Before we get to the hot takes portion, there was an interesting topic about “stealing a win” after the Paul Skenes game in the comments. I did not consider that stealing a win because by the way the Cardinals played, they deserved to win. Even on paper, yes Skenes is better than Sonny Gray, but Gray is also a very good pitcher and when you factor in the rest of the team, it’s more of a 50/50 game than the Pirates being heavy favorites.
I bring this up, because I am actually not devastated by yesterday’s loss. Or at least I don’t consider it a devastating loss. I didn’t get to see the game, maybe my opinion changes if I watched it. But from following the game, it didn’t feel like a game the Cardinals had any business winning. And I don’t mean because they failed a bunch with runners in scoring position (so did the Pirates) or because they made baserunning blunders (so did the Pirates, in fact one of the baserunning blunders was caused by a Pirates mistake).
I mean because Mitch Keller pitched so much better than Erick Fedde. I know they got virtually the same results. I know Fedde didn’t allow a hit. But you’re not going to convince me 4 BBs and 2 Ks is good pitching. Fedde got incredibly lucky yesterday. If the Cardinals won the game, it would be “stealing a win.” And because that’s my attitude about the game, I just find the loss annoying, but the Cardinals certainly deserved to lose. I don’t hyper focus on one play that should have won the game, at least in this instance, because that one play really shouldn’t have been the difference. Pirates should have won easily before extras.
What is a Hot Take and Some Examples
What is a hot take? Well first off, I’m glad your first day on the internet was this post. Enjoy. A hot take is more or less taking something that is not based in fact, that most reasonable people would probably disagree with, and that you would absolutely not spend money betting on happening if not given favorable odds. If it sounds reasonable, it’s probably not a hot enough take.
Since we’ve already done this, I can use some examples. Here are some good examples of what I’m looking for in a hot take. Put yourself in the mindset of April 2024.
FDR_Redbird – “TINK HENCE IS IN THE ROTATION FOR THE PLAYOFFS”
This is a perfect hot take, and could probably be re-used this year. What makes it HOT, is it says rotation. Him being being in the bullpen for the playoffs is not hot enough. It’s important to go that extra step.
BigMeanMike – “Victor Scott will never be able to hit MLB pitching. You can’t steal first.”
Everybody gang up on BigMeanMike. No, I’m joking, this is the entire purpose of this exercise. Not every hot take will be positive. He’s still not technically wrong yet either. It’s too early to tell. I suspect he hopes he’s very wrong.
TommyPhanatic – “CONTRERAS WILL BE OUR 1B AFTER GOLDY MOVES ON/RETIRES”
birdonthehat – “Tyler Oneill has more fWAR than Noot, Walker and Carlson combined this year.”
In case you thought a hot take had to be wrong, here’s two good hot takes that were right. The Contreras one feels less hot than it was because it happened, but it was a hot take in April 2024.
grammer – “WALKER WILL STAY UNDER THE MENDOZA LINE UNTIL HE DISCOVERS THE POWER OF THE TILAPS, AND ADDS AT LEAST 30LBS OF ALPHA MUSCLE TO HIS SCRAWNY FRAME, BRAH”
Some people chose to put it in more of a joke format if that’s your speed.
Here are my hot takes from last year that extended beyond 2024.
Brendan Donovan will hit 30 homers in one season of his career
This feels like an even hotter take now. He does have 2 this year, but that’s a 22 HR pace, not 30 HRs. He’ll probably have to leave St. Louis for this one to happen, and it might have to be the Rockies or Yankees.
Cooper Hjerpe never starts an MLB game
Here’s a shocker. He’s starting the season on the injured list. I’m envisioning a Ryan Helsley like ascent to the majors, where the Cardinals just decide he won’t ever be healthy enough to start. With a career high of 52 pro innings and already being 24… I think this is bordering on not being a hot take anymore. And no, him being an opener doesn’t count.
Zach Showalter will be the best Cardinals prospect in the system… at some point
Guess who threw 4 innings and struck out 46.2% of hitters in his first appearance in High A! This one may not come true and this is probably the high point of this take, but he hadn’t even struck out 38.6% of hitters in Low A when I made this take. I’m feeling pretty good about this one right now.
Roddery Muñoz will be a closer for the St. Louis Cardinals… at some point
Let’s start with a spicy hot take. This is not a 2025 specific take. So I’m giving myself a bit of leeway for this to work. And I’m not going to let myself off the hook and say he merely needs to get a save for it to be correct. No he has to be the actual closer for a month or more. He doesn’t need to be announced as the closer, but if they have a closer-by-committee and he’s the guy they always seem to go to, well… that counts!
I think I’m doing this one at the perfect time to. Muñoz just had a terrible outing with 3 BBs, no Ks in an inning of work. So his stats look pretty bad almost entirely because of that outing. Making it more of a hot take.
