The St Louis Cardinals Have One Month To Right The Ship

To start the season, the St Louis Cardinals looked to take hold of first place. Over the last few weeks, however, they’ve hit the skids and time is running out.

The MLB season is now well underway, as we’re about halfway through June. By now we know which teams are playoff contenders and which are likely pretenders and we definitely know which are the tankers. One exception is the St Louis Cardinals, who reside in somewhat of a grey area between contender and pretender.

After starting the year 20-10 and atop the NL Central, the Cardinals have since gone 13-23 and now sit five games back of the Milwaukee Brewers.

The biggest part of their skid has been a starting pitching staff that has not lived up to expectations following 2018, which saw them put up a 3.52 ERA which ranked fifth in the majors.

This season the starting staff has put up an ERA of 4.36 which ranks 15th in the majors.

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This is largely in part due to the regression of Miles Mikolas and Jack Flaherty, who together put up an ERA of 3.04 in 2018 and were thought to be co-aces for this season’s Cardinals. Instead both have regressed and combined for an ERA of 4.48.

The other part of the Cardinals disappointment is the offense. In December St. Louis traded for superstar Paul Goldschmidt, expecting to boost an offense that had ranked 11th in runs scored and 14th in wRC+ (for those that aren’t familiar wRC+ is explained here).

However, the Cardinals have not gotten that boost, and have actually fallen, ranking 17th in wRC+ as of June 13th. Goldschmidt has been especially disappointing. Despite a .358 on-base percentage, the first baseman is slugging just .438 and striking out nearly 25% of the time.

The St Louis Cardinals brought Goldschmidt in to be their slugger and the bat that carried the team, yet Marcell Ozuna (.263/.333/.538 +18 homers) and Paul DeJong (.269/.362/.475 +10 homers) have been the team’s best hitters.

And it is tough sledding ahead if the Cardinals hope to make the playoffs.

The Brewers and Chicago Cubs both stand ahead of them in the standings, and both playing strong baseball as each team has won seven of their last ten. Meanwhile, the Cardinals are struggling to stay at .500 and keep their head above water.

St. Louis could be eyeing a wild card spot, but the room gets even more crowded there. As of June 13th, the Cardinals are 4 games out of the second Wild Card, trailing the Phillies. Ahead of them are the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks with the San Diego Padres and New York Mets also in the mix.

So St. Louis must make a decision: push for contention, or sell.

They could look at the first 30 games when they were among the best in the league, and decide that team can appear again. Or they can sell what pieces they can and try for 2020.

Obviously for fans pushing for contention is the more appealing option, but think it this way; if the Cardinals decide to keep everyone together and still fail, what then?

Well, they likely lose Marcell Ozuna for one (reminder he’s been their best pitcher) as well as Michael Wacha and Jedd Gyorko. Yadier Molina and Dexter Fowler also get another year older.

So what’s the approach if the Cardinals do decide to do a mini-sale?

It obviously starts with Ozuna, a free agent at the end of the year it would be a huge loss to not make the playoffs and then have the slugger walk away for nothing as well. With a .872 OPS and 18 home runs, the St Louis Cardinals could get some real value by trading him to a team that could be looking to upgrade for the playoffs. The Dodgers, Astros, Braves, and Phillies all come to mind.

Who would be next to go after that? Andrew Miller will only have one year and a team option left after this season on a reasonable deal, and he is having somewhat of a bounce-back campaign striking out more batters per nine than he did last year and allowing opponents to hit just .244 against him despite hitters getting an above-average .326 BABIP against him.

Gyorko, as it stands, wouldn’t be worth much as he’s batting just .196, but injuries have been a big part of it. In his three full seasons with St. Louis Gyorko has never had an OPS below .762 and in 2016 hit 30 homers. He also has the versatility to play all infield spots. If Gyorko can come off the injured list and prove he’s healthy and still has some pop, perhaps the Cardinals could pair he and Miller for a better package.

There’s also Jose Martinez, arguably the team’s best hitter who languishes on the bench. Martinez has only gotten 187 plate appearances this year but has still hit .288 and driven in 23 runs. His slugging and OPS are lower than you’d think, but we can chalk that up to the up-and-down nature of his playing time. Martinez is under control through 2020 on a cheap deal and put up an OPS over .800 in the previous two seasons, something teams would eat up.

Now the St Louis Cardinals and their front office don’t like to mail it in and always try to push for contention even if the only thing ahead of them is a brick wall. They could chalk it up to an unfortunate year (the fourth in a row) and lose Ozuna and try to sign someone else, but who would replace him? He’ll likely be priced out of their range by a team like the Chicago White Sox or Texas Rangers, which would leave *checks notes* Yasiel Puig?

The more likely scenario is the Cardinals hand the reins to Tyler O’Neill and hope he can become the player in the majors that he’s been in the minors (in 64 AAA games O’Neill hit 26 homers) and fill the void.

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Time will tell but with just over a month to go until the trade deadline, the St Louis Cardinals have until then to decide if they’re going to be contenders, or a team tricking itself (and no one else) into thinking it’s a contender.

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