A Howling 2024 Review

01/01/2025 09:00 AM

Reminiscing about the year that was 2024

Is it too soon to feel nostalgic about 2024? I cannot believe I just wrote that, but writing this is making me realize this last year wasn't quite the absolute terror that it felt like much of the time. Or at the least, I am able to think about the things that weren't so bad. And here we are, in a new year, probably hungover or maybe just sleep deprived. Or maybe it's just a nice day off. If you have to work I hope that it's because you need to, not that you have to. Oh wait, nevermind. You're working today, not reading this. Or maybe you are?

Well whatever. I'm just going to assume that you're hungover reading this, maybe still drinking even. I hope not, that would mean you are that tenth decile level drunk. And there lies the daredevils and miracle workers and carefree killers, and the otherwise invincible. Until they no longer are of course. How am I supposed to not write about alcohol when my target audience will be on New Year's Day. Happy New Year you rapscallions, vagabonds, and ruffians. And also you, loyal Viva El Birdos reader. The saints, outcasts, and blasted minds come together sometimes.

I hope baby new year is treating you well somehow. In the past one of my favorite things to do on New Year's is play and record music, but I'm not sure if I'll do that this year because I might do that New Year's Eve night. And of course some years you just don't want to do anything at all but recover and prepare for the mysterious newness. When absolutely nothing is really new but the end number of the calendar date. Arbitrary endpoints anyone?

Technically it is a beginning but the beginning involves lots of bleak wintery shortened days and waiting for the next big thing. For us baseball fans, that will be not so far away, 6 weeks from the New Day. But it will be a long six weeks until pitchers and catchers report. But that is part of the appeal of baseball, it goes year long even though the games only matter 6 to 7 months a year. There are rosters to be constructed, free agents to be signed, and plenty of moves to be made still on New Year's Day.

I'm not really writing about that today though. I'm writing about 2024. By golly, I do go on and on sometimes. Don't get me started, I can be really quiet too.

A year ago on New Year's Day, we found out that we ranked Takoah Roby the #4 prospect overall. We had correctly ranked Masyn Winn #1 before 2023 ended, Tink Hence was #2 (and only lost 1 spot in 2024), while Victor Scott II was famously selected as the #3 prospect overall. He is no longer technically a prospect as far as I'm concerned, but I don't think he would be top 5 now. Should Roby be #4 again? Looking at that article our #5 was Saggese a year ago.

Blake Newberry broke the important news to us about Chaim Bloom on January 9th 2024 with a cheeky headline!

https://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2024/1/9/24030729/the-cardinals-arent-waiting-for-spring-to-bloom (you're the best, Blake)

J.P. Hill lamented the Cardinals budget machinations here: https://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2024/1/10/24031552/re-evaluating-the-cardinals-offseason-in-light-of-their-self-imposed-budget-constraints

...and here is a podcast for you Dayn Perry fans! thanks again J.P.

Before January even was over, there were so many great articles from almost a year ago... check out Blake's informative piece on high breaking balls. Be enlightened.

I will only look back a year ago for highlighting VEB articles, because I have a veritable smorgasbord of content for you here on New Year's Day.

