Hey everybody. Welcome to the RotaWire Fantasy Baseball podcast. I am Todd Zola filling in for James Anderson. James has taken a couple of well-deserved weeks off. He's still doing his prospecting for the site. He has a nice article about some hitting tears. James is

still helping us out, but I needed a couple pinch hits for the podcast. And here I am with my good

friend and colleague, Brian Walton, from the Cardinals Nation, correct? The Cardinal Nation.com.

Absolutely.

And you help me out a little bit with creative sports now and again.

We're a little bit of a lull, unfortunately, for writers.

We still have Thomas Seltzer helping us out.

But our dual venture creative sports from Lar Michaels is still hot.

It's still out there.

Maybe we'll get some new writers for the baseball season.

We'll see.

But the Cardinals Nation, the Cardinal Nation, that's why we're asked, well, because it's fun talking to you anyway.

But the St. Louis Cardinals are one of the busier teams in the hot stove.

Ask Jeff Erickson on the radio over the weekend after they signed Gibson and Lynn, are they done? And we both agreed they weren't. And they weren't. Are the

Cardinals done now? Do you think? Unless they can come up with a deal that makes good sense for them. I think if you look at what

happened to them last year, the Cardinals, before they lost 91 games, last winter is where I met,

they went into the offseason with a very clear need at catcher. Okay, Yadir Malina is retiring, future Hall of Fame. We're probably, Carlos have a tremendous need. While they went into the winter meetings hoping to make a trade with Toronto or Oakland for one of the young catchers, they couldn't get the job done. And all of a sudden, they're over the barrel. And if Wilson Contreras signs, they're going to end up with nobody. If Wilson's Contrera signs somewhere else.

So they had to give them an extra year and a lot more money than they were comfortable

with to fill that need.

Now, you know, fast forward 12 months.

They're coming off a last play season during which for the first time in a long,

long time, they were major sellers at the deadline,

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