Note from Bernie: I wrote the Redbird Review before the loony-tunes Cardinals blew a ninth-inning lead and got their tailfeathers plucked in a 6-5 loss to the hideous Rockies.
Speechless? Not quite. The Cardinals are less predictable than the St. Louis weather that has tormented them with delays and floods and danger in a ballpark that could be repurposed into Noah’s Ark. Come to think of it, that attraction would lure more fans than to the ballpark than a ballgame.
The Cardinals lost both series to Colorado this season, winning only two of the six games. This season, the Rockies were 4-2 against the Cardinals and 28-87 (.243) versus all other opponents. Good grief.
Before setting up camp at the largely abandoned Busch Stadium, the Rockies had lost 45 of 59 road games. The Rox terminated their seven-game losing streak by dumping the Cardinals twice in less than 48 hours after winning the series-opener. I didn't see any Rockies defiantly planting a team flag -- with all that purple -- in the soft turf of Busch, but maybe they should have. This was their first series road win since sweeping three at Washington in mid-June.
Not only did the Cardinals lose four games to Colorado’s rocky horror baseball picture show this season – but two of the defeats were humiliating shutouts. How grotesque was this? Before the Cardinals came to Coors Field this season, the Rockies hadn't lobbed a shutout since May 15, 2024. And then 220 regular-season games went by until the Rockies blanked the visiting Cardinals 6-0 on July 23. And then, lo and behold, the Rockies up and did it again 16 games later, shutting the Cardinals down and out in Tuesday's 3-0 feat of legerdemain.
The Redbirds had some momentum coming into this three-game engagement, only to play worse than the Rockies while losing to the Rockies. I realize the Cardinals are losing fans by the hour, but I don't think their most loyal fans wanted to see a "Tribute to the Rockies" at Busch Stadium this week. If the Cards wanted to be charitable, then leave that to Cardinals Care.
The Reelin’ Redbirds were caged by a Colorado bullpen that came into St. Louis with a 5.50 ERA that was second-worst in the majors. But the Rox relievers owned the STL hitters in their two consecutive wins, pitching 5 and ⅔ scoreless innings. Until this two-day showcase of bullpen supremacy, the Rockies relievers had been plundered for 307 runs, 507 hits, 69 homers and 213 walks in their first 118 games of a bloody and brutal campaign.
The Cardinals EXPLODED (sarcasm!) for five runs Wednesday but let’s slap an asterisk on it.
After muscling to a 5-3 lead through five innings, the Cardinals went into a ghost mode, failing to get as little as one lousy single or draw one harmless walk while going 0 for 12 over the final four innings. I know the boys were looking forward to Thursday's scheduled day off -- but I didn't know about their plan to take off early ... as in the mentally exiting over the final four innings of Wednesday's debacle.
Worst loss of the season? Probably. In those four unresponsive innings we witnessed some of the worst at-bats ever taken by the home team in the ball yard that opened in 2006. A slight exaggeration on my part perhaps – but yeah, it was horrible. Presumably these fellers will snap to attention and play a hard nine when the Yankees strut into the coop on Friday.
I don’t know how these dizzy and daffy 2025 Cardinals managed to win two series from the Dodgers and lose two series to the Rockies, but as I like to say, this is a crazy-ass season for St. Louis baseball.
Now onto our regularly scheduled programming …
THE REDBIRD REVIEW
Chaim Bloom has a lot of work to do. Man, oh man – does he ever. And after agreeing to a five-year contract to succeed John Mozeliak as the Cardinals’ president of baseball operations, Bloom may need most of those seasons to rejuvenate a roster that’s short on talent and depth.
Perhaps the outlook will be brighter if some of the best St. Louis prospects develop into stars. That would give Bloom a boost in his mission.
This 2025 season was reserved, in large part, to evaluate the Cardinals’ young players who are already in the majors and how they may fit going forward.
The bigger problem is an extreme shortage of elite talent on the position-player side, and in the collection of hitters.
I’m not saying that all of these players/pitchers are bad, or even mediocre. Some are good and have a chance to be very good. But as I’ve noted repeatedly, the local view is typically myopic because of the way the Cardinals, fans and media often overrate the talent.
I’ll offer a breakdown, but in this edition of The Review most of my attention will be directed at the non-pitching area of the team – especially the offense.
POSITION PLAYERS, OVERALL VALUE
Using the FanGraphs version of Wins Above Replacement, here’s a list of where individual Cardinals rank in fWAR among the 252 major-league players that have at least 250 plate appearances this season:
Masyn Winn, 23rd
Brendan Donovan, 72nd
Willson Contreras, 87th
Victor Scott II, 106th
Ivan Herrera, 119th
Alec Burleson, 151st
Lars Nootbaar, 159th
Nolan Arenado, 179th
Pedro Pages, 188th
Nolan Gorman, 200th
Jordan Walker, 242th
Notes: fWAR encompasses offense, defense and baserunning … Winn (3.5 fWAR) and Scott (1.8) have accrued most of their value on defense … Herrera’s 1.6 fWAR would be higher but his season has twice been interrupted by injuries … Alec Burleson has a low 1.1 fWAR, but that’s because of baserunning and defense …for the STL front office, it has to be at least a little disheartening to see the low-value seasons turned in by Gorman and Walker.
