Congratulations, Alex Birge!
It was a pleasure watching you play at Cal
Dear Alex Birge,
I was getting my daily micro dose of Cal Baseball, when suddenly, I saw this on the interwebs:
Maybe the Calgorithm knows too much about me, or not—who knows. It’s such a blackbox—but my initial reaction: Wow!…
…Just Wow. You are continuing your baseball dreams playing for a storied franchise that’s on the opposite end of the state of Missouri.
No, I’m not talking about the Kansas City Royals, although playing for them could be ideal as well since you’re from Olathe, Kansas, but hey!, the St Louis Cardinals are just as amazing.
Ahem. I say all that to say this: I will miss watching you play at Stu Gordon Stadium. Your tomahawk swing, which, by the way, reminds me of Daulton Varsho, looked like you were going to hit one out of the ballpark.
Despite your easy to forget numbers, you had some pop—12 HRs is not a fluke—and maybe that’s what the Cardinals noticed about you. They admired your raw power and want to refine you into a slugger.
Who really knows. I’m just speculating as a fan. Ahem. Anyways. You mentioned that you made lifelong friends and lasting memories at Cal, but I want to take it a step further: as you pack your bags and transition to a new life in the Cardinals minor league system:
- What are some of the baseball insights that you learned from Cal that you will continually apply in your career, regardless of the highs and lows of the season?
- When you’re experiencing a slump, and the emotions fluctuate, how do you take care of yourself on the field and off the field?
- Who in your personal and professional life that you could reach out to for immediate and long-term support?
Maybe you need more time to think about them. Or maybe you don’t, and that’s okay too.
Okay, I don’t want to lose the forest for the trees, so let me get to the point: as a baseball player, you are more than your baseball statistics. You are human too, so your numbers only reflect a part of you as a baseball player. They don’t reflect who you are as a whole person—your intersectionalities, in other words.
And so, when you apply such context to where you are right now, you have a bright future ahead of you. No matter the sample size, by simply being yourself, I see you being a tough out and fouling balls ad nauseam until you get a pitch you want and drive it to the desired parts of the diamond.
Overall, it was a pleasure watching you play at Cal. I look forward to streaming your at-bats in the minor leagues and beyond.
Continued success. Go Bears!
—David
Alex Birge is another example of Cal Baseball's ability to develop future pros. He didn't do much offensively during his time at Wichita State, but found the power at Cal to be the team's top homerun hitter last season.
This Birge news got me to look up what happened to Kade Kretzschmar, who was a graduate student at Cal after a solid career at Dartmouth. Kretzschmar also signed with the Cardinals organization as an undrafted free agent in 2023 and played that year and 2024 before being out of organized baseball after reaching the High-A.
Birge had a good on-base percentage for the Bears to go with his HR numbers. A good combination. Though batted ball % (vs. K’s) is important, I’ve come to value OBP as much as BA. Mark Canha’s long MLB career is testament to the value of high OBP.