Sometimes, depending on the situation, we “CATCH A DIFFERENT VIEW” of an act, a movement, an expression, whatever. It’s also true in sports…we often “CATCH A DIFFERENT VIEW”. …. Sometimes, we’re in a hurry to criticize a coach (everywhere from grade school coaches to professional coaches) but seem slow to recognize some strong achievements of local coaches. Sooo…. lets CATCH A DIFFERENT VIEW of Mizzou Mens-basketball coach-Dennis Gates. Recently, he was recognized by a group of national writers as a “TOP 5” candidate in the National Coach of the Year race. I surely never expected that recognition! It’s REALLY been an incredible turn-around @ Columbia, MU hardcourts. MU limped its way through a 8-24 season last year. This year, MU is 18-6 overall and 7-4 in the SEC. A couple portal adds and some significant improvement by the returning players have led them to key wins over Kansas, Florida & Ole Miss. We should hear Mizzou’s name called out on Selection Sunday in a few weeks. Congrats to Mizzou for “staying with” Coach Gates! …. CATCHING A DIFFERENT VIEW of Nolan Arenado (aren’t we all tired of the haggling over getting rid of him?). Clearly, he was 2nd fiddle @ 3b behind Alex Bergman according to the reactions of other MLB General Managers. All the “talk” centered around …”after Bergman signs, than Arenado will be moved”. Bregman has an been advantage in recent years in average exit velocity and whiff rate — simply put, he seems to have better bat-to-ball and barrel control skills than Arenado. Well…Bergman just signed with Boston for 3 years/$120m contract. He had turned down Detroit’s 6 year offer of $171.5 million. The Cards have no interest in swimming in those $150m+ contract waters. Now, who can we “dump” …oops….trade Arenado to prior to spring training? Hoping to get a decent return. Getting more than “good” prospects will be challenging. Btw…when you have a minor league player…his chance of reaching the MLB is a scanty 10%!!!(That shocked me). The entire MLB knows our situation…Cards don’t want his salary (or any big salary) & Arenado doesn’t want to be on a losing team. That’s a bad combination for the Cards to get value in a trade.
…CATCHING A TOTALLY DIFFERENT VIEW was the Super Dud…oops…SUPER BOWL! Philly was up 24-0 before halftime “goodies” came out. It was still very one-sided 34-6 after 3 periods. I would think by that time that most viewers had turned their attention more to the friends & food than the game. KC fans might be alibiing that it wasn’t that bad. Sorry…IT really WAS THAT BAD. It was an early blow-out game. KC was NEVER in the game! A pair of Mahomes interceptions cost them 14 points but that wasn’t the deciding factor. It was the complete domination of the line play on both sides of the ball by Philly. Now in his prime @26 years of age, QB Jalen Hurts completed 77% of his passes and finished with a QB rating of 119. A “good” QB rating for a game is generally considered to be above 100! Sooo.. he had a “career best game” at just the right time. …. But, Philly was “coached up” perfectly by Head Coach Nick Sirianni. He was hired after the end of the 2021 season as a 40 year old NFL HC. That’s really young for an NFL coach!! Shortly thereafter, the Eagles traded QB Carson Wentz and turned the QB position over to Jalen Hurts. Sirianni hired a young staff with 1 exception—the offensive line coach-Jeff Stoutland. You can see now that it was a very shrewd decision for Sirianni & the Eagles to keep Stoutland. Their offensive line play was a vital factor in the Philly success. There’s isn’t much “glory” in making good blocks on the LOS play after play. Except, that’s how you win games. …. Saquon Barkley was brought in to handle the running back responsibilities. Every “good” team must have the balance of run/pass. Barkley rushed for 2005 yards in the 2024 season. In that 2024 season, the Eagles had a total of 6,565 offensive yards. So Barkley’s carries accounted for 34.8% of the offense! Barkley did far more than just filling that required “running back” roll. He helped keep the offense balanced & the KC