THE OFFENSE
I’ll use wRC+, which is basically the same as OPS+ – but only better. And 100 is league average. Here’s where Cardinals hitters rank in wRC+ among the 252 position players that have a minimum 250 plate appearances:
Herrera, 26th
Contreras, 61st
Burleson, 86th
Donovan, 91st
Gorman, 125th
Nootbaar, 153rd
Winn, 159th
Arenado, 211th
Scott, 224th
Walker, 232nd
Pages, 241st
Notes: Keeping in mind that 100 wRC+ is league average, Herrera (+137), Contreras (+123), Burleson (+117) Donovan (+115) and Gorman (+106) are above the league average offensively. Nootbaar (100) is exactly average … The problem is, many of these guys have experienced a drop in their offensive performance since June 30, when the STL offense began to crash. I’ll have more on that later … but at least Walker and Gorman have displayed improved offense in recent weeks. That’s a plus.
THE DEFENSE
The Cardinals came into Wednesday with 12 defensive runs saved which ranks 17th overall. And frankly, that total has been slowly dwindling as the season plays out. On the positive side, the Cardinals lead the majors with 40 Outs Above Average, which is a fielding-range metric. But Winn (22) and Scott (14) have accounted for 36 of the 40 Outs Above Average. The other notable positive is the five Outs Above Average for Contreras in his first season at first base. At the other end of the spectrum: the Cardinals have five players that are below average in outs above average in some of the positions they patrol: Burleson at first base and right field, Donovan in left field, Gorman at third base, Thomas Saggese at second base, and Jordan Walker in right field.
QUICK STAT ON THE STARTING PITCHING
Among the 89 MLB starting pitchers that had pitched at least 100 innings this season through Tuesday, here’s where the applicable St. Louis starters rank in fWAR:
Sonny Gray, 16th
Matthew Liberatore, 44th
Andre Pallante, 73rd
Miles Mikolas, 78th
Erick Fedde, 86th
Notes: Gray has 3.8 fWAR … Liberatore has 1.8 fWAR … coming into Wednesday’s start, Michael McGreevy had logged only 39 and ⅓ innings as a St. Louis starter this season. But McGreevy’s 0.7 fWAR is the same as Pallante’s – even though Pallante has worked 123 and ⅔ innings – which is 84 and ⅓ innings more than McGreevy. And McGreevy’s 0.7 fWAR is more than Mikolas and Fedde’s combined fWAR (0.5.)
SLUMP, SLUMP, SLUMP
Through Tuesday, the Cardinals had a 14-22 record since June 30. And while their largely inferior starting pitching gets much of our attention, the offense has been a real problem. So let’s update, and these numbers don’t include anything that happened in Wednesday’s day game vs. Colorado.
In the 36 games since June 30 and before Wednesday's defeat ...
* The Cardinals averaged fewer runs per game (3.27) of any team in the majors.
* In the 36 games they were shut out eight times, and scored no more than one lonely run in 12 games, and had scored no more than three runs in 61 percent of their games.
* Over their previous 36 games, the Cardinals ranked 29th among the 30 teams in slugging percentage, OPS, and Isolated Power. They were 28th in wOBA, 27th in wRC+, 25th in batting average, 20th in walk rate, 20th in strikeout rate.
* During the 36 games since June 30, the Cardinals smacked only 26 homers in 1,172 at-bats. That’s one home run every 45 at-bats. The Redbirds failed to homer in 18 of the 36 games.
* And this was particularly damaging over the 36 games: with runners in scoring position the Cardinals ranked 29th in batting average (.214) and last in slugging (.303) and OPS (.587). Per wRC+, the Cards were 33 percent below league average offensively when hitting with RISP from June 30 through Aug. 12.
* Since June 30, the Cardinals rank 22nd in OPS (.685) vs. left-handed pitching and 29th in OPS (.648) vs. right-handed pitching. That latter stat is especially notable; through June 29 the Cardinals ranked ninth in the majors with a .743 OPS vs. righties. I spent so much time talking about STL’s ineffective hitting against lefties, I overlooked their significant decline against right-handed arms since June 30.
INDIVIDUAL TRENDS
From June 30 through Aug. 12 …
Nolan Arenado, Victor Scott, Lars Nootbaar, Masyn Winn, Pedro Pages, Thomas Saggese, Yohel Pozo, and Brendan Donovan were below league average offensively per wRC+.
In order from worst – to least worst – over that time:
Arenado, 81% below average
Pages, 61% below avg.
Scott, 54% below avg.
Nootbaar, 29% below avg.
Saggese, 23% below avg.
Winn, 16% below avg.
Pozo, 15% below avg.
Donovan, 8% below avg.
Ivan Herrera was exactly league average during this time period; Burleson was 6% above the average.
So if we add Herrera and Burly to the list, the 10 hitters accounted for 76 percent of STL’s total plate appearances from June 30 through Aug. 12. In that context, it’s no surprise to see the offense stall.
On the brighter side, these three players turned in the best hitting performances from June 30 through Aug. 12:
Contreras, 40% above league average
Walker, 18% above avg.
Gorman, 14% above avg.
CONCLUSION
Beginning with this weekend’s home series against the Yankees, the Cardinals have only 40 games remaining on their regular-season schedule.
There’s still more time for individual position players to improve their value. There is also some time for individual position players to lose value.
The question that Chaim Bloom must answer comes down to this: how many hitters have we discussed in this column could honestly be referred to as indispensable? I think it’s reasonable to anticipate a busy offseason for Bloom as the rebuild begins to take shape. He’ll have plenty of decisions to make. Tough decisions. The kind of decisions that the Cardinals have been putting off for too many years.
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 – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015.
You can access 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, and he is a regular guest on the “Cardinal Territory” video show hosted by Katie Woo of The Athletic. Bernie happily does a weekly “Seeing Red” podcast on the Cardinals with his longtime pal Will Leitch. You can also catch Bernie every Friday morning (10:30 a.m.) as a guest on the Randy Karraker Show here on our site.