ӣ����Ƶ

Greetings! Welcome back from the holiday. Hope you had an enjoyable, healthy weekend -- and that the travel snarls weren't too, too terrible. Can it be Thanksgiving weekend without a flight delay? After a holiday bye week, the Cardinals chat is back. I'm sure you've got questions. I'll do my best to provide answers.

There are already questions and comments rolling in, so as soon as I get the file ready for the easier-to-read transcript, I'll plunge in. No reason the chat can't get an early jump on the questions asked in between Cyber Monday shopping.

As a non-roster invitee to big league camp in his first spring training earlier this year, infield prospect JJ Wetherholt didn’t want to “step on any toes,” considering he was the “new guy” in Cardinals camp.

Less than a year removed from being selected by the Cardinals with the seventh overall pick in the 2024 MLB draft, Wetherholt arrived at his first big league camp as his club’s top-ranked prospect with 29 minor league games under him after joining Class Low-A Palm Beach after the draft. The spring setting gave him a chance to make first impressions on the Cardinals coaching staff and allowed him to share the field with experienced major leaguers in Grapefruit League games.

Not terribly far from JFK airport where one of the leagues’ most dominant and recently decorated closers, Emmanuel Clase, stepped off the plane and into custody because of charges stemming from an alleged pitch-fixing scheme, Major League Baseball gathered team owners for annual meetings in New York earlier this month.

A prominent topic between executives was one they’re all within proximity of — as ubiquitous in their industry as its billboards wallpapering ballparks.

A little more than a year removed from the finishing touches on one of the finest seasons ever by a Cardinals closer, Ryan Helsley has found a new flock that will turn to him in the ninth inning.

Helsley, one of the top free-agent relievers available, agreed to a deal Saturday with the Baltimore Orioles, a source confirmed to the Post-Dispatch. Helsley's signing with the Orioles and his two-year contract with a opt-out after 2026 was first reported by ESPN. A finalized deal is pending a physical.

During the winter between the Cardinals’ 1967 World Series championship and their return the next fall with their 12th National League pennant, a fixture of the clubhouse and club’s history received a check for a full share of the postseason payout. He hadn’t taken a swing or spun a curve, hadn’t drawn a walk or stole a base. He wasn’t one to get a uniform dirty, no sir.

But Butch Yatkeman was quick to note what else he and the Cardinals had not done in his decades with the team.

The biting breaking ball inevitably headed his way would be challenging enough, and still there were many at-bats this past season when Jordan Walker tried to find his footing in the batter’s box and felt like he was competing against more than just the opposing pitcher.

“The pitchers are too good,” he said. “I can’t fight my body and them at the same time.”