The Bernie Miklasz Show

Miles Mikolas has ranked among the worst starting pitchers in the majors for the last two seasons in ERA, strikeout rate, swing-miss rate. The contact rate against him is enormous. He doesn't miss many bats. And at 36 years old, Mikolas will be even more vulnerable (read: bad) in 2025.

Mikolas is under contract for 2025 at a salary over $17 million. If the Cardinals plan to keep Mikolas in place just because they owe him that money, the decision will intensify questions about their commitment to winning.

They need a better rotation in 2025, and it would be ludicrous to stay the course with Mikolas. They have to dump him and just eat the money that he's owed.

By the way: according to Spotrac, which tracks salary info, only four MLB teams invested more money on starting pitching this season than St. Louis. As we see again, this a front office that wastes too much money.

This is a "Bernie Bits" style video, an offshoot of the popular Bits column I did for 25 years at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In this vid, I discuss the following topics:

* Investment advice for the Ravens at Chiefs game. A few glaring trends caught my eye.

* My menu at home for the first game of the season, as a nod to Baltimore and Kansas City.

* Don't mess with my crab cakes. Keep the junk out of it. Keep it pure.

* The Cardinals are overachieving -- by a lot -- based on run differential.

* At 71-69, aren't the Cardinals basically what we thought they'd be, going into the season?

* I've had my fill of Cardinals nostalgia. I love tradition and nostalgia but it ca can't be your marketing campaign. Want the fans to come back? Give them a better team.

* And the star of the show: LUKEN BAKER. Instant impact. He's just what the Cardinals have needed all season: a right-handed hitter and role player who can come off the bench and hammer lefty pitchers. He hits for power and takes walks. And he's been great in pressure situations so far (and of course I have the numbers on that.

* Why in the heck did the Cardinal front office wait so long to bring him up? Once again the incompetence is almost comical.

* Tip of the cap to all of the Cardinals fans out there who were imploring the front office to give Baker a chance. You were so right. Kudos.

Oli Marmol takes a lot of heat, which is understandable considering that he's viewed as "John Mozeliak's guy." And if you are burned out on Mozeliak, then you probably are tired of his manager as well.

But based on actual job performance, Marmol has done many things right this season. (All managers make mistakes. Hardly breaking news when Marmol does it.) And Marmol has done about as well as he could with a roster that many of us thought was flawed and not good enough.

Like all managers, Marmol can only work with what the front office gives him. And despite the criticism that is not based on facts, Marmol has done an admirable job of running the bullpen this season. And yes, the facts support that opinion.

I discuss Marmol's handling of the bullpen late in the video, just in case you're wondering if I addressed that.

One thing I forgot to mention in today's video: compared to most MLB teams, the Cardinals are short on staffing and technology at the major-league level.

Paul Goldschmidt turns 37 years old on Sept. 10 and has already said he plans to play again in 2025. His St. Louis contract expires after this season.

During the first three months of the season, it looked like Goldy was succumbing to a severe aging curve. At that point, it was easy to just write him off and declare that it was time for the Cardinals to move on and come up with a new plan at first base.

But since the start of July, his offensive numbers continue to get better, and better and better. After performing 15 percent below league average offensively over the first three months, he's performed 29 percent above league average since the start of July.

How much will this old-Goldy charge influence the Cardinals decision on his future in St. Louis? At the very least, he's given the Cards something to think about.

The Milwaukee Brewers are running away with the NL Central and have the third-best record in the majors despite operating with a limited payroll as a team in the smallest market in MLB.

The Cardinals are outspending Milwaukee by $60 million this season, so why are the Brewers so much better? Lots of reasons.

But today, I want to focus on this: the Brewers are a very smart baseball team from top to bottom. The Cardinals are not. The Cardinals are the opposite of smart. We saw more examples of that in Milwaukee's 9-3 beatdown of the Redbirds on Monday.

And let's state the obvious: coaching and managing really does matter. The Brewers prove that too.

The 2024 Kansas City Chiefs are pursuing a third consecutive Super Bowl championship -- something that's never been done since the Super Bowl came into being for the 1966 season.

In Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs have perhaps the best coach/quarterback tandem in modern NFL history. Regular season and postseason combined, the Mahomes-Reid combo has a incredible .781 winning percentage.

