2017 Cardinals - Where Do We Go From Here?

Last Sunday marked the end of the 2017 Major League Baseball regular season.  For the second year in a row, the end of the regular season also meant the end of the baseball season for the Cardinals.  After making the playoffs 5 seasons in a row (2011-2015) and 12 times in a 16 year span (2000-15), the Cardinals have now missed the playoffs in consecutive years and they seem to be trending in the wrong direction.  Consider the team's results over the last 5 years:

• 2013: 97-65, 1st place, Lost in the World Series
• 2014: 90-72, 1st place, Lost in the NLCS
• 2015: 100-62, 1st place, Lost in the NLDS
• 2016: 86-76, 2nd place, Missed playoffs (eliminated on last day of the season)
• 2017: 83-79, 3rd place, Missed playoffs (eliminated with 3 games remaining)

So, after winning their 19th National League pennant in 2013, their season has ended earlier and earlier for four years running.  Clearly, something needs to change.

To an extent, the on-field results are no surprise given the lineups the team has put together the past few years.  From 2000-11, the Cardinals had numerous core, franchise players in their prime.  Albert Pujols, Jim Edmonds, Scott Rolen, Yadier Molina, Edgar Renteria, Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright.  Those linchpin players were then accompanied by several other good role players, like Reggie Sanders, Larry Walker, David Freese, and Jeff Suppan.  In a sense, it was an embarrassment of riches and the team racked up numerous playoff appearances, 3 NL pennants and 2 World Series titles.  Red October was an annual occurrence and the one of America's great baseball towns often took center stage.

Look at the roster now and what do you see? A bunch of guys.  Yadier Molina is the face of the franchise and still performing at a high level, but you can't build a team around a 35 year old catcher.  Several of their players are solid, decent players - Matt Carpenter, Kolten Wong, Dexter Fowler - but none of those guys are franchise players, those linchpin players that you can build a team around.  Perhaps Oscar Tavares might have filled that role, but we'll never know since he was killed in a car wreck following his exciting 2014 rookie season.  Tommy Pham had a terrific season in 2017, but can he repeat that again in 2018?  Paul DeJong gave us a lot to like in 2017, but then again, so did Aledmys Diaz in 2016 and he wound up stinking up the joint this year and toiling at AAA most of the year.  Can DeJong build on this season or will it prove to be an anomaly?

The team, as currently constructed, doesn't really excel at anything.  They are middling defensively and terrible on the basepaths.  They hit a fair number of home runs, but strike out way too often.  On top of it all, they are managed by someone who often seems to be in over his head.  Mike Matheny may foster good relationships with his players, but when you see a team make the same mistakes over and over again, at what point do you begin to start pointing the finger at the manager?  He jerked Kolten Wong around early in the year, taking a talented guy with a fragile psyche and subjecting him to frequent benchings and demotions.  He stuck with Aledmys Diaz too long and many of his managerial snafus in April and May cost the team wins that likely cost them a spot in the postseason.  He seems to still not grasp how to handle a pitching staff, which is particularly alarming since he was a catcher and that was what he was known for when he was a player.  Finally, he can't figure out how to beat the Cubs, who have pounded the Cardinals over the past few seasons.

The front office isn't helping, either.  John Mozeliak and company have done little to improve the team's talent level, even when it was clear to everyone that the team needed some help.  When was the last time the Cardinals signed a big free agent or made a blockbuster trade?  There have been glaring issues the past few seasons and the front office has mostly declined to do anything about it.

In a sense, it's almost like the Cardinals and Cubs have changed places.  For years, the Cardinals had the star power and the on field success, while the Cubs did just enough to be semi-competitive while packing in the fans. Why spend money to win if you can be mediocre and still sell out on a regular basis?  Now, those roles have reversed.  The Cubs have the star power and the on-field success while the Cardinals do just enough to be semi-competitive while packing in 3 million plus fans every year.  Again, why spend money to win if you can just be decent and still pack in the fans?  Why focus on winning when you can come up with a million different "theme nights"?  The Cardinals of the past few seasons remind me a lot of the Cardinals of the early 1990s: decent, fairly competitive team populated by just a bunch of guys.  They weren't ever terrible, but they weren't ever really good, either.

Looking forward, here's hoping the Cardinals stop being fat and happy and start trying to reward the fans and the city with more October baseball.

Thanks for reading!