent him down like and I'm exaggerating on purpose uh they send him down you know like nine minutes later right and I give him credit because I did wonder about this because if I'm Walker I'm like my goodness what you know what the heck like what's up with this organization they bring me up and I'm I'm back in Memphis like you know in 15 minutes uh he went down there and he re-entered the lineup and he hit he did well man he he shook it off he just said I no I got a job to do I got to get better and I like that maturity because listen Jordan Walker is a really good guy I am not disparaging his character or anything like that certainly not his intelligence he's very very smart but I've said this before you know some players just mature at a different speed than others like Mason wi for example who was a year older than Walker Mason wi is like Advanced for his age he is really really mature in that baseball way he can figure things out he can make adjustments he corrects himself not all youngsters uh in the big leagues are like that and I think it's up to Walker this time to really dig in I mean really dig in with all the determination he can summon to do what he has to do to get this thing rolling for him again and I hope that the batting coaches will have something to put in that may be of value but let's just say I'm not optimistic about that I hope I'm wrong but Jordan Walker is a huge huge piece to this team going forward in 2025 if they can get him going again think of the impact it will make for next year's team so you give him this month you see what transpires you put him in a better place you make sure the headwires are all connected he's feeling good confidence is up all that stuff but if you can't you're giving him another chance this season and if you can't get this thing right if you screw it up again because we know he's capable of being a terrific hitter but if you can't summon that out of him and you find a way to screw it up again why in the world would any of these people keep their jobs I'm serious what like how many of these young hitters I'm sorry if I'm screaming in the microphone because I move forward how many of these young hitters have to fail before somebody in charge over there says you know we got to go with a whole new cast here of maybe the manager maybe the coaches whatever we've got to just do something entirely different it's an organizational failure and this is part of the thing that's got to change for the St Louis Cardinals they can't keep having these talented guys go off a cliff and before any anyone in the organization can actually pull them away from the Cliff's Edge as they're starting to just spiral as hitters Dylan Carlson Tyler O'Neal who else there's a bunch of them why am I oh Nolan Gorman Jordan Walker you know they gave up on Juan yepez didn't get anything for him because they basically released him after last season he's doing a hell of a job for the Washington Nationals you think maybe there's a couple things they could have done to get him on track I I mean this just you know my wife God bless her but every Halloween season and I'm talking about starting in September her and her sister they watch like the Halloween movies over and over and over again and I tease her about that and I'm like how many times have you seen this and I'm just teasing her she can watch what she wants she loves the Halloween movies right I mean literally the the movies the Halloween you know Halloween 1 2 3 4 79 Halloween 33 you know all those doesn't matter every every every month of October that thing plays like on an endless loop in our home and I think it's funny and I love it but I got a teaser about it well I'm starting to I'm starting to think this reminds me a little bit of that when I look at all these young players like Time After Time After Time they all go into their own little Halloween movie don't they right and it happens again and again and again you keep playing it all over again again same same chapter you know same story same story line young hitter oh you know Full of Life full of full of him and Verve and confidence and just like oh man here here comes uh here comes the bad guys and these young hitters meet their demise it's it's just like getting caught in one of those damn Halloween movies so I can't believe I'm talking this long about this but I had to get it off my chest and thank you for your support and also thank you for maybe adjusting your viewing schedule because I know it's best when I do these things earlier in the day but sometimes when there's some news I got to jump in uh based on the timing of the news and this is the first chance I had to get out the equipment and do this but listen you all have a wonderful weekend please leave your comments they're great please encourage people you know to subscribe and hit the like button and um we're growing fast and U I'm getting good really good positive messages and feedback from YouTube I I want to bring you in on the process I really am uh I've only been doing this for these videos now for three weeks and two or three days and the numbers are growing very very fast and YouTube just keeps sending me message saying look you're doing great uh look at these numbers they even mention your comments like all the comments that that we get and they view that as another sign that this is like a really healthy and growing YouTube channel and they like it I mean because they've given me clearance now to sort of go to the next level and so I couldn't be doing this without you and I mean that from the bottom of my heart and uh I know you got you know probably better things to do with your time than to listen me talk about this but since I'm going to do an emergency video I just wanted to throw in some other things and this thing would not be successful without you and it would not be growing without you and it would not be getting the attention the positive attention from you from uh I wouldn't be getting that those positive feedback and attention from the people at YouTube without you playing a role in this and so I I can't thank you enough and this has been fun I I want to do videos all the damn time now uh because people like them and I I've always been about go where the audience is you know give the audience what they crave what they want and I've had people say well it's a lot of Cardinal stuff and um maybe you should do you know things other than the Cardinals well I am but I don't know how to break this to you but all the Cardinal stuff I do the numbers for watch hours and Views are phenomenal just like when I talk Cardinals baseball at my kfns radio show um the signal was not good at the station I'm not going to brag about the numbers but my monthly downloads of the show podcast were I had a couple people at other radio stations who wanted to see I'm talking about Executives they wanted to see it and they're like this is crazy there's no numbers like this in a market for for for you know show podcasts downloads and and I'm saying that only to to tell you that I give people what they want the most and that's even in the offseason in fact some of my numbers on the downloads in the were were their largest monthly numbers during the offseason because Cardinal fans crave it and they crave it even when things are going to going bad as as it has been the last couple years because they want more information they want to talk about what do they need to do what are they doing what did they screw up why didn't they do this this is a baseball town and I'll never apologize ever for serving the great Baseball fans of St Louis and Cardinals fans everywhere because I'm getting views from all over the United States on these Cardinal videos so um I'm not going to call it a Cardinals only Channel but this the Cardinals and their and fans of the Cardinals that's my foundation and I'd have to be a complete idiot to somehow betray that I'm just letting you know how I feel I will be doing Blues I will be doing missou uh got about a thousand views on mizou I think a little bit over a thousand that was fine uh you know I I know that I'll need to grow some other things but listen I've been doing it three weeks uh so far so good I always think something can be better and I'm always going to be you know looking for ways to make it better and make more progress anyway I've been caring on now for almost 22 minutes I want to just say have a great weekend and thanks once again and uh let's hope the Cardinals can get Jordan Walker back on track because boy could he be a huge huge presence A Difference Maker in that lineup in 2025 and they ought to start playing more young guys too they really need to do this over the last month and we'll talk about that next week y all seriously have a wonderful weekend thank you very much