Kansas City has improved the roster from top to bottom (especially at wide receiver) and will be more dangerous offensively in the deep passing game. The defense should be stellar again under coordinator Steve Spagnuolo. But the odds are stacked against KC.

History says "No" to the idea of the Chiefs winning three in a row. There's also a loaded AFC with a bunch of outstanding teams that will try to block the Chiefs from reaching the big game. But don't ever count out this coach-QB duo.

There's been some criticism of the no-shows at Busch Stadium. It's nonsense. It's unfair. It's ridiculous. As the DeWitts have said, the Cardinals couldn't have gone on a long run of high-level sustained success without the generous, consistent financial support of the franchise. The DeWitts depicted this as a partnership: if the fans do their part, we'll do our part. Nice. The fans have continued to do their part. So who broke the pact, the covenant? Not the fans.

It was ownership and management that let the product deteriorate. If the people who run and own the franchise had stayed on top of their business by smartly building postseason-worthy, championship-caliber teams, the fans would be packing the ballpark. But the Cardinals are about to miss the postseason for the 5th time in the last 9 seasons, and from where I sit, a commitment to winning shouldn't be a part-time deal.

The Cardinals let the fans down, and the fans have responded accordingly. They've spent a lot of money on tickets this season, with the Cards averaging 35,741 tickets sold per game. But these fans are opting to stay away from the ballpark as a form of protest -- which is justifiable.

The fans gave the franchise their money in a strong way this season. The Cardinals squandered it. The fans shouldn't be shamed. They didn't break the covenant. The ownership-management did.

I'm excited about the start of the 2024 college football season, and Mizzou gets underway tonight (8--29) with a home game vs. Murray State.

The expectations are huge for The Tigers after their 11-win campaign in 2023. And now with the playoff expanded to 12 teams, Mizzou has a good chance to be among the dozen teams that can compete for a national title. But the pressure is on. That's how it goes with heavier expectations.

For Mizzou to be one of the 12 playoff teams, the Tigers will have to avoid falling into traps and losing a game (or two) that they should not lose. And this season, unlike last season, Mizzou will be stalked by opportunistic opponents that want to knock the Tigers down to "where they belong."

No team will overlook MU. It's the exact opposite; opponents are coming for them. Mizzou faces -- by SEC standards -- a relatively easy conference schedule.

Coach Eli Drinkwitz is the ideal leader in this era of fierce recruiting, the chaos of the transfer portal, and the never-ending pursuit of NIL funding to lure recruits. Drinkwitz is a heck of a salesman, and that matters in today's CFB. But can the coach and his team pass a major test this season?

It's an exciting time. But it's also a nervous time -- as MU goes for back-to-back 10 win seasons for the first time since 1968-69.

Via Derrick Goold, the outstanding baseball writer at STLToday, it appears that Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak will fulfill the final year of his contract in 2025 -- and that ownership will "welcome him" to return and finish that contract.

This could be a huge fan-relations blunder for the Cardinals. Mozeliak has been running the baseball department since late October, 2007. Mozeliak Fatigue has clearly set in, and the condition is acute. But I want to wait and see how this plays out.

If Mozeliak returns for his final year but isn't in charge of baseball operations -- and if apparent successor Chaim Bloom has the power to make the decisions -- this could work out.

But if the Cardinals fail to make that perfectly clear to their disillusioned fan base -- Bloom is running the baseball operation, period, end of story -- then best of luck selling season tickets and individual-game tickers and leasing suites in 2025.

When Bill DeWitt Jr. purchased the St. Louis Cardinals before the 1996 season, the franchise was in decline. Diminishing crowds, a shortage of stars, mediocre results, and no postseason appearances since 1987.

It was a bad time, but DeWitt aggressively revived the franchise and led the Cardinals to a long and distinguished run of success loaded with stars, future Hall of Famers, big games in October and a new level of popularity. The fans loved it. I loved writing and talking about it. It was an incredible era for the Cardinals.

Take a look now. Sparse crowds, with fewer than 15,000 fans actually coming through the turnstiles for recent game. Dull team. Little entertainment value. Little star power. And possibly headed to a second consecutive losing season (full schedule) for the first time since the expansion era began in 1961.

The sad thing -- and the frustrating thing -- is that it didn't have to be this way. It didn't have to happen. But Mr. DeWitt let the franchise fall apart ... looking more like the down-and-out team he took over in 1996.

What's the old expression? Killed the golden goose.