Much of the reason this Cardinals season has reached the flashing-lights danger zone with 40 games to go can be traced back to one costly conclusion.
A $60 million duo has disappointed.
Veteran cornerstone infielders Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado have gone from the winner and third-place finisher in 2022 National League MVP voting to, at best, league-average producers of offense.
The regression has been startling because of the speed with which it’s happened, but not entirely unpredictable. Goldschmidt turns 37 next month. Arenado, 33, plays a physically demanding position at third base, and he’s logged a lot of mileage in his 12 seasons.
When your highest-paid and most-proven performers struggle at the same time, it’s hard to overcome, and there’s really not much a hitting coach, manager or front office can do other than hope (and pray) two potential Hall of Famers snap out of dueling career-worst seasons before it’s too late.
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And if this fact was the only problem holding back this Cardinals offense, it would be a lot easier to simply throw up hands and claim bad luck.
But while that’s the biggest reason the Cardinals find themselves here, trying to keep a season from reaching mathematical elimination, it’s not the most concerning problem moving forward, and concerning the way this season is trending, forward thinking now seems fair.
In addition to two key veterans struggling, three young hitters the Cardinals needed to take meaningful steps forward and planned to count upon for seasons to come have regressed in what should be building phases of their careers.
Friday night’s lineup illustrated the point. Desperate team. Dangerous opponent.
“You either step up to the challenge, or you’re done,†manager Oli Marmol said before first pitch. “There’s no other way of looking at it. There’s no other way of talking around it. Super simple. You’re playing tough teams. You step up and do what you have to do — or you go home early.â€
Now, look at that lineup.
Lars Nootbaar and Nolan Gorman weren’t in it, even with Matt Carpenter hurt. Jordan Walker was in it, but only because the starting pitcher, Justin Wrobleski, was left-handed, making Walker the platoon fit for right field. Imagine if I told you this when the season started in Los Angeles months ago. Would you have believed it? You probably would have assumed the rising young sluggers were hurt. But that’s not the case.
Nootbaar, who turns 27 next month, has in his fourth season regressed to his second-season batting average (.226). He’s at his rookie-season on-base percentage (.317). He’s never slugged so little (.370). He’s walking a little less than before, striking out a little more often than before and hitting an increased number of groundballs, in part due to a career-low average launch angle.
Gorman, 24, leads the Cardinals in strikeouts (148) despite ranking sixth in at-bats. After leading the team in home runs last season despite battling back issues, Gorman’s third year in the majors has featured improved health but worse production as his search for consistent mechanics continues. He entered this series with career-lows in batting average (.204), on-base percentage (.274) and slugging percentage (.406). Gorman’s hard-hit percentage (39 percent) has dropped by nearly 10 percent from last season. He’s walking less often and his strikeout rate (37.6 percent) is among baseball’s worst percentile.
And then there’s Walker, who we should still remember is the age, 22, of some of the prospects just drafted. But still this season has been a frustrating one for both him and the Cardinals, as he’s needed most of it to chase steady production in Memphis. He entered Friday’s game with only 63 major league at-bats this season. That’s 15 percent of what he got last season, which despite ups and downs produced a .787 on-base plus slugging percentage that ranked sixth among major league rookies who totaled 400 or more at-bats.
If I’m Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr., who is quick to remind fans the goal is always to be a draft-and-develop organization, I can understand players tailing off, even surprisingly so, in their middle and late 30s. It’s a risk that comes with the territory. But I’d be worried and pretty frustrated about this trio of young sluggers hitting a wall, especially after the Cardinals had to punt on Dylan Carlson. We’re not talking about brand-new players. Nootbaar debuted in 2021. We’re not talking overhyped low draft picks. Gorman and Walker both were first-round picks. So was Carlson.
I’d want answers. Better yet, solutions. It’s great that Alec Burleson and Masyn Winn have burst onto the scene. Surprises like that are how a good team can turn great. But where is the slug that was expected from the young guys who had bigger offensive expectations? Saving aging veterans sometimes can’t be done. Rescuing talented young hitters, though, shouldn’t be impossible.
You can’t really be a draft-and-develop team if you don’t.