Let’s face it: you didn’t need to see the Fightin’ Gennetts put up double digit runs last night to tell you that the St. Louis Cardinals are in trouble. Apart from an 18-6 run in the middle of the season, so far it has been a year of heartbreak and frustration for Cardinal Nation. The team cannot hit, cannot field, cannot run the bases, and, most worryingly, cannot protect a lead. As one friend of mine quipped on Facebook, the only positive from last night’s disaster was that the team didn’t blow a lead!
So what does this season mean in the grander scheme of things? It means what Cardinals fans known since last season: this isn’t a very good team. Last year, unrepeatable power numbers and solid pitching carried the team just far enough to barely miss a playoff spot, but many of the same problems were there. The offense was inconsistent, the defense was usually bad and often terrible, and the fundamentals simply weren’t present. Now, those issues are highlighted because whatever offense was there last season has disappeared, and seemingly established stars like Matt Carpenter, Stephen Piscotty, and Aledmys Diaz are falling flat this year. For the first time in recent memory, the Cardinals look like a truly bad baseball team, and their fans are in full-blown panic mode.
Ironically, one of the things that has made this season more difficult is the return to earth of division rivals the Chicago Cubs. Last year at this time, the Cubs were so far ahead of the Cardinals that fans could fully commit to the wild card race. But that has not happened this year, as the Cubs have struggled out of the gates. In one sense, this served to mollify panic, as it seemed like even the struggling Cardinals were still in the thick of things. On the other hand, the seeming parity in the fairly lousy NL Central has perhaps blinded us to the severity of the cracks in the Cardinals’ armor. But with the Cubs finding their groove and the Redbirds spiraling out of control, those cracks now look like fissures.
What are the Cardinals to do with these fissures? Many pundits have argued that the Cardinals are one heart-of-the-order bat away from being a good team again. In my opinion, this is a foolish assumption. A team with terrible defense, a struggling bullpen, and no one getting on base cannot add Josh Donaldson, J.D. Martinez, or even Manny Machado and become a playoff contender. In fact, the constant calls for such a major move concern me. I think the Cardinals could not make a bigger mistake than draining their already shallow pool of prospects, in a year where they have no major draft picks, to pursue an impact bat like Martinez or Donaldson that could leave in free agency before the stitches had set on their Cardinals’ uniform (can you say Jason Heyward?)
Instead, I believe it is time for the Cardinals to “aggressively plan for the future.” This isn’t a rebuild, per se, but it is a no-holds-barred retool that would focus on building a new, young core of players to form the team around going forward.
Cardinals fans need to recognize that for the foreseeable future, as much as it pains us, the Cubs are the class of this division. Even if the Redbirds added a star bat or two, they could never compete with the star power or youth of a team who has Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Kyle Schwarber, Addison Russell, and more, not to mention the budget to sign anyone they desire in free agency, and the depth to trade for any piece they need at the deadline. To think that the Cardinals can put a band-aid here or there and compete with this powerhouse this year or next would be foolish.
But it may not be too late for the Cardinals to build a team that can compete with the Cubs in a few years. The Cardinals should learn from teams like the Cincinnati Reds, whose failure to realize their downturn led them to wait too long to retool, and they are now suffering the consequences. St. Louis should avoid this pitfall and begin to retool while they still have some pieces valuable enough to utilize.
But what does this actually mean? For one, it means not making any moves that unless the pieces they’re receiving are prospects, or young players on long-term deals. The Cards should not under any circumstances be renters at this year’s deadline. Second, it means that they in fact should be sellers at the deadline, but intelligent sellers. There’s no reason the Cardinals should not trade Lance Lynn, a middle-of-the-rotation arm that could fetch a decent return. Similarly, they should look into trading Seung-hwan Oh, the Korean closer who has struggled some this year. While they might not be able to get great value for him, given his season, bullpen help is much desired at the deadline and they should be able to get something in return. Both Lynn and Oh have deals that run out at the end of the year, and not trading them and allowing them to walk at year’s end would be a disaster.
Next, the redbirds ought to be looking to create playing time for their young prospects. They’ve done this somewhat with Paul DeJong receiving regular playing time, and with Magneuris Sierra’s brief stints in the Bigs, but it’s time to commit to this more fully. With Michael Wacha struggling and Luke Weaver cruising in Memphis, perhaps it’s time to send Wacha to the ‘pen and Weaver to the major league rotation. Carson Kelly is raking in Memphis. While Yadi will hold down the backstop duties in St. Louis for the near future, perhaps it’s time for Kelly to come up and find playing time at first, third, and catcher, just to get his bat in the lineup. GM John Mozeliak may know what’s best for these players, but there is no reason to keep trying what isn’t working when they have prospects who might be ready to shine.
Fourth, the Cardinals need to pursue young hitting prospects. In recent years, the Cardinals have consistently gone for pitching in the draft, and this has had good and bad consequences. On the bright side, they have a ton of young arms ready or almost ready for the major leagues. On the other hand, they have a dearth of really great hitting prospects. Maybe it’s time for the Cardinals to switch this approach. Maybe it’s even time for them to consider swapping a young arm for a young bat. If Mozeliak could trade a Jack Flaherty, a Luke Weaver, or even an Alex Reyers for some club’s top batting prospect, it might be the right time to do so.
Whatever the Cardinals do, what they cannot afford to do is wait and see. The recent struggles aren’t an anomaly. They are a manifestation of two seasons or more of deterioration within the club, and there is no reason to believe they will turn around on their own. The Cardinals should recognize their place within the division, and look towards creating a stronger team, not for the playoff run this year, but for the long-term. If they do that, fans may well be talking about the St. Louis Cardinals winning the NL Central in the near future. If they fail to do so, we will be looking at many more years of mediocre or worse baseball, and I for one don’t want to see that.
