The fact that they’re playing better lately makes it all the more maddening.
They had this in them all along?
But even with the Cardinals looking like the preconceived Cardinals — you know, Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado actually hitting, Jordan Walker actually playing — there isn’t enough calendar to catch up. (and who’s to say they could keep it up, anyway?) The Cards entered Wednesday 70-69 and 5½ games out of the last wild-card spot (with five teams vying for that one spot).
How did ºüÀêÊÓƵ get to this point? Underachievement. Sure, there’s been some overachievement, too (notably Masyn Winn, Michael Siani, Andre Pallante and, really, even Ryan Helsley, considering he’s having such a historic season). Alas, here are the top 10 underachievers in the ºüÀêÊÓƵ organization for 2024:
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1. John Mozeliak and the front office: Look, indisputably, these are smart baseball thinkers with access to stats we’ve never even heard of. But it’s not working. Mo and his staff aren’t getting results. From 2016 to now, the Cardinals have four playoff wins. Not playoff series wins. Game wins. And they’ll likely miss the playoffs this year — for the fifth time in nine years.
The Cards were terrible in 2023 and followed that with a lackluster 2024. Mozeliak, now with the title of president of baseball operations, got the credit for building the great teams from 2011-15 ... and should get the blame for what’s happening now. And from 2011 to now, the Cards are annually around 10th on the list of Major League Baseball team spending — so the problem isn’t necessarily the amount of money they’re spending but who they’re spending it on.
Some fans are angry. The rest are apathetic. And the visuals of the stadium are startling. The front office needs a refresh.
2. Nolan Arenado: He has the third-most singles in the National League. This distinction tells you everything you need to know about Nolan this year. The slugger is hitting but isn’t slugging. Quite simply, the Cardinals needed Arenado and Goldschmidt to smash baseballs. Arenado entered Wednesday with a .711 on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS).
3. Paul Goldschmidt: Yes, yes, Goldy has gotten going — in his past 20 games, his OPS is 1.001 and his batting average is .342. OK, but in the first 112 games, his OPS wasn’t even above .700 (.677), and his batting average was .231.
For the season, yes, his hard-hit rate is still quite good. But his strikeout rate (26.9%) is his highest since his rookie year of 2011. And his walk rate (7.2%) has never been lower. Alec Burleson sure profiles well as the 2025 first baseman.
4. The three starting pitchers signed: As the Cards started this season, I described their starters as one guy who makes you say “Oh!†— and four guys who make you say “Oh?â€
Well, even the exclamation point of the rotation has curved at times into a question mark. Sonny Gray entered Wednesday’s start with a 3.96 ERA and an ERA+ of 107 — his lowest mark since 2018. Gray’s ERA in July and August (10 starts) is 5.40 — and that’s literally the same July and August ERA of Kyle Gibson.
Lance Lynn has been hurt the past month. And while Lynn’s ERA of 4.06 is acceptable for a non-No. 1 starter, he wasn’t quite the innings eater ºüÀêÊÓƵ anticipated. He’s only gone six innings or more in six of his 21 starts.
5. Nolan Gorman: How rough has the Cardinals’ season been? Last year’s home run leader is now in the minors, yet he’s only fifth on the list of underachievers. What a mess this was.
I was high on Gorman — wrote he’d crack 35 homers. He’s got 19 and now plays for Memphis. He was striking out at a historic rate — no player with at least 400 plate appearances has a worse strikeout rate than Gorman (37.6%) this season.
6. Turner Ward and the hitting staff: The hitting coach is beloved by many players — you can see it in their interactions in the dugout. But again, just like with Mozeliak, it’s about results.
So many Cardinals are having down offensive years. And the strategies Ward implements for the Cards to hit with runners in scoring position do not work well. It’s gobsmacking how poorly the Cardinals produce. In fact, with RISP, the Cardinals trail every team except the White Sox in homers and OPS — and the White Sox don’t even really count as a MLB team.
7. Jordan Walker: Ward and the hitting staff couldn’t unlock Walker. Jordan kept hitting ground balls, so the team sent him to the minors until recently. Yes, if the Cards had just kept playing Walker, perhaps he would’ve found his groove. But Walker put himself in that situation with a .155 average in his first 58 at-bats before being sent down.
The Cardinals thought Walker would be a key bat in the lineup; instead, he was that for the Memphis Redbirds.
8. Miles Mikolas: There are 62 MLB starting pitchers who have enough innings to qualify for statistical categories. Mikolas has the 61st-best ERA. His 5.27 is only better than Patrick Corbin’s 5.41. Mikolas had a 4.78 ERA last year, so it’s not like we expected All-Star Mikolas in 2024, but even with the bar set low, he’s underachieved.
9. Gary LaRocque and the player development staff: LaRocque is the longtime director of this department — and there were some great years (heck, Mozeliak’s front office and player development staff was so renowned, the author Howard Megdal wrote a book about it in 2016). But the Cardinals currently have the 19th-best farm system per . And last year at this time, it was ranked 22nd.
It was glaring this summer when the Cardinals needed a starter to fill in ... and there wasn’t one ready in the minors.
10. Giovanny Gallegos: From 2019-23, he was a regular out of the bullpen. Yes, the Cards entered 2024 with multiple guys earmarked for high-leverage situations than Gallegos would get. But still, he pitched pathetically, logging a 6.53 ERA in 20 appearances before the Cards let him go.
He never had a walk rate higher than 2.7 per nine innings — but this year, it was 4.4. He even allowed three runs and didn’t record an out in the May 5 game, earning the loss against ... the White Sox.