As Cardinals enter All-Star break, tough decisions loom ahead of MLB trade deadline
The St. Louis Cardinals have had an historically difficult first half that is unlikely to get much easier in the coming weeks.
There are tough decisions ahead and even tougher pills to swallow, but with less than a month until MLB’s trade deadline, the creep of reality is about to land on a last place team with a thud.
Regardless of the outcome of Sunday’s rubber match with the Chicago White Sox — St. Louis won 4-3 in 10 innings — the Cardinals already had assured themselves of one of their two worst records relative to .500 at the All-Star break in the history of the game, which was first played in 1933. In the coming weeks and months, there will be no shortage of opportunities to hand out blame for that failure, but however fault is parceled, the numbers are the numbers.
“I’m not sure,” manager Oliver Marmol said when asked if this team, as currently constituted, had reached its ceiling. “I hate putting a ceiling on an individual, let alone a group and what they’re capable of doing. We’ve seen some groups that have been counted out over the years with the Cardinals, and I don’t know if any of you guys predicted the (2011 World) Series. So I hate putting a ceiling, because I don’t think it exists.
“I do think we’re playing the style of baseball that we need to play now,” he added. “We’re just going to need consistency out of the rotation, and then out of the bullpen, to finish games.”
To be sure, there were periods earlier in the season when varying fault lines developed into serious cracks which have since been patched. Each of Dylan Carlson, Lars Nootbaar and Tyler O’Neill has lost time to injury, requiring a shuffling of personnel that struggled to make up for the deficiencies in outfield defense created by their absence.
Tommy Edman — a former Gold Glove winner at second base — was dispatched to center field because he was most trusted to stabilize that area of concern. In doing that, the infield defense suffered, despite solid play from Brendan Donovan and Nolan Gorman. Nolan Arenado and Willson Contreras have each had fallow periods at the plate, and the offense suffered.
Those issues are correctable in time. The pitching problems may not be, and they appear to be on the verge of getting worse.
Sellers at trade deadline?
Even if Jordan Montgomery’s Friday hamstring scare is minor — he was scheduled to be checked out late Sunday by team doctors but doesn’t believe the injury is serious — how many starts he’ll have remaining for the Cardinals remains unclear. Professional scouts representing contending teams in both leagues descended upon Guaranteed Rate Field this weekend with Montgomery and White Sox starter Lucas Giolito at the top of their lists of priorities.
Cardinals relievers Giovanny Gallegos, Jordan Hicks and Chris Stratton were also targets of observation, reaffirming a belief throughout the industry the team is preparing to sell off its pending free agents. A clear posture as sellers would be unprecedented in the history of this ownership and baseball operations group; it is also seemingly necessary in the face of an increasingly lost season dragging through its 90th game.
“My job is to win with the group that I have,” Marmol said. “Front office makes the decision of what direction they want to go in based on what we’re doing on the field. So I don’t concern myself with that a ton, other than, in order to get to where we need to go, we need to win today’s game with the group that we have currently here. They’ll make whatever decision they feel like is needed.”
The resignation speaks to the pitching as much as the pitching speaks for itself. Matz has re-claimed a rotation slot from Matt Liberatore, but Adam Wainwright’s remains unfilled. And if, as expected, more pitchers continue to decamp via trade, there will be more innings yet to cover.
‘That’s the frustrating part,’ Marmol says
That doesn’t change the job of the field manager. Players and coaches don’t tear down seasons; administrators do in the cause of long term success. Often, that comes with acute short term struggles. Those, this season, are nothing new.
“Our pitching wasn’t consistent enough for us to get on a streak or a roll,” Marmol said when asked to evaluate his team in the first half. “There’s points where we didn’t have our guys, and our defense suffered because of it. And then there’s just times where our bullpen was very inconsistent and unable to finish games.
“We put ourselves in position quite often to finish the game after the seventh, and haven’t been able to. So that’s the frustrating part.”
Frustration in 2023 is also not new. In the coming months, it’s likely to become the most common mode of reality before giving way to acceptance and a wait for next season.
For Cardinals fans of several generations, this is the earliest the season has ever gotten this late.