defense off-balance. On the other side of the ball– there wasn’t any room for the Mahomes Magic that carried KC to several victories in 2024. Another motivational factor was that Philly wanted to avenge the 2022 Super Bowl 38-35 loss to KC. …Staying with football…but TAKING A TOTALLY DIFFERENT VIEW in College Football. There’s a “NEW” season now for college football. It’s the portal transfer season. Players come & go from 1 team to the next. Let’s see how the Mizzou Tigers did this year. Keep in mind that 10 incoming Frosh are arriving for 2nd semester –spring practice. That’s another new wrinkle to me). …Mizzou lost 2 Def Ends to the portal. Jaylen Brown (South Carolina)& Williams Nwaneri (Nebraska) have moved on. Meanwhile Mizzou signed 3 DE’s this spring–Damon Wilson II (from Georgia); Nate Johnson (from Appalachian State); Langden Kitchen (from NW Missouri State). My eyebrows were raised when I saw a Georgia player coming to Mizzou. Let’s see if he’s a player or a project. …At Wide Receiver MU lost 2 receivers to the portal– Mekhi Miller (Tulsa) & Courtney Crutchfield (Arkansas). The Tigers signed ST. Mary’s Graduate-Kevin Coleman JR from Mississippi State. Coleman was a 3rd-team All-SEC selection for Mississippi State last year as he caught 74 passes for 932 yards & 6 TDS. He should start in the slot. ….At RUNNING BACK, 1 Frosh from Louisiana-Monroe transferred in–Ahmad Hardy. He was a High School All-American. Meanwhile, 1 transferred out–Kewan Lacy signed with Ole Miss. Lacy had 24 carries for 104 yards, mostly as the No. 4 running back on the depth chart @ Columbia, MO in ’24 …AT Def Back, Jaren Sensabaugh (to NC State) & Phillip Roche (Undecided) moved on. From what I read about them, neither figured into the “future” for Mizzou. Meanwhile all 4 of the D-Back transfers should contend for a starting spot–Jalen Catalon (UNLV); Mose Phillips III (Virginia Tech); Santana Banner (Northern Illinois); Stephen Hall (Washington State). …Frankly, it seems to me that when these players “move on”, they’ll find about the same amount of playing time at the new campus unless they “go down” a level in competition. I’m still not a Portal Fan. The tremendous amount of money that is used to get college students to move to another campus to play football is mind boggling to me. My DIFFERENT VIEW is … I wonder how many of these students ever a) make the NFL or b) get a degree? BTW, about 850 college players reach the NFL each year. There are about 73,712 college football players each year. That’s 1.15% of the players!!! ….CATCHING A DIFFERENT VIEW than the Cardinals–It seemed like a good idea to me to sign local boy (from Parkway Central HS)who has excelled in the MLB. Max Scherzer will make 2025 his final year in the MLB. I guess, his 1 year salary ($15.5m) didn’t appeal to the Cardinals brass since they are in the process of removing any seasoned veteran with a sizable contract. That being said…. It would have been cool (at least to me & I’m sure many other fans) to see this highly successful pitcher wrapping up his career in his home town. Further, he would have become the ACE of the 2025 Cards staff (at least in my mind). I mean if the Cards can spend $25m for Sonny Gray, $17,666,667 for Miles Mikolas and $12,500,000 for Steven Matz but they couldn’t, or didn’t want to do so, spend $15.5m for Scherzer? Ranking these 4 pitchers right now in their careers, I’d put Scherzer on top as the best! ….CATCHING ANOTHER DIFFERENT VIEW OF THE CARDINALS…We always knew that the Cardinals weren’t in LA or NY…that their budget actually DID have a limit. But…in recent days, the Cards are showing a new frugal side in their recent player negotiations. Brandon Donovan, who won a Gold Glove and finished 3d in the Rookie of the year award sought a $3.3m contract. The Cards offered $2.85m. That’s a difference of $450,000. The Cardinals “won” this arbitration battle so Donovan gets $2.85..Now…that’s a ton of money for most of us. But in the MLB world, it really isn’t! Last year the average salary is $15m while the median salary is $1.5m. But, he wasn’t alone