Bernie’s Redbird Review: Once Upon A Time, The St. Louis Cardinals Had An Offense.

THE REDBIRD REVIEW

I have something to look forward to, and I think I speak for many of you.

Here goes: there are only 18 more games to go on the schedule, and then we are free. We will not have to watch this appallingly inferior St. Louis Cardinals offense malfunction again. Not until 2025.

What we’ve seen through the first 144 games in 2024 is arguably a bottom-three offense for the Cardinals since Bill DeWitt Jr. became franchise chairman-owner before the 1996 season.

This is the 29th season of Cardinal baseball since Anheuser-Busch sold the club to DeWitt and partners. Here’s where the 2024 Cardinals rank in various offensive categories among the 29 STL teams:

27th in runs per game, 4.1

26th in batting average, .247

29th in onbase percentage, .310

27th in slugging percentage, .388

27th in OPS, .699

28th in walk rate, 7.7%

24th in strikeout rate, 21.7%

29th in walk-strikeout ratio, 0.35

21st in Isolated Power

18th in home runs per game, 1.02

And then there’s the abject futility at the plate with runners in scoring position. The Cardinals went 0 for 6 with RISP Tuesday in a godawful 3-0 loss to the Reds, and that dropped their season RISP average to .229. If that holds, it would be the worst RISP average by a Cardinals team since the 1966 offense hit .232 in these situations.

Over the last seven games, the Cardinals have averaged 2.9 runs and batted .188. That includes a .143 batting average and 28 percent strikeout rate with runners in position to score. And this no-show offense has scratched for seven runs (total) in losing three of the last four games.

This season the Redbirds’ .229 average with RISP is last among the 15 NL teams. And they’re the NL’s lousiest RISP offense in slugging (.341) and home runs (25). It’s just pathetic.

And I’m hardly gleaming with optimism over the potential shape of the offense in 2025.

Though they lost 91 games last year in their worst full-season showing since 1990, the primary root cause was atrocious starting pitching. I’m not claiming that the 2023 Cardinals had a muscular offense, but it wasn’t as helpless as what we’ve seen this season.

The 2023 Cardinals ranked 19th among 30 teams in average runs per game; the ’24 team ranks 27th.

The 2023 Cardinals ranked 14th in slugging; the ‘24 team is 27th in slugging.

And so on …

After their washout in 2023, the Cardinals essentially ran back the same offense for 2024. The only outside additions from 2023 were bench pieces Matt Carpenter and Brandon Crawford. There were no important upgrades. And of course, the ‘24 offense sacked out and snoozed. Relative to the rest of the league, the same core of St. Louis hitters suffered a significant drop in production and metrics.

So why would we think the 2025 Cardinals would rise up and turn into the 2000 Cards, who were the highest-scoring team in the DeWitt years at 5.47 runs per game? Or for that matter – if the Cardinals stay with the same hitters — why would we expect an offense that’s merely average or slightly better?

Even if Paul Goldschmidt is back for another season in 2025, he won’t be younger or better. The same applies to Nolan Arenado, who turns 34 early next season.

We can’t assume that Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker will leave their 2024 failures behind and perform like stars in 2025. That is unlikely. We can’t expect Alec Burleson to hit for good power all season, because he’s been fading offensively in the late stages of 2024. Lars Nootbaar can’t avoid injuries and his stats have declined for the second year in a row. Brendan Donovan has gradually leveled off since an impressive rookie showing in 2022.

We don’t know who the Cardinals will go with in center field next season, but their overall offense from the CF position this season is anemic, generating only four home runs and a .299 slugging percentage.

I’m confident that Willson Contreras will hit well in 2025. I’m confident that rookie shortstop Masyn Winn will build on his positives of ‘24 and become even more effective offensively in 2025. Other than that – sorry, I don’t have any legitimate reason to feel confident.

And I don’t want to hear about prospects. Sure, there are a couple of hitters to keep an eye on – J.J. Wetherholt, Chase Davis and Thomas Saggese – but for 2025 they’re more of a “we’ll see” thing instead of a sure thing.

My gosh. It isn’t fair to compare the current cast of St. Louis hitters to the glory-days names. Not including current roster members Goldschmidt and Arenado, the Cardinals had 21 different position players chosen for the NL All-Star team from 1996 through 2022.

That includes a combined 43 All-Star selections (as a Cardinal) for Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, Jim Edmonds, Scott Rolen, Matt Holliday, Mark McGwire, Edgar Renteria, Matt Carpenter, David Eckstein and Carlos Beltran. That’s pretty damn amazing.

Who are the future Cardinal All-Stars? In the coming years, who are the guys that will earn two, three, or more All-Star honors? That’s a question for the Cardinals.

ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT: With 18 games remaining, the Cardinals are back to .500 at 72-72 … if the Cardinals finish .500, the winning percentage would rank 25th on the list of 29 seasons under DeWitt’s ownership. The 2023 Cardinals had a .438 winning percentage that was the team’s worst in a season during the DeWitt Era … an alarming trend that shows reaffirms the collapse of the Cardinals: since the start of last season, they are 42-56 (.428) against fellow NL Central teams

STATE OF THE RACE: There is no race. The Cardinals are 6 and ½ games away from the third wild-card pass, with three better teams ahead of them for the No. 3 spot. Fangraphs gives St. Louis a 0.2 percent shot of making the postseason.

HOMEWRECKERS: The Cardinals are 72-81 at Busch Stadium over the last two seasons for a home winning percentage (.471) that ranks tied for 24th overall and is 13th in the National League. The only NL teams that have been worse at home than the Cardinals since the start of 2023 are Colorado (.460) and Washington (.437). Over the last two seasons the Cardinals have been outscored 747-676 at Busch for a run differential of minus 71.

HOMEWRECKERS II: How poorly have the Cardinals failed in protecting their home–field advantage over the last two years? Well, the current Busch Stadium opened in 2006. And from 2006 through 2022, the Cardinals had a .589 home winning percentage that was third best in the majors behind the Yankees (.625) and Dodgers (.617). Sad. And yet: the Cardinals ranked 4th in MLB for tickets sold at home in 2023. And despite another disappointing campaign in 2024, only six MLB teams have sold more tickets to home games than St. Louis this season.

MORE ON THE RISP FAMINE: In Tuesday’s shutout loss the Cardinals were an abominable 0 for 6 with runners in scoring position – and all six at-bats ended in strikeouts. Arenado was 0 for 2. Carpenter, Nootbaar, Saggese and Walker were each 0 for 1.

The Cardinals loaded the bases in the ninth with no one out … only to have Walker (looking), Saggese (swinging) and Carpenter (swinging) strike out.

I wrote about this a while back, but my research identified one obvious problem for this team when having a chance to get something done in RISP scenarios.

St. Louis batters take too many called strikes and swing at too many balls out of the strike zone.

It happened again Tuesday. In their failure to deliver a run despite having six RISP opportunities, Cardinal hitters took eight swings at 19 out-of-zone pitches for a chase rate of 42 percent. And on 14 pitches in the strike zone with RISP, the Cardinals took six called strikes.

ANDRE PALLANTE: He appears to be in a September downturn. Walks were a problem in Tuesday’s start against the Reds. Walks were a problem in last week’s start at Milwaukee. In his last two starts Pallante has given up eight runs in 10 innings for a 7.20 ERA. In the two games opponents batted .282 with a .429 onbase percentage and .462 slug. Ugly. This is probably inevitable when a starting pitcher has a 20.4 percent walk rate over two consecutive starts. That’s Pallante. In his last two assignments he had more walks (10) than strikeouts (9.) And he was clubbed for two home runs when pitching with runners in scoring position.

BURLESON’S SLUMP, THE FORENSICS: He went 0-4 and grounded into a double play in Tuesday’s loss to the Reds. Burly is 3 for 28 (.109) with one RBI in September, hasn’t homered since Aug. 17, and has batted .224 with a dim .304 slug since July 22.

So what’s been going on? How are pitchers making easy work of Burleson? First of all, Burly is getting down in the count and hasn’t found his way out of it.

Since July 22, he’s 7 for 51 (.137) with an uncharacteristic 25 percent strikeout rate when pitchers are ahead in the count.

That’s a big problem. Because when Burleson connected when he’s ahead in the count, he’s 11 for 37 (.297) with four doubles, two homers and a .568 slug.

Next: Burleson’s batting averages against specific pitches, on all counts, since his struggles began on July 22 …

– Four-seam fastball, .217
– Changeup, .211
– Sweeper, .222
– Curve, .111
– Slider, .045.

Burleson has been attacked with sliders more than any other pitch, and obviously it’s working for the pitchers.

ARENADO UPDATE: In his last 18 games the third baseman has one homer and a whispery .314 slugging percentage. And 14 of his 17 hits have been singles. Arenado has the most singles (104) by a Cardinal this season. And his 104 singles are ninth highest among MLB hitters in 2024.

LUKEN BAKER & VICTOR SCOTT: Let’s update a note I had yesterday. With the STL offense in hibernation, Baker has been given only three plate appearances in the team’s last seven games. And the Cardinals sure were smart in demoting Scott to Triple A Memphis. That will teach the rookie to get hits and amp up the power and all of that stuff. In his final 11 games before getting benched and then demoted, Scott had a dandy slash line of .297/.350/.487. I guess that wasn’t good enough to impress Oli Marmol and John Mozeliak. The Cardinals are OVERFLOWING with offense.

Thanks 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.

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