Greetings. As of early Tuesday afternoon, the Cardinals had a 22.8 percent probability of qualifying for the postseason. That, according to the FanGraphs playoff odds.
At the moment, nine National League teams have a better shot at making the playoffs than St. Louis.
If the Cardinals don’t get back on track and generate consistent success, there’s no reason to waste time assessing their postseason possibilities.
FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus each project the Cards to win 82 games. Clay Davenport’s model has a more optimistic outlook of 85 victories. Davenport’s system also estimates that it will take 87 or 88 wins to secure the NL’s third wild-card spot.
To get to 82, 85 or 87+ wins, the Cardinals will have to do a lot of things right and start improving. The June version of the Cardinals (so far) has no chance to reach October’s tournament.
So what is on the “To Do” list for STL?
Let’s go 10 …
1. A starting-pitching revival. During the first two months, the Cards rotation pitched to a 3.67 ERA that ranked 11th in the majors. In getting slapped back to a 4-10 record to this point in June, St. Louis starting pitchers have combined for a 6.08 starting-pitching ERA that’s the worst in MLB for the month. More on this later.
2. Hit for more power. That’s easy to say but more difficult to do. The Cardinals have gotten more home-run thump in June by homering every 31.7 at-bats. That’s encouraging. But the problem is, the Cardinals are hitting fewer doubles now. They were tied for the MLB lead with 63 doubles in the opening month, stroked 46 doubles in May, and have only 16 in June. For the season, the Cardinals rank 23rd in the majors with an average of 0.92 home runs per game, and they are 24th for Isolated Power (slugging percentage minus batting average). But if you like singles, the Cardinals are your guys. Their average of 5.94 singles per game is No. 2 in the majors.
3. The overall offense needs boosting. The team’s batting numbers, for the most part, were really good during the first month. But their offensive stats dipped in May, and are down again in June. Per wRC+, the Cards were 9 percent above league average offensively in March-April (7th in MLB), then 3% above average in May (14th) and are 9% below average (20th) in June.
The offense is obviously trending in the wrong direction. During their 5-11 stretch since May 30, the Cardinals have scored two runs or fewer in eight of their 16 games. And some of their primary dudes have to step up.
4. Lot of dudes have to crank it up and start hitting again. In the squad’s current 5-11 slump, too many hitters have performed below average offensively based on wRC: Nolan Arenado, Brendan Donovan, Lars Nootbaar, Masyn Winn, Victor Scott II, Yohel Pozo and Jordan Walker. Since the beginning of May, these St. Louis regulars have hit below the league average offensively: Winn, Arenado, Walker, Scott, Nootbaar, Pages and Pozo. For all of the squawking about Nolan Gorman, he’s 23 percent above league average offensively since the start of May.
5. Are the Cardinals capable of pushing for runs? That’s risky because the Cardinals aren’t a fast team. They have a few guys with good (or better) sprint speed in Scott, Winn, Nootbaar and Walker. But here’s the problem: those guys haven’t been getting on base a lot in June. Walker was on the IL for much of that time. And take a look at these June on-base percentage rates for Scott (.275), Winn (.230) and Nootbaar (.235.)
A faster runner can’t utilize his speed to take extra bases on batted balls in play – or steal bases – when he isn’t getting on base.
The team’s drop in stolen bases is glaring:
* 25 in March/April, 12th in MLB
* 10 in May, 26th in MLB
* 4 in 14 games in June, 26th in MLB.
Using the FanGraphs baserunning metric, the Cardinals were slightly above average in the first month, went below average in May, and is below average (ranking 19th) so far in June.
6. Let’s say it again: Nootbaar is the key to this offense. The Cardinals were at their best offensively during the first month of the season, ranking 10th in the majors in runs scored. Nootbaar was a catalyst because of his outstanding on-base percentage (.400) as the leadoff man. But Noot did a lot more than that; in the first month he slugged .439 and led the team in homers (5), RBIs (18) and runs scored (21).
A leadoff hitter that can pester and conquer opponents as an OBP machine – and also hammer them with power – is a special presence at the top of the lineup.
