Once the class of the NL Central, the St. Louis Cardinals are no longer the team to beat in the National League. With the Chicago Cubs and the Pittsburgh Pirates having a brighter future – both in the present and looking toward the future – all signs point to St. Louis not having the success they used to enjoy only a few years ago.
They currently have a 8-7 record (good for second in the NL Central behind the Cubs), yet everybody’s already talking about how they’ve been a disappointment early in the season.
The question most fans are asking is: what happened to the Cardinals? After all, they are coming off a 100-win season last year, and most of the players they had in 2015 are back with the team. The only notable exceptions are Jason Heyward and John Lackey – both signed with the Cubs on the free agent market – but they would also get the returns of Matt Holliday, Adam Wainwright and Jaime Garcia, all players that missed considerable time last year.
The roster (at least on paper) is clearly not the problem, then.
One of the problems could be their inability to score, but this is also another area where they have improved: after ranking 24th last season in runs, the Cardinals now lead all of baseball with 91 runs in only 15 games. Offense good enough? Check.
Another problem could be the struggles of the rotation, most notably Adam Wainwright. Waino is still the ace of the team, but he hasn’t been the same since returning from the Achilles injury that kept him sidelined for most of 2015. Wainwright has a 8.27 ERA in three starts this season (ranks 52th out of 54th qualified pitchers thus far), but the starting rotation as a whole has a 3.68 ERA. Not the best in the world, but one you can live with if you have enough offense.
The final reason – and the one I’m inclined to believe – is that, in fact, there’s nothing wrong with the Cardinals, and that their problems are generated due to an improvement in the quality of some clubs in the National League.
Think about it: the Cubs are massively improved when compared to last year, the Pirates have been very good – and they’ve always improved – over the past three years, the Los Angeles Dodgers still have a good lineup and Clayton Kershaw, the New York Mets have arguably the best rotation in all of baseball and the San Francisco Giants made a splash in free agency with the signings of Jeff Samardzija and Johnny Cueto.
To make matters worse, the Cardinals lost to the Cubs in the NLDS last year, and they currently are 1-5 against Chicago and the Pirates to start 2016.
There might be nothing wrong about the Cardinals. It seems they only need to up their performance against their direct rivals (they’re 1-5 against Pittsburgh and Chicago this year) to be on the same level as the other contenders in the NL.