Holy mediocrity!
After rallying for a 6-5 victory on Monday evening at San Francisco, the Cardinals are roosted at only 3 and ½ games out of the National League’s third wild-card certificate.
What?
If you think about this, it is stupid or remarkable … or probably stupid and remarkable. However jarring, that’s the math.
I must point to a few problems.
— The Cardinals have the NL’s third-worst record, 30-42, since June 30. That’s a sorry .419 winning percentage.
— Since reaching their season-peak nine games above .500 after a weekend series sweep in late June, the Cards rank 29th among the 30 MLB teams in runs scored, slugging percentage, OPS and home runs. Plus the Redbirds have a 5.47 starting-pitching ERA that’s 27th in the bigs since the final day of June.
— Does this seem like a classic underdog-run kind of a team to you? For gosh sake, since June 30 the Cardinals have lost more games than only two NL teams, Washington and Colorado. And St. Louis has the same record as the Chicago Blight Sox.
— Only five games remain on STL’s 2025 regular-season itinerary. Two at San Francisco, a day off, and then three at Wrigley Field. It’s a little late to be making a charge.
— The Cardinals are not alone. There’s a jumble of mundanity in the lunge for the only available NL path to the playoffs. The Giants and Cardinals are 77-80. The Diamondbacks are 79-77. The comically desperate Mets and their $338 million payroll are stuck to the Reds. Both New York and Cincinnati are 80-76 and tied for the No. 3 wild-card entry pass.
— To stumble-tumble-bumble into the playoffs, the Cardinals must take care of their own business by winning out … or at least taking four of their final five games to have a shot. And they’d also have to root for the other wild-card hopefuls to spit up some large-sized hairballs.
— The first step? Winning the next two games to sweep the series from the Giants.
— Andre “5.29 ERA” Pallante starts Tuesday’s game for the Cardinals, and he’ll face Logan Webb, San Francisco gem who ranks 3rd among NL starting pitchers in WAR and in fielding independent ERA.
— FanGraphs gives the Cardinals a 0.1 percent chance of making this miracle happen.
Why am I writing about this? Because I think it’s funny – after all that has happened in this weird 2025 – the Cardinals are still lurking in the deep shadows of postseason contention.
In case you are wondering or worrying about my mental capacities these days … well … I’m mostly fine.
My disturbing late-night hallucinations aside, let me assure you that I have no delusions here.
The Cardinals are not a good team. They have not been a good team since 2022, and even then they were expelled by the Phillies in a two-game postseason elimination.
That merciless execution happened so quickly I had to check Baseball Reference this morning to confirm that the 2022 Cardinals actually participated in the ‘22 tournament.
The Cardinals rank 22nd in the majors in winning percentage since the start of the 2023 season … but they’re still (barely) breathing in the longshot chase of a wild-card spot.
The Mets are the only reason why the Cardinals are still gasping.
Fun fact: the Mets’ four-highest paid players this season – Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso and Sean Manaea will receive a total of $134.5 million.
The Cardinals’ entire 40-man payroll for 2025 comes to … $134.5 million.
The Mets were kind enough to allow the Reds, Diamondbacks, Giants and Cardinals to hang out, lose a bunch of games in 2025 – and still be able to tell their fans, “Hey, we were in the playoff hunt until the final few days of the regular season.”
I don’t think the Cardinals have the nerve to proclaim such a thing. If they do, it would be yet another preposterous fan-relations blunder.
At least the Cardinals spent considerably less on payroll this season than the Diamondbacks and Giants to loiter in the wild-card standings. And the Reds have spent even less on payroll this season – $115.6 million – than the Cardinals.
And the Milwaukee Brewers – best record in baseball with their 23rd-ranked payroll of $115.1 million – get to chuckle at everybody … well, at least until they get booted from the postseason again.
But just for kicks …
All of this makes me wonder about the Cardinals being 3 and ½ games out of a playoff spot with 97 percent of the regular-season schedule completed.
Let’s play the “what if” game, shall we?
1. What if the Cards had gotten more from Jordan Walker and Nolan Gorman, co-captains of the “Project Runway” season? As I type this, Walker and Gorman have combined for a .210 batting average and 35.2 percent strikeout rate this season. The two are collectively minus 13 in defensive runs saved … and minus 12 in Outs Above Average. Finally, their combined Wins Above Replacement for the season is minus 1.3 WAR. And both are below the replacement level of performance.
