President of baseball operations John Mozeliak won’t deny that his St. Louis Cardinals need to play better baseball. He knows sub-.500 ball doesn’t fly in St. Louis, and he’s aware of the fan apathy this season that’s currently supporting that notion.
Yet as the Cardinals roll into mid-June one game under .500 and 6 1/2 games back in the National League Central, it’s difficult to declare them legitimate contenders. Sure, they’ve held their own in a middling division, one that entered play Friday with four teams separated by 1 1/2 games. It’s true also that the National League is no juggernaut, and that despite spending just one day this season over .500, the Cardinals have also been firmly in playoff contention for most of the year.
Still, the team’s incessant chase of .500 has grown tiresome. The Cardinals have done little to convince fans that winning baseball will return to Baseball Heaven this year. They have lost precious games attempting to play with a patched-up roster, one that has been through its fair share of brutal injuries, but also has lacked the depth to adequately backfill those absences.
“The good news,” Mozeliak said as he sat in his office Wednesday afternoon, “is that no (team) has really run away with anything.”
Racing off to Chicago with a W! #ForTheLou pic.twitter.com/DfCqw86DGz
— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) June 13, 2024
It is not too late for the Cardinals to make a run. Not when they believe they have the pieces to do so, even if such pieces as Nolan Arenado, Paul Goldschmidt and Jordan Walker are underperforming, or if other pieces such as Willson Contreras, Tommy Edman and Lars Nootbaar are injured. They are also aided by a weak competitive field this year, though they’d be better served taking advantage of that sooner rather than later.
That’s much easier said than done for Mozeliak, who finds himself bound by the calendar. The Cardinals’ depth issues have been a pressing topic over the last few weeks, but having six weeks left until MLB’s trade deadline makes it difficult (and unlikely) for a true impact move to be made at this time.
That’s why Mozeliak says he thinks the best course of action is to set his sights on the end of the month. Several injured Cardinals, including Contreras, Nootbaar, Steven Matz, Giovanny Gallegos, Riley O’Brien and Nick Robertson, are slated to return before June comes to a close. Edman might not be far behind. The hope is the return of six players, all of whom were penned in as impact players coming into the spring, boosts the roster heading into the All-Star break and trade deadline. Then Mozeliak and his front office can act accordingly.
“Getting our everyday club back on the field is critical,” Mozeliak said. “Getting Contreras back, Nootbaar, is something we hope happens quickly. Then in terms of how we look at our bullpen, with Robertson, O’Brien, Gallegos, we’ll see what that looks like in the next couple of weeks. Where’s Matz going to be two, three weeks from now?”
“The trading deadline is still six weeks away,” he added. “Directionally, what we do or try to do between now and then, we’re still open to ideas and thinking through some things. But the reality is we have to get our team back on the field.”
The Cardinals’ biggest roster flaws involve a lack of right-handed bats off the bench, one-dimensional left-handed bench bats and a missing fifth starter (though the team might have found an answer in Andre Pallante, at least for the time being). St. Louis can at least start penciling in some returns. Their most pivotal, Contreras, could return to the team by the final week of June — a good two weeks before his initial projected timeline after fracturing his forearm in early May. Nootbaar (oblique strain) could begin taking swings this weekend. A three-week ramp-up period would follow. Matz will make his third rehab start Sunday with Double-A Springfield, while Gallegos could join the team as early as next week’s series against the Miami Marlins. A return by the All-Star break is not out of the question for Edman, who has missed the entire season recovering from offseason wrist surgery.
Getting these players back will help strengthen what has become a very thin bench for manager Oli Marmol, due in part to many of the team’s projected bench players (Matt Carpenter, Alec Burleson, Iván Herrera) needing to fill in everyday roles.
“Trying to replace or rebuild our bench is really difficult at this point,” Mozeliak said. “Obviously with so many guys on the injured list, people are having to do things that they weren’t necessarily signed up to do. Herrera was supposed to be the second catcher. (Pedro) Pagés was supposed to be catching every day in Memphis. You can go on and on through it, but until we get healthy, this is what we’re going to look like.”
The club was also hurt by the regression of Jordan Walker, who was optioned to Triple A in April and has remained there since. Walker was supposed to provide the lineup with secondary power behind Contreras, Arenado and Goldschmidt, but he struggled mightily to open the season. When the Cardinals opted to demote him to the minors, they did so under the premise that major swing changes would be needed before he’d be brought back up.
Walker is hitting .267 with a .718 OPS over 36 games for Memphis, but he’s being evaluated beyond his box score numbers.
Note: Don’t serve Jordan Walker a 76 mph curveball right over the plate.
The @Cardinals outfielder drives the first pitch he sees of the game of out of here for the @memphisredbirds. pic.twitter.com/Xsg3hd7txn
— Minor League Baseball (@MiLB) June 11, 2024
“It’s two things,” Mozeliak said. “One is that there are some fundamental things that we’re trying to work on. But some of these things are really hard to do in-season, because when a player steps in the batter’s box he tends to go back to where he’s (comfortable). It’s hard to make a physical change; that’s really what you have to try to optimize your offseason for. It’s been well-documented we’re trying to get him a little bit more lift, less balls on the ground — that’s your launch angle. He’s still hitting the ball really hard, but mostly on the ground.
“The other part of it, just being very simple about it, is performance. Even though there are things he’s trying to work on, it’s tough when you’re competing in a game, but the fact is you’d like to see him string some hits together. You’d like to see some extra-base hits. If you could see where his on-base percentage and slugging percentage rise, that would be encouraging. His attitude has been great. He knows he has to earn his way back.”
There is a scenario where Walker returns to the team as well, but his timetable remains in flux. Mozeliak prefers to focus on the returns of his injured players as he evaluates what he could do at the deadline. With a month and a half to go, his plans can change, but he did acknowledge that his deadline decisions will be made in tandem with his club’s health.
“It’s a little premature to answer that question,” Mozeliak said. “I also think it’s going to depend on the health of this organization. We mentioned getting Contreras, Nootbaar back. We’re starting to hear a lot more optimism on Edman. If all of a sudden those guys are back in our everyday lineup, we’re going to feel a lot more confident about our everyday lineup.”
“At the trading deadline, you can always use pitching,” he added. “There’s never been a year you don’t go into the deadline looking for pitching if you’re trying to contend. But ultimately, it’s going to be what do we look like in two or three weeks from a health standpoint?”
At 33-34, the Cardinals’ season to this point has been a disappointment. But Mozeliak says he believes things can turn. The next three weeks will be critical.
“We want to make a push past .500,” Mozeliak said. “There’s still almost four months of baseball left, a lot of baseball still left to be played. When I look at this club right now, I still think it can win. But we have to get to where we’re healthy.”
(Photo of John Mozeliak from last year: Jeff Curry / USA Today)
