Bernie’s Redbird Review: First-Half Awards, Surprises, Disappointments, Breakout Stars, and Problems.

THE REDBIRD REVIEW

Here’s my latest in a series of columns examining the Cardinals as they hit the 81-game mark of the season to complete the first 50 percent of their schedule. They reach that milestone Friday against the Reds.

I led off with Masyn Winn being my choice for the first-half MVP.

In the second column, I explained why the tandem of Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado were the most disappointing Cardinals when viewed together.

Let’s go with one more, at least until I look ahead to the second half in a column that I’m writing Saturday morning/afternoon.

As for the first 81 games …

Let’s look at a few more areas …

MOST UNPLEASANT SURPRISE: The downfall of Jordan Walker, the second-year right fielder who was dispatched to Triple A Memphis in late April with a .155 batting average, no home runs, and a troubling ground-ball habit. Walker has made modest progress at Memphis, and is still pounding too many grounders at the expense of his aerial-assault game.

I did not see this coming. Walker, 22, ended his rookie 2023 season with fine numbers, hitting .276 with a .342 onbase rate and .445 slugging percentage. His power display included 19 doubles and 16 homers. And over the final two months of the ‘23 campaign, Walker had a .356 OBP and .470 slug and was 26 percent above league average offensively per wRC+. To have a robust offense, the Cardinals needed Walker to build on his positive rookie season and turn into a bonafide star in year two. He crashed instead. And the St. Louis offense is less imposing because of it.

MOST PLEASANT SURPRISE: Center fielder Michael Siani. Because of injuries to Tommy Edman and Dylan Carlson, Siani got his chance to audition, and he has impressed the Cardinals with his valuable defense, small-ball skills, speed on the bases, and solid hitting against right-handed pitching.

Siani is one of top overall defensive players in the majors and a marvel in center. According to Statcast data, Siani is the top-ranked center fielder in MLB with 12 outs above average. Not only that, but he’s second overall to Texas second baseman Marcus Semien for the most outs above average in the majors. Siani’s success rate in making catches is 96 percent, and his “added” success rate of 9% is tops among big-league outfielders. That means Siani got to balls at a rate of nine percent higher than expected.

As a bonus, Siani continues to improve offensively. His wRC+ in June (102) is two percent above league average and puts him above teammates Nolan Arenado, Masyn Winn, Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Gorman for the month.

I don’t see why the Cardinals would phase him out when Edman returns, presumably before the All-Star break. Siani is saving lots of runs for St. Louis pitchers.

THE LOU’S CY YOUNG: No surprise here, but Sonny Gray is our winner. Among NL starting pitchers, Gray ranks second in strikeout rate (31.7%), third in fielding independent ERA (2.60), and sixth in standard ERA (2.81). The Cardinals are 10-4 in his 14 starts. And he’s an intense and intelligent team leader.

PITCHING-STAFF MVP: Closer Ryan Helsley. After a blown save in his first opportunity of the season, Helsley has put opponents down to clinch victories in 28 consecutive save opportunities. That’s a franchise record. Because of Hensley, the Cardinals are 37-0 this season when leading a game through eight innings. The only other MLB teams that can claim that undefeated status when leading after eight IP are the Guardians (46-0) and Dodgers (45-0.)

TOP TEAM STRENGTH: A bullpen of relievers that have preserved 27 of 31 leads when the Cardinals are ahead after six innings. And when the Redbirds lead by at least two runs, they’re 21-1 when up through six innings and 25-1 through seven innings.

PRIMARY TEAM WEAKNESS: It’s their offense. The Cardinals rank 25th overall and 14th among 15 NL teams with an average of 4.01 runs scored per game. That’s beneath the overall MLB average of 4.3 runs per team. The Cards offense has shown improvement during the team’s 26-15 stretch, but the inconsistency is a major problem that limits their upside.

