A look back at the best and worst of the Cardinals historically awful season
The end of a St. Louis Cardinals season has historically brought an opportunity for wistful contemplation of the exciting moments which made up the summer and optimism for reshaping entering the next season, even if accompanied by disappointment in the years which didn’t bring a championship.
This year, though, is unlikely to bring much of those same warm feelings to anyone so unlucky as to follow it up close.
The celebration of Adam Wainwright was both well done and well deserved, but by the end of the season’s final weekend, even that energy was lagging. The 2023 season was one to forget in every way except for the lessons it provides. These are the players that stood out from the muck, for better and worse.
Most Valuable Player: catcher Willson Contreras
Contreras tied with Lars Nootbaar at the top of the team leaderboard in wins above replacement as calculated by Baseball Reference, and he came exactly as advertised as last winter’s feature addition.
His batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage all ticked up slightly over his final year in Chicago, and he caught 6% more potential base stealers than league average.
He also, to his credit, did not have a season-altering meltdown when some within the club decided that he made a convenient scapegoat for the season’s early struggles. There’s no denying that his method of handling a pitching staff differed from (and is in many ways inferior to) that of Yadier Molina. That’s a reasonable thing to expect for someone replacing arguably the greatest defensive catcher of all time.
Despite being dragged into a public indignity the day before he made his first return trip to Chicago, Contreras kept an upbeat attitude and accepted responsibility, steadfastly refusing to return fire to the organization.
As bad as the season was, Contreras’s value was enhanced simply because he had the opportunity to make it much worse, and he declined.
Least Valuable Player: catcher Tres Barrera
Last place teams stumbling past 90 losses are bound to see all manner of role players make cameos, and the Cardinals set a franchise record by using 52 different players this season.
It would be hard to argue with any of a few handfuls, many of whom simply forced into a deeper end of a pool than befits their ability to swim.
Barrera is among these, and by all accounts is a great teammate who was a helpful mentor for most of the year at Triple-A Memphis.
His inclusion here is instead symbolic; in his month on the active roster, he appeared in only six games and had two plate appearances. With Contreras relegated to only acting as a designated hitter, Barrera was the designated warm body behind Andrew Knizner, who started nine straight games between May 5-14.
Contreras returned from catching purgatory on May 15, and Barrera was kept on the active roster for a full 21 additional days in which he caught a total of 5 ⅓ innings.
Questionable management of the roster is more feature than bug for this front office, but willingly playing a man down while the season slipped into oblivion was a new low. Barrera’s placement here is a symptom of that decision making.
Top Pitcher: Jordan Montgomery
Ryan Helsley and JoJo Romero were both outstanding from the bullpen, but neither pitched enough innings to provide a season-long impact. Zack Thompson’s late season surge perhaps makes him a candidate for this spot next season, but his early season struggles are tough to overcome. Miles Mikolas led the Major Leagues in starts this season; two thirds of those starts weren’t very good.
Montgomery gets the nod here despite being traded at the deadline both because he was the only pitcher to start for St. Louis this season and turn in an ERA under 3.50 and also because his trade returned Thomas Saggese, who won the Double-A batting title and could be the best individual piece of the summer prospect haul.
Montgomery’s game one performance in the Wild Card series helped propel the Rangers into the AL Division Series, where they’ll take on the current team of the runner up in the next category.
Bottom Pitcher: Adam Wainwright
Jack Flaherty’s Baltimore Orioles are no longer counting on him to start at all, and his career trajectory continues to veer into alarming territory as he seeks to reclaim his prior abilities. His early season pouting in Chicago (it really was a very bad trip) was one of the season’s lows, but Flaherty stabilized the ship enough to avoid ignominy.
Wainwright’s season, as they say in the game, was what it was. He reported a hamstring injury coming out of the World Baseball Classic which sounded curiously like symptoms he was describing before he even left. This week, he told AJ Pierzynski on his podcast “Foul Territory” that he pitched most of the season with a tear in the labrum of his pitching shoulder.
That would certainly contribute to a 7.40 ERA and a full negative two wins above replacement. Remember him on the field for all the years prior, and remember him off the field for his countless good works. Take this season between the lines and flush it.
Best Moment: Wainwright’s 200th Win
Or, don’t flush all of it.
His final appearance on a mound on September 18 was also easily his best of the season, and he told Pierzynski that it came with his labrum fully ruptured. Had he not secured the victory that night, he said his body wouldn’t have allowed him to keep trying.
Instead, he turned in seven shutout innings against the division champion Brewers, and Contreras’s solo homer was enough to power the Cardinals and Wainwright across the finish line. The scripted celebrations of the final weekend were well deserved, but they pale in comparison to the pure relief and exhilaration of one last win.
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Worst Moment: May 6 – Cardinals lose 6-5 to Detroit in ten innings
What seems like a random loss was truly the season’s death knell. Despite jumping out to a 3-0 lead in the second inning, Wainwright and the bullpen couldn’t hold off the hapless Tigers as the Cardinals fumbled their way into an eighth consecutive loss, and their 13th in a 15 game stretch.
The previous road trip saw Jordan Walker demoted to the minors and the team scraped up only two wins in 10 games on the west coast, and a return home to beat up on bad Angels and Tigers teams was their only hope to get the train back on the tracks.
Instead, they dropped the first five games of the homestand, and it was clear that the season was, for all intents and purposes, over in the first week of May as they slipped to 10-24.
Many ugly games would follow, but it’s hard to find a lower point than the stark, inescapable realization that the Cardinals had buried themselves in a hole too deep to escape barely 20% of the way through the season.