Masyn Winn will win the Gold Glove… this year
Last year’s winner was Ezequiel Tovar, the Rockies young shortstop. He had a +15 OAA season, which he did after a +15 OAA season. So it’s going to be pretty difficult for Winn to top that. And yet for some reason, Tovar does not feel like some unbeatable foe to me. For starters, he relatively anonymous and he’s not a good hitter. Neither has anything to do with the Gold Glove, and yet they sort of matter.
Winn is not anonymous – his arm has made the national rounds even when he was in the minors – and he’s a better hitter than Tovar. Winn is also already a +3 OAA this season to Tovar’s +1. Which doesn’t mean much to be clear, but I don’t know if you remember correctly, but Winn was not a particularly good fielder in the 1st half. And then suddenly he was in the 2nd half. It feels like he’s Gold Glove worthy already, but without the proof. Which is what makes this a hot take.
Miles Mikolas won’t make it to June as a Cardinal
Here’s what makes this a hot take. I think Miles Mikolas is going to get released. I honestly think people underestimate how willing the Cardinals are to shed players on the last year of their contracts. It’s kind of odd actually how they operate as if sunk cost isn’t a thing until the very last year of the deal. It’s easier to convince yourself that they might be good next year than it is that they might be good in the same year they are playing badly I guess.
Miles Mikolas is not Adam Wainwright. They are not carrying this dude to the end of the year. He has no milestone to reach. He’s blocking Michael McGreevy from getting starts, not Drew Rom. There are a couple outside factors that may make this not happen. The first is that McGreevy is already in the rotation, and Mikolas is pitching kind of bad, not release-worthy bad. I don’t really think anybody else in the minors HAS to be up, especially by June 1st. The second is that Mikolas actually has an injury or there’s a wink-wink here’s some dignity, you can stay in the dugout, but you ain’t pitching IL trip. I could see that happen too.
Pedro Pages will have an average or better hitting line in the year of 2025
I will fully admit that I changed this take, because I felt it wasn’t hot enough. Here’s a good barometer for if something is a truly hot take. My original take was that Pages would be an above average hitter at some point in his career. I was too confident that would happen. Bad hitting catchers run into above average hitting seasons all the time. Jacob Stallings, Francisco Mejia, Mike Zunino. These aren’t good hitters. But they are perfectly capable of running into a 200-300 sample of PAs where they end up as an above average hitter. I was way too confident in that take.
So the take is that this is the year it happens. He’s off to a good start. It’s a tough needle to thread, but I would say that in a general sense, if you are reasonably confident that your take will happen, it’s not a hot take. If you are that point, considering whether your take is hot, ask if your confidence is completely unreasonable. Mine was reasonable – catchers get so few PAs that they can easily run into a good season. So either it scrap it or make it unreasonable. Winn is another good example actually – you can’t just predict Winn to win a Gold Glove, it has to be now to make it hot.
(There were a lot of Winn takes last year that weren’t hot takes, the only one that qualified as one was that Winn would lead the team in WAR – credit to BWalkerAZ on that one and for it almost coming true!)
The 2026 Opening Day bullpen will carry over one pitcher from the 2025 Opening Day bullpen
This is here mostly because I didn’t want to repeat the JoJo Romero will have more saves hot take, but still wanted a crazy bullpen prediction. This is one of those takes where if you go player by player, it is not unreasonable to think they won’t be here. It’s just that ALL of them not being here is incredibly unlikely. Let’s go through the players.
Ryan Helsley, Steven Matz, and Phil Maton are the easiest. They will reach free agency. They will be traded at the deadline if the start of this season is anything to go by. I don’t think it takes much imagination to think John King is leaving either. Nor JoJo Romero, who should also be on the trade path if… you can get literally anything for him at this point. Only one of Ryan Fernandez, Chris Roycroft, and Kyle Leahy on the other hand will certainly take a leap of imagination.
They are not signing seven free agents, so how am I filling up this bullpen with players in the Cardinals organization? Well, I’ll make it sound much safer than it is. There’s not real numbers to this, but let’s say you have five players with a 30% chance of being in this 2026 Opening Day bullpen. Saying two of that group will isn’t a crazy bet. Here’s five lefty reliever candidates to replace the three departing lefties: Zack Thompson, Matthew Liberatore going back to the bullpen, Packy Naughton, Drew Rom, and dark horse candidate Alex Cornwell, who looks like he could be the bargain bin version of John King. I consider Gordon Graceffo the closest thing we’ll get to a lock, so we’re at four members already.
Pick one of Munoz and Riley O’Brien. It’s asking a bit much to think both are clicking, so we’re playing the odds. That’s five. Here’s a bunch of candidates for the sixth spot: Ryan Loutos, Matt Svanson, Andre Granillo, and a move to the bullpen option Ian Bedell or Sem Robberse. We need one of these guys, that’s it. Member number seven is a free agent. And there’s always your possibility that a Chris Roycroft pops up.
With that said, the take is that the Cardinals are going to have THAT inexperienced of a bullpen, kind of hard to envision.
Give me your best HOT take.