Nootbaar had 25 walks in the first month of the season. But since the outset of May, his walk rate has dropped by more than 50 percent, his strikeout rate has nearly doubled, and his on-base percentage is down by a startling 129 points since the end of April. Here’s the capper: per wRC+, Nootbaar was 46 percent above league average offensively in the opening month – and he’s been 36 percent below league average offensively since the start of May.
Nootbaar must get back to controlling the strike zone. He’s chasing pitches at a high rate and is overly aggressive in swinging the bat instead of working counts.
Here’s the killer stat: since May 17, when Nootbaar chases a pitch out of the strike zone he’s 0 for 29 with 21 strikeouts and a horrendous whiff-swing rate of 59 percent.
Manager Oli Marmol, at least for now, will go with Brendan Donovan in the leadoff spot while Nootbaar attempts to regroup.
7. The Cardinals have to get off to better starts in their games. This has taken place during their 5-11 stretch since May 30:
* In their 11 losses, the Cardinals have trailed at the end of the first, second or third inning eight times. They’ve had the early lead only one time. And in two other losses, they were tied (0-0) during the first three innings of games.
* Cardinal starting pitchers have really gotten bullied in the first two innings of games. During the 5-11 stretch, Cards starters have a 5.63 ERA in the first two innings of game (win or lose) and have been shredded for a .291 average, .507 slugging percentage and 16 extra-base hits.
* To flip this around, the opposing-team starting pitchers have a 2.81 ERA against STL batters during the first two innings of a game since May 30 (win or lose) and have limited the Cardinals to a .211 batting average and only five extra-base hits in 32 innings. Because of the early deficits, the Cardinals are almost always chasing the game. You can’t expect a team to make a bunch of comebacks to win when they’re in a pattern of falling behind early.
In their early-deficit situations over the last 11 losses, the Cardinals have trailed by three runs or more five times.
8. The bullpen must tighten up. Long story short: the St. Louis bullpen was awful for much of April, performed well in May, and has relapsed in June with a 3.60 ERA (15th in MLB) and 4.22 fielding independent ERA (22nd.) The bullpen ERA is 4.25 during the team’s 5-11 downturn.
Closer Ryan Helsley has one save, three blown saves and a 7.20 ERA since May 30.
9. The Cardinals must find a way to fix Helsley. Hitters continue to tee off on the closer’s four-seam fastballs, cudgeling the pitch for a stunning .440 batting average and .600 slugging percentage this season.
Going into the series against the White Sox, Helsley has a 5.06 ERA in his last 16 appearances.
During that time, (16 innings) opponents have massacred his four-seam fastball for 18 hits in 36 at-bats (.500) with a .694 slugging percentage and 61 percent hard-hit rate. And his whiff-swing rate is a low 11 percent.
I cringe to think what all of this is doing to Helsley’s trade value.
10. Thomas Saggese, anyone? Manager Oli Marmol has to be careful with playing time. Winn, Arenado and Donovan could use more days off mixed in, but the Cardinals terrible depth probably makes him hesitate. Jose Barrero is a waste of a roster spot and brings virtually nothing to the offense. Saggese has already shown that he can hit in the big leagues. He can play multiple infield spots, and could get two or three starts per week if Marmol eases up on pushing some of his infielders as hard as he has.
When I asked Marmol about this during his weekly Tuesday interview on KMOX, he indicated that a decision to promote Saggese will be made by the front office.
10a. Marmol continues to make curious lineup decisions. The White Sox are starting a right-handed pitcher in Tuesday’s game, and Marmol doesn’t have the left-side hitting Nolan Gorman in the starting lineup.
Since May 26, Gorman leads the Cardinals in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging, OPS and walk rate. And during that time he’s whacked righty pitchers for a .433 average, .767 slug and 1.235 OPS.
The Chicago righty, Shane Smith, has actually been much tougher on left-swinging hitters than righty hitters this season and I assume that’s why Gorman is sitting at the start. But I still don’t like it. Gorman deserves to play.
Thanks for reading …
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting. You can access all of his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STLSportsCentral, catch him weekdays on the “Gashouse Gang” or “Redbird Rush Hour” on KMOX (104.1-FM and 1120-AM, and he’s a regular guest of “Cardinal Territory” video show hosted by the fantastic Katie Woo of The Athletic.