The Cardinals have been held to three runs or fewer in 38 games and are 9-29 when pinned down to such an extent. The Cardinals have scored under the overall major-league team average in runs per game 49 times, with a damaging result of 17-32.

The number of runs the Cardinals must achieve more often is five. When the Cardinals score 5+ runs in a game this season they’re 24-7. But here’s the problem: only two NL teams (Marlins and Pirates) have scored 5+ runs fewer times than the Cardinals so far in 2024. And STL’s total of 31 games of plating 5+ runs ranks 23rd in the majors.

The Cardinals are fortunate to have Willson Contreras back in the lineup ahead of schedule. They will probably do better when Lars Nootbaar returns to the lineup – as long as he can avoid another injury and the recuperation time that goes with it. Edman can give manager Oli Marmol more lineup flexibility as long as Marmol uses Edman in a flex role, deploying him as a center fielder, shortstop, second baseman, and perhaps third baseman as needed.

FIRST HALF ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Masyn Winn, of course.

BEST FIRST-HALF ROOKIE PITCHER: Ryan Fernandez. The righty reliever has a 2.31 earned-run average overall and an 0.63 ERA in his last 13 appearances through Thursday. After giving up two runs in his second big-league appearance, Fernandez has a 1.93 ERA and 25 percent strikeout rate in 32 and ⅔ innings. And opponents have batted only .205 against him over that time.

BEST IN-SEASON COMEBACK: OK, I wrote this before Miles Mikolas was stomped by the Reds for nine earned runs over 4 and ⅓ innings in Thursday’s discomfiture. But I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt (for now) and toss that one out. After his first eight starts of the season Mikolas had a ghastly 6.43 ERA and the Cardinals were 2-6 when he pitched. Until last night Mikolas had twirled to a 3.17 ERA in his previous eight assignments, with six of the eight qualifying as a quality start. And even with Thursday’s mincing, the Cardinals are 6-3 in his last nine starts. The STL rotation is obviously stronger when Mikolas is working his art.

MOST FRUSTRATING PITCHER: Steven Matz for reasons that are redundant and obvious.

MOST FRUSTRATING HITTER: Nolan Gorman. Sigh. I’m a fan. I’m still way up on Gorman because his raw power is something to behold and he just turned 24 years old. But my gosh, at some point he has to become more consistent in taking competitive at-bats and avoid falling into extreme ruts that detract from his value. Through Thursday, Gorman was No. 144 among 146 MLB qualifying hitters with a .191 batting average. His strikeout rate (36.5%) was second worst in the majors, and his slugging percentage for the season had withered to .409.

Gorman’s whiff-swing rate (38.4%) puts him in the bottom one percent of big-league hitters this season. His hard-hit rate is 11 percent down from last season. His average exit velocity has dropped three percent. He’s getting overpowered by four-seam fastballs, and pitchers have used the heat to set him up for failure at hitting changeups.

Since June 12 Gorman is 3 for 51 (.059) with a disturbing 47.3 percent strikeout rate. For the month Gorman is hitting .146 and has the highest strikeout rate (38.4%) in the bigs. I don’t know how much deeper the Cardinals will let Gorman sink without booking him a trip to Triple A Memphis to regroup.

BEST FRONT-OFFICE MOVES: The free-agent signings of starting pitchers Sonny Gray, Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn and reliever Ryan Fernandez. Very good work by John Mozeliak and company, and the staff should be commended for it.

BIGGEST FRONT-OFFICE DISAPPOINTMENT: The shortage of starting-pitching depth. A lot of this has to do with the organization falling behind in the critical area of drafting-developing starting pitchers. That could be changing in a more positive direction depending on the trajectory of Tink Hence, Quinn Mathews and Ian Bedell. (And a few others.)

TWO NEWCOMERS TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT: Catchers Pedro Pages and Ivan Herrera. They filled in quite well after Willson Contreras went out with a fractured arm on May 7. The Cardinals went 24-16 during WC’s down time.

