If the St. Louis Cardinals want more out of Paul Goldschmidt, they need a cleanup hitter

If the St. Louis Cardinals are counting on a bounce-back season from Paul Goldschmidt to fix their offensive woes from within, they might want to think that plan over a second time.

According to Baseball Reference, Goldschmidt is projected to turn in a season closer to his somewhat disappointing St. Louis debut than the first eight seasons of his career with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

In the desert, Goldschmidt was a .297 hitter with a .398 on-base percentage and a .532 slugging percentage. After being traded to the Cardinals, Goldschmidt batted .260 in 2019 with a .346 on-base percentage and a .476 slugging percentage. Those certainly aren’t terrible numbers. But there aren’t exactly elite totals, either. While Goldschmidt is expected to enjoy something on a bounce back, he’s still projected to be well off his Diamondbacks era numbers with a .271 batting average, a .364 on-base percentage and a .507 slugging mark.

It always makes me scratch my head how these numbers are projected when the prognosticators don’t know who will be batting in front of and behind the player. They also don’t really know if the ballplayer will be traded, so they don’t know in what stadium he’ll play the majority of his games. It’s all a gamble. But, assuming they’re figuring the stats based on the environment the person was involved in the previous season, it would stand to reason they’re assuming Goldschmidt will be batting third in front of veteran slugger Marcell Ozