Cards At the Quarter Pole

The St. Louis Cardinals are 41 games into their season and they are. . . a mediocre team. 21-20, with a run differential that says that's really how good they are. It's the offense, mostly. The Cardinals are 11th in the NL in runs (though they're 8th if you remove pitchers from the equation, don't really understand that). And like last year, it's their power that's failing them. While only being 8th in batting average, they're a respectable 5th in OBP. But they're 13th in slugging, and dead last in home runs, with 23. And just in case you were, like me, hoping the arrival of Peter Bourjos and Kolten Wong would lead to more speed, they're 14th in stolen bases, with 13.

There's plenty of blame to go around. Wong wasn't hitting particularly well at the time he was sent down, with a .544 OPS, prompting Matheny to declare he needed to learn to push through adversity. One might wonder how he's supposed to learn that when Matheny benches him every time he struggles, and replaces him with people playing even worse. Mark Ellis has 74 plate appearances, to Wong's 76. Ellis has a .486 OPS. Descalso, who has 43 PAs, has a .464 OPS. Neither of them is the fielder he is. Greg Garcia has done all right in some extremely limited chances (14 PAs, .729 OPS). More than Shane Robinson or Randal Grichuk can say.

There are a few bright spots. Molina and Peralta are the two position players with an OPS over .800. Jon Jay, Holliday, and Matt Adams are all at least above average so far. And. . . that's about it. Bourjos and Craig's numbers are rising, and Bourjos' defense has been as spectacular as advertised, but their OBPs are both still under .300, which is not ideal. Matt Carpenters is at least getting on base (.356 OBP), but if the slugging doesn't come up (.319), that contract is going to look like a real bad decision on Mozeliak's part. On the upside, Wainwright's OPS is over .900. Maybe he got tired of a lack of run support.

The pitching has been somewhat stronger. Their ERA is a mediocre 8th, though it seems crazy to me a 3.44 ERA would only be that good. They're 7th in walks and 5th in strikeouts, which kind of sums up the staffs problem. They strike dudes out, but some of them are walking entirely too many people. Shelby Miller and Trevor Rosenthal in particular. Miller's been pitching poorly and getting away with it so far, but like Westbrook last year, you can't walk that many guys, or give up 1.6 HRs per 9 innings and succeed. Joe Kelly was doing OK for 3 starts, then he got hurt. Tyler Lyons took the spot and pitched badly. Now he's hurt. Other than that, the rotation is fine. Wainwright and Wacha have nearly identical FIPs, though Waino has an extra 10 innings, and a much better ERA (2.11 to 2.82). Lynn is pitching fairly well, though as usual, his results are not as good as his peripherals suggest they should be. Which I guess makes Lynn the current generation's version of Jose DeLeon.

As for the bullpen, Rosenthal, Carlos Martinez, and Kevin Siegrist all have ERAs over 4, which is hardly what you want from your top 3 relievers. Their peripherals suggest they, too, should have better results than they do. Pat Neshek and Seth Maness are doing well, though Maness is giving up a lot of hits. Choate's numbers also say he should be doing better than he is. Take from that what you will. The defense is crap, the pitchers are making stupid pitches, they've gotten bad bounces so far. I don't know which it is, but I'm not as encouraged by it like I suppose I should be.