A rant by Sy Ingersoll.
The Reigning National League Central champion St. Louis Cardinals are coming off a rather disappointing playoff performance, losing in two games to the future Pennant winning Philadelphia Phillies. Coming into the offseason, the Cardinals had many questions to answer with their squad needing more starting pitching depth, another left handed reliever, a left handed hitting outfielder and a catcher.
It’s January and they have only answered one of those questions by signing former Cubs catcher, Wilson Contreras to a five year contract to be the guy who replaces future hall of famer Yadier Molina. Outside of that, the Cardinals Front office have sat back on their butt watching playoff teams like the New York Mets and San Diego Padres go out and make big moves, which isn’t a good look for this team.
The Central is ours to lose, every Cardinal fan knows this. but once we see a non-NL central team that is actually good (like the Mets or Phillies or Braves or Padres or Dodgers for example) we just don’t know how to play baseball. Hell, you know you aren’t good when a supposive “playoff team” doesn’t even crack the top 10 best teams in the whole MLB. I’d love to come out here and say “oh Mozeliak has some sort of big trade planned, this team will get better” but that’s not realistic. Yes, our offense is good, with the veteran presence of Arenado, Goldschmidt and Contreras Along with the Young guns of Nootbaar, Carlson, Edman and Donovan this is a top 5 offense in the league.
It’s our Mediocre pitching that holds this team back. Milokas is a #2 starter, not an ace. Montgomery is a solid #3, Matz and Flaherty dealt with injuries so we don’t know what we’re going to see out of them. Wainwright is 41 years old, his expectations to do good is so, so low and Hudson is not a major league quality pitcher, he should have retired after he got Tommy John. It’s going to be difficult for us to utilize our top 5 closer in Helsley if our starters struggle to go six innings every game. The point is, this team has the potential to bring back World Series hardware to the Lou but we have questions marks that must be answered. If Mozeliak actually wants to keep his promise to Arenado to make this team better and win him the ring he deserves (along with Goldy) this team has changes to be made otherwise we will continue to be a first round exit every postseason.