FIRST-HALF BREAKOUT STARS: Alec Burleson and Brendan Donovan. Along with Wynn, they’ve largely driven the St. Louis offense since the team took off and started winning on after May 11. In the team’s 26-15 streak since May 12, Donovan Burleson have combined for a .316 average, .502 slugging percentage, 13 homers, 18 doubles, and 48 runs scored. Based on wRC+, Donovan and Burleson are 52 percent and 41 percent above league average offensively (and respectively) over the last 41 games. They gave a huge boost to a stagnant offense that was missing expected production from the likes of Arenado, Gorman, Goldschmidt and Walker.

MOST DISAPPOINTING 1ST-HALF CARDINAL: If you asked me back in the summer in 2021 to make a prediction on outfielder Dylan Carlson, I would have used words along the lines of “All-Star,” and “lineup fixture” and “one of the best young players developed by the Cardinals in many years.” It just hasn’t happened. I don’t need to type out the stats. It just hasn’t happened. And I am surprised.

MOST UNDERRATED CARDINAL: That would be Kyle Gibson. He’s second in the rotation in ERA (3.70), quality starts (8), total innings, and has the most starts of 6+ innings (11). In a dozen starts since April 19, Gibson has a 3.01 ERA, 23 percent strikeout rate and seven quality starts.

MOST OVERRATED CARDINAL: Lars Nootbaar. He has the talent to elevate the Cardinals offensively. His impact can be substantial; we’ve seen that from him during tantalizing stretches since he was promoted to the big club in 2022. But if Nootbaar can’t play, the Cardinals can’t benefit from his talent. And since May 30 of last season Nootbaar has started only 110 of 187 games because of injuries. He hasn’t started 41 percent of the total games played by the Cardinals over that time.

Despite his frequent absences from the lineup, Nootbaar still ranks third in WAR among Cardinals’ position players since May 30, 2023. That tells us that he makes a positive difference when he’s able to play. But he’s missed too many games to be as valuable as he could be.

As Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa told me when I asked him how we should assess a player’s value, he used a horseracing analogy to cite the first requirement.

“The first thing you look at,” TLR said, “is how often does he go to the post to start the race? He can’t help you as much if he’s in the barn.”

In that context, injuries have cut deeply into Nootbaar’s value. This dude can really play – so it leaves us wanting to see him play a lot more.

MOST ANNOYING TEAM TRAIT: The Cardinals rank 27th in the majors with a .223 batting average with runners in scoring position. Because of that, only four MLB teams have left more runners on base than St. Louis this year.

LINEUP CHOICE, REVISITED: I liked the idea of Masyn Winn as a leadoff man. And it made sense for Oli Marmol to go with it. But I’m not so geeked about Winn’s showing as the leadoff hitter.

Here’s what I’m talking about. Winn has batted in four different slots this season: first, seventh, eighth and ninth.

Winn batting leadoff: .241 average, .271 OBP, .366 slug percentage, .637 OPS, 4.2% walk rate, 28% strikeout rate, and 20 percent below league average offensively per wRC+.

Winn batting 7-8-9, combined: .348 average, .405 OBP, .489 slug percentage, .894 OPS, 9.7% walk rate, 15.5% strikeout rate, and 54 percent above league average offensively per wRC+

That’s all for now. I’ll be back with another “Weekend at Bernie’s” on Saturday to offer my thoughts on the keys to the Cardinals success over the final 81 regular-season games.

Thanks as always for reading …

–Bernie

A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has provided informed opinions and perspective on St. Louis sports through his columns, radio shows and podcasts since 1985.

Please follow Bernie on Threads @miklaszb

For weekly Cards talk, listen to the “Seeing Red” podcast with Will Leitch and Miklasz. Follow @seeingredpod on X for a direct link.

Stats used in my baseball columns are sourced from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, StatHead, Baseball Savant, Baseball Prospectus, Brooks Baseball Net, and Sports Info Solutions unless otherwise noted.