Saturday Podcast: Meet Me At Musial

If you came here looking for written words to read, I’m sorry I don’t have many for you today. I spent my Friday evening keyboard-typing, article-writing time with a microphone and audio interface, chatting with Daniel Shoptaw (@C70 over on Twitter) on “Meet Me At Musial”.

Daniel and I covered more topics in more depth than I usually do on a weekend post, so I thought, why not just highlight the pod and give you all something to listen to instead of reading?

After all, if you’re like me, you’re not going to be spending your day face-forward to your laptop or mobile device. You’re going to be out mowing the lawn, spreading mulch, weed eating, cleaning the house, and doing a variety of other frantic preparatory honey-dos before the entire family and neighborhood and city descends on your humble abode for a graduation party. Wait, that’s just me? (My son, Jacob, graduates from high school next weekend. He’s heading to Mizzou in the fall.)

Saturdays are probably more conducive to listening rather than reading. So, if you’re out fishing, hanging on the deck, heading to the river, or otherwise enjoying this almost-summer weather, give Daniel and me a listen.

I’m going to embed the podcast link below. And you can find it on your podcast supplier of choice, including Apple, Google, and probably Spotify.

Here’s the embedded podcast:

And the link is in the following Tweet:

Thanks for listening! If you liked what you heard, then give Daniel that 5-star rating. And mention how awesome I am and how much you love hearing from your favorite VEB writers.

This is still the home of the best free Cardinals analysis and coverage on the internet. I think the lockout stole some energy from fans, readers, and writers alike. But there’s some great new talent around here and some of us vets that are still killing it.

So, talk up VEB. Share articles on social media. And do the same for some of the friends of the site, like the Bens over at “Cardinals Off Day”. And the great crew at Birds on the Black – Kyle Reis, Ben Cerutti, Cardinalsgifs, and more! As social media claims a larger place among fandom – and with it hot takes and retread narratives – and more Cards-related coverage moves behind paywalls, we need to give as much attention to the group of incredible content creators we have in this fan community.

Speaking of content creation, I wanted to run an idea by you.

I’ve been thinking about using this Saturday space to occasionally do mini-podcast conversations with some of the talent we have out there – talent that I’ve learned to rely on to confirm information or to find out what’s really going on in a situation.

For example, I want to do an article on how the Cardinals have possibly identified command/control prospects with quality breaking pitches who could add velocity as an under-utilized asset in the draft. We saw this a few years ago when Jack Flaherty found a 2 mph increase in his fastball and, because of his pre-existing command and wicked stuff, grew from a mid-rotation prospect to an #1-2 starting prospect.

That seems to be what we’re seeing with Gordon Graceffo, Andre Pallante, Matthew Liberatore, and Zack Thompson. All four have added velocity to go along with quality breaking/offspeed pitches and they are playing up.

Normally I would research it a little and then go check my work with someone like Kyle. I would check the Red Baron’s work when he was here, too, just to confirm my thoughts.

It becomes my article, my words, but these other contributors inspired, informed, and confirmed the idea.

Why not just have Kyle on to talk about it? Why not let all of you hear his analysis for yourselves? You’ll still get my inane ramblings but you’ll couple it with a lot of his brilliance and chaos.

That said, this is a website. Where you read things. And it’s not all the convenient to listen to a podcast while you’re trying to be unproductive at work. That’s why I’m thinking it would be an occasional Saturday thing. Like today.

Let me know in the comments. Are you interested in a mini-pod format for some of these Saturday conversations? Maybe something called “Saturday Singles: a Mini-Pod Conversation with ______”. Would you prefer audio or video? What’s the right length for you? (After all, you can read these articles in 5 minutes. But it takes 10 minutes to drive to Lowes.)

Enjoy your Saturday! And if you’re feeling bored, feel free to come over and help me clean. Lots of work for everyone.