2. For that matter, what if there had been no Project Runway season at all? What if the Cardinals cut payroll and all of that, but still tried to win more games without making concessions to “playing the young guys” even if they young guys didn’t deserve to be in the lineup? Manager Oli Marmol was put in a very difficult – and contradictory – situation, having to balance winning and player development. What was the priority? A tough spot for a manager.
3. What if the Cardinals had merely spent moderately more on payroll – say, another $10 million? Look at how much value the team received with a modest $2 million investment in free-agent reliever Phil Maton. Relatively cheap right-handed bats for the outfield were available in free agency. The Cardinals were at a major disadvantage this season by having to use so many left-handed hitting outfielders against lefty pitching.
4. What if the front office had cleared deadwood Erick Fedde from the roster much earlier in the season to give the rotation spot to rookie Michael McGreevy? The Cards were 5-15 when Fedde started a game this season. They’re 10-5 when McGreevy started this season.
5. What if Andre Pallante had been removed from the rotation for just cause before the Cardinals dissolved to a 2-13 record in his previous 15 starts? Heck, some journeyman minor-league starter at Triple A could have done better than that.
6. What if the front office had added talent at the trade deadline? I’m not criticizing the deals that offloaded relievers Ryan Helsley, Steven Matz and Maton. It made sense to cash in three pending free agents for prospect capital. But that still wouldn’t have prevented John Mozeliak from also taking some action to deliver a minor upgrade or two in other areas. I know – easy for me to say. And probably unrealistic.
7. What if Ivan Herrera had remained healthy this season instead of being lodged on the Injured List for two stays that caused him to miss 55 days? Herrera leads the Cardinals with an .834 OPS and a wRC+ that’s 36 percent above league average offensively. That’s 10 percent higher than the team’s second-best hitter, Willson Contreras. But because of the injuries, Herrera’s 432 plate appearances ranked seventh on the club.
Five Cardinals have at least 500 plate appearances this season. What if Herrera had played enough to get close to Lars Nootbaar’s team-high 566 plate appearances? Well, even with 432 PA, Herrera has 18 home runs – and 10 of them put the Cardinals into the lead, and two tied the score.
8. What if Nootbaar had delivered more offense instead of turning in the worst season of his career? From 2022 through 2024, Nootbaar performed nearly 20 percent above league average offensively based on wRC+. This season he’s 4% below average overall … and 19% below average over the last three-plus months.
9. What if designated No. 1 starter Sonny Gray had pitched with more consistency? This season the Cards are 21-10 when Gray starts a game. In the 21 team wins, Gray had a 2.94 ERA. In the 10 team losses, Gray’s ERA got blown up to 7.57. In Gray’s first 16 starts this season he had a 3.36 ERA and allowed a .241 batting average and .660 OPS. In his last 15 starts, Gray has a 5.44 ERA and yielded a .284 batting average and .788 OPS.
10. What if the Cardinals had a less taxing schedule? I’m not making excuses, because all teams go through phases of baseball-hell schedules that tucker them out. But because of bad weather, the Cardinals had six postponements that wedged six doubleheaders into the schedule.
STL’s six doubleheaders were more than their NL Central rivals – Milwaukee, Chicago, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh – had combined. The Cards’ winning percentage in the second game of a doubleheader, .468, is the ninth lowest in the majors this season.
Doubleheaders lead to the scrambling of a team’s pitching staff, and many position players will sit out one of the games. The lingering effects can be hard to shake.
To their credit – even if they came up a little short in the second games – the Cardinals had an overall 8-4 record in their 12 doubleheader marathons.
This team, while flawed, has been more tenacious than perceived. Their 38 comeback victories are tied for ninth in the majors. The Cardinals have as many comeback wins as the Brewers and more comeback triumphs than the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, Astros, Cubs, Tigers and Giants (among others.) The Cardinals have also battled to a 25-20 record in one-run games this season.
The Cardinals’ problem in 2025 was a lack of talent, a roster of misshapen puzzle pieces, operating during a transition season from the old baseball regime to the new regime, and a plan that set up conflicting goals.
Even with all of that, the Cardinals had an opportunity to exploit the Mets’ misadventures in payroll and performance. But the Redbirds, despite their persistence, had too much to overcome.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
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 Bernie does a weekly “Seeing Red” podcast on the Cardinals with his longtime pal Will Leitch. Bernie joins Katie Woo on the “Cardinal Territory” video-podcast each week, and you can catch a weekly “reunion” segment here at STL Sports with Bernie’s appearance on the Randy Karraker Show every Friday morning at 10:30 am.