By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor
(MIZ-WOW)—The team that many experts thought would finish sixth in its SEC Division has made believers out of many this year, and now just Tiger fans. Finishing the season with the highest-scoring game of the year and a 10-2 record that the pre-season pundits had dismissed as an impossibility and national television exposure that grew as the season went along opens a lot of recruiting foors and transfer portals, laying the groundwork for a 2024 season with high expectations.
The tub-thumping has begun for Heisman Trophy candidacy for Cody Schrader, a Cinderfella story for the Tigers, one of the best feel-good stories in decades at Mizzou.
Next weekend, we’ll find out which major bowl game will feature one of the surprise teams of this year’s NCAA football season.
(MIZZ BASETBALL)—The Tigers are at Pittsburgh tonight. Coach Dennis Gates continues to experiment with different rotations, hoping one of them will be the most reliable five to be on the port.
(CHIEFS)—Oh, no, here we go again…..
Or so we thought through the first quarter of Sunday’s game between the Chiefs and the Oakland/ Los Angeles/Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders. Then Kanss City started to put things together in the second quarter and wiped out the 14-0 Raider start and outscored them 31-3 to the end.
Blockers blocked, runners ran, only one pass was dropped. 31-17. Chiefs head to Lambeau Field in Green Bay Sunday night. The Packers beat the Lions 29=22 last weekend.
(CARDINALS)—Sonny Gray signed with the Cardinals for three years and $75 million yesterday. He’s another guy who is approaching senior status in the game, joining the two guys signed last week, Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn, both of whom are 36. Gray is 34.
He was the runnerup to Gerritt Cole of the Yankees in this year’s Cy Young balloting. He was only 8-8 last year but he had a 2.79 ERA in 184 innings with the Twins. But he also had a strikeout to walk ratio of 183-55 a 1.15 WHIP through his 32 starts. Opposing batters hit only .226 against him and hit only 0.4 home runs per nine inning game His record in recent years shows he is not a dominant pitcher but he is an innings-chewer.
The Cardinals will have one of the oldest pitching staffs in baseball next year. These three are joined by Steven Matz, 32, and Miles Mikolas, 35 in a possible five-man rotation. Signing the three new guys to short-term deals limits exposure to poor results as age settles in on all five.
While we wait to see if John Mozeliak will pull any more, or any younger, rabbits out of the hat, let’s root for Left Fielder Matt Holliday who is making his first appearance on the Hall of Fame ballot this year. He has more than 2,000 hits, 316 home runs, more than 12-hundred RBIs and a career .299 batting average. He spent six years with the Rockies and eight with the Cardinals where he hit almost half of his homers and batted .293. He won the Silver Slugger Award four times, played in seven all-star games and had a career Wins-Above-Replacement of 44.5.
We’ll get our first PR jolt of Cardinals red with the annual Cardinal Caravan visits to several cities in January. There is more than one group of players that go out and meet the fans on these caravans. The schedule has the players in Hannibal and Jefferson City and Springfield on January 12, in Columbia, Rolla, and Joplin on the 13th, and Cape Girardeau on the 15th.
(ROYALS)—The Royals have been pretty quiet in the first month of the post-season. They did pull off a trade with the Braves for a couple of pitchers who seem to be of limited value in 2024. Maybe in ’25, though.
The Royals picked up reliever Nick Anderson in a straight-cash deal. He returned last season afer missing all of 2022 after elbow surgery. He had 36 strikeouts and only nine walks in the 35 1/3 innings that he pitch before he was shut down for a shoulder strain in the last have of the season. He was sent out on rehab at the end of the season.
The Royals also added starter Kyle Wright but he is not likely to pitch next year. He has undergone surgery on his right shoulder. The Royals hope he can be restored to his 2022 health when he won 21 games, which led the major leagues, and a 3.19 ERA. He’s 28. He comes to Kansas City in a trade for Jackson Kowar, who never rounded into the talent the Royals hoped for when they made him the number five overall draft pick.