2024 Bullet Points come get them tasty factoids

• Jimmy Crooks III was ranked #16 prospect by VEB last year. He had a hell of a season, he is rising...
• Gabe thought that Victor Scott II should not have made the opening day roster
• Curtis thought we were going to sign Jordan Montgomery, we didn't and then he thought that the Cardinals really blew an opportunity there
• 35% of VEB correctly predicted that the Cardinals would win 80-85 games. They won 83.
• 74% of VEB thought the Cardinals would win 80-89 games
• 12% of VEB thought the Cardinals would win 90+ games and a full 1% thought we would win 100 or more games! In fact, 11 people thought that and only 8 people thought we would win 95-99.
• 14% of VEB thought we would be under 80 wins, which I guess is about right considering we finished last place in 2023. But still, you guys are negative! Jeez! Haha just kidding, you are probably not just pessimists but also realists. They kind of overachieved didn't they.
• The majority correctly predicted that the Cardinals would finish in second place. But I don't think anyone could've imagined we would have been tied with the Cubs.
• Over ¹⁄₃ of VEB thought that we would have a worst to first finish from 2023 to 2024.
• 46% of VEB thought that we would miss the playoffs and we sure did.
• We all thought that it would be extremely likely that one of the two Nolans would be the best performer on offense but wow were we completely wrong about that. Nolan Gorman was awful on offense and Arenado was a huge letdown if not technically a BAD hitter in 2024. He was just average. Only 11% thought Willson Contreras would be our best hitter.
• Blake Newberry's season predictions... he was only off by one win with a guess of 84!
• One of my childhood heroes, Cardinals great Whitey Herzog passed away last April, and I wrote my first (non-recap) official VEB article about it
• Viva El Birdos cranked out its most articles from May to August, over 80 articles each month! February only produced 31 articles. Overall it's what you'd expect, warming up in April and cooling down in September, with the late fall and winter months being slowest. At least we have this hot stove.
• Never forget the Pham slam https://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2024/7/30/24210155/cardinals-pham-slam-rangers-in-st-louis-7-30-24 an absolute highlight of 2024!
• Other highlights included McGreevy's two starts, making many of us hope that he will be in the 2025 rotation... what does 2024 J.P. think? No McGreevy, Matz traded away (still quite plausible!), Lynn is back... Nope. They did not do that. We still don't know anything else.
• Another highlight was the drafting of our now #1 prospect JJ Wetherholt last summer!
• J.P.'s fWAR vs bWAR dialog regarding Masyn Winn
• We were all baffled by the Cardinals run differential last season and struggled to explain it, so Gabe tried to help us with this maybe not so lucky rundown
• https://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2024/9/25/24253786/an-early-look-at-2025-payroll

Ok that's enough bullets for now. What did we learn from 2024? That change and Chaim is in the air. That chaos that is the blowback of a last place finish by a very very successful franchise produces explosive growth... or more explosions. The Cardinals have quickly made a lot of change in one year, I feel. And set themselves up for much flexibility in preparation of another transitional year.

Gone are one season rotational fill-ins Kyle Gibson and retread Lance Lynn. Hints at Matz and maybe even Fedde being gone are not fantasies but open possibilities. The 2025 rotation is still up in the air like so much debris in the breeze. I think it impossible to predict what the 2025 rotation will ultimately be like but until the dust settles, I'll provide a guess: Sonny Gray, Fedde, Pallante, McGreevy, Mikolas. But who the heck knows? Matz could still be here too. He most definitely is at the time of this writing.

Best Albums I listened to in 2024

I am sort of taking a week off from inducting records into my hall of perfect albums to talk about what albums I listened to and enjoyed a lot in 2024. This is not my "official" best of 2024 list. I will get to that later. These are the albums that I got into when they actually came out and continued listening to in '24. This will be the first time I make two album lists for one year, but I have been thinking of this idea for years now. That's because I used to write about music and do album reviews for a couple few sites over the year. I don't write reviews often enough, but over the years I get into music writing off and on and wish to do it more. I should get on that sometime.