in filing for arbitration. Lars Nootbaar won his arbitration fight against the Cards @ 2.95m. The Cards had offered $2.45m. Again, $500,000 in MLB money is rather insignificant. Is it really worth the fight, the relationship between the Cardinals & their players? Andre Pallante “won” his arbitration vs STL with his $2.1m contract. The Cards had offered$1.925. Arbitration over $175,000??? Really, I realize that it’s business….but at some point…if you’re looking down the road and hoping to keep these guys, arbitration isn’t the road to travel. …Speculating now….Along these same “frugal” lines, is it possible that Jim Edmonds announcing days came to an end due to a “cut” in finances by the Cardinals after his 12 years of announcing. They had to fly him in & out from California and pay him for his work. Edmonds’ parting words of “ changes in the culture surrounding the St. Louis Cardinals have made it “not fun anymore” doesn’t sound like a “full” explanation to me. ….For example, we’ve been told that the Cardinals are in a “reset” mode for 2025 (and you can bet it’ll be longer than 1 year). But…how “bad” will the Cards be in 2015? Take a look at ESPN’s view as they TAKE A DIFFERENT VIEW on the Cardinals chances for reaching the World Series than the local press. The Cards tied with Toronto & Cincinnati for the 21st best team (there are 30 teams). The Redbirds are listed @ 60-1 odds to win the League Championship. … I’m wondering if there will be a “reset” in the price of tickets?!! The Cards made the decision to pay less for their roster…so shouldn’t fans pay less to watch this inferior group. Don’t hold your breath on that idea!!! Remember, I said 18 months ago that I thought the DeWitts would be selling the team. I think these recent decisions reflect that observation. …It takes a huge investment in players to reach the World Series. Generally, teams that don’t invest heavily have only a slight, I mean very slight, chance of reaching the Series. Here’s a DIFFERENT VIEW of the average total team payroll across MLB so far in 2025. The average salary is at $152,701,342. The Cardinals are 19th in spending for 2025 @ $125,019,167. That’s an 18% lower amount than the average!! Remember…$152,701,342 is the AVERAGE not the HIGHEST! ….The SEC is known for its football. But…CATCHING A DIFFERENT VIEW–currently in the Mens’ Basketball National Top 10 rankings, there are 5 SEC teams (#1 Auburn, #2 Alabama, #3 Florida, (yes, the top 3 NCAA basketball teams are from the SEC) #5 Tennessee,#8 Texas A&M. My guess is that these SEC basketball coaches are having the “money doors” opened by NIL money. It’s flowing in for them just as it did for the SEC football NIL donations. …Which MLB team had the best off-season? Well…lets CATCH A DIFFERENT VIEW to find out. The NY Mets added the most projected “war” stats with the new players joining them this year. The Mets, who added nearly 9.0 WAR, barely exceeded the Dodgers wth their +7.5 additional WAR. The Mets additions were Juan Soto (+6.5 WAR), one of the strongest hitters in recent history, and highly likely to reach some batting marks of all kinds in a Mets uniform. Mets also signed 4 starting pitchers, – Sean Manaea (+2.0 WAR), Clay Holmes (+2.3 WAR), Frankie Montas (+1.4 WAR), Griffin Canning (+0.4 WAR). I must admit, NYM acquired desperately needed quantity, if not quite ace-level quality, for their pitching depth. Signing with NYM were 2 relievers (A.J. Minter, Ryne Stanek) and a pair of veteran, versatile position players (Jose Siri, Jesse Winker), combining for +3.4 WAR. Boy…wouldn’t it be fun to have a local team actually trying to win. Btw…If any fan thinks that the Cards will be “out” of their rebuild program in 1 year…. Dream again!! Now, the Mets MUST sign highly paid star players to stay competitive since the Yankees share the same city. Star power reigns in NY!! …Thanks for your time & read! Hope that you’ll consider responding to any of the topics. Just send it to me on my Facebook page (Bob Ryan) or email it to rjryansr@charter.net
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