1. Kim Gordon - 'The Collective' (Deluxe Edition) ok so the first pattern I have noticed about this first 2024 album list I've made is that some older rockers have made the list! Several of these albums are from bands going back to the 90's and 80's and Kim is the definition of 80's and 90's cool for some. Me being one of those people! So it was really encouraging to hear her do something as daring as this album in 2024. Kim is 71 years young in 2024 so if you like super cool, hip septuagenarian rap, this album is for you and just might be my album of the year, it's still growing on me. Kim Gordon is of course originally from no wave punk/alt rock/noise stalwarts Sonic Youth, one of my favorite bands of all time. This album though sounds like grungy feminist alterna-hiphop. If you like your rap gritty and wild sounding, this is for you. Or even if you just like Sonic Youth, you'll probably dig this too. It's not just catchy it's unique and hard to classify. A definitive album experience as well. Perfect.
2. Medicine - 'Medicine' after years and years and years of being a band, Los Angeles based Medicine finally drop their eponymous album. Medicine self titled is a masterwork of American psychedelic pop rock. In the past they have ranged from even noisier than My Bloody Valentine shoegaze facemelting albums in the 1990s to the goth rock heard on their song on the cult classic The Crow soundtrack to experimental psyche pop and even modular synth studies. This is a rather indescribable album that I am still just beginning to absorb after 5+ listens in. It is densely packed with utter joy and is an instant classic upon first listen at the same time. Something that gets you hooked right away and then keeps getting better and better somehow. The band also had a cameo in the movie The Crow so it is quite possible you know them and don't know it. Around since the year 1990, I think they are one of the best American rock bands of all time. But be forewarned, the guitarist and producer Brad Laner has been known to use anything from old tape decks to full on mixers as wildly routed guitar pedals producing some of the most seething and mindmelting guitar tones every created on planet Earth. But he also has a keen pop sensibility and is good at songwriting so it's a wild ride. The band has featured a few different talented goth styled woman vocalists since 1990, including Bruce Lee's daughter, but on this album Julia Monreal is the singer and she gives it a bit more of a pop vibe. Again, an aging band makes an astonishing album in 2024. This might end up being my album of the year after I give it some more listens.
3. Beth Gibbons - 'Lives Outgrown' this is pretty much my most mature music list I have ever made. Another 90's legend Beth Gibbons returned to our attention, basically from out of nowhere since the last Portishead album was years and years ago in the 00's. All three albums I have listed so far have featured absolutely amazing, stunning productions and performances to match, backed by musicians of excellence and charm. But even with such fantastic accoutrements, Beth Gibbons voice sores above it all in marvelous fashion. Her haunting yet extremely present vocals have always been captivating, and perhaps never moreso than this intimate album. This is another album that I am still absorbing even after multiple listens. I don't find myself going to it often but it is top notch start to finish and very memorable. While it may not be another Portishead album, it needs to be heard and continues down the path left off on 'Third', but also its own thing.
4. Fu Manchu - 'The Return of Tomorrow' by the looks of my most listened to albums of 2024, it feels more like The Return of Yesterday. But on 'The Return of Tomorrow' aging road warrior rock veterans FU MANCHU bring the monstrously heavy slabs of 70's rock 'n roll blended with skater punk energy back to their youthful levels of output. The tones are tasty again, the songwriting is tight as can be, the whole album flows from start to finish, and somehow they have nearly matched the levels of quality heard on legendary 1990's masterpieces of desert rock 'In Search Of' and 'The Action Is Go'. Two of my favorite rock albums of all time. So it was nice to hear them re-capture that spirit as old men. It's rare that rock bands in general can remain relevant and match their younger output, but I'm sure glad that these southern California desert dwellers are still at it! I still remember the first time I played this album because it brought a big smile to my face. Their album before this was a nice step back in the right direction but not quite like this one revisited their past but with a few sly new tricks up their sleeves. Fu Manchu started as a band way back in 1985! So they're almost as old experienced as Kim Gordon.
5. Brant Bjork 'Once Upon A Time In The Desert' this one is more of an honorable mention since I just discovered it more recently, but while we are on the topic of desert rock, this one needs to be mentioned. My favorite Brant Bjork album in years! He was the drummer of Fu Manchu at one point, and also the drummer and a founding member of legendary southern Cali 90's rock monsters KYUSS. Read up on this legendary rock musician here. He's like the cool version of Dave Grohl, moving from behind the kit to frontman guitarist. I also recommend his album 'Jalamanta' and his band Che.

Ok I liked, I am inducting not none but THREE albums into the album hall of fame this time. Kim Gordon's 'The Collective', the self titled Medicine album, and Beth Gibbons 'Lives Outgrown'. That's how much I've liked hearing them so far. I'll put in some Fu Manchu albums later.

Ok, thanks for reading all that! I hope to get some playlists together for you guys to hear but I want them to be of the best quality possible so I'll wait on that. For now, just listen to some best of 2024 albums! I will have plenty more to talk about after I listen to more releases.

HAPPY NEW YEAR VEB! Let's hope 2025 is better but for now, realize that we learned a lot from 2024 and that it was a big transitional year. What's the follow is anyone's guess, but I think the Cardinals are doing the right things and if nothing else music will always be there for you, it's in the air and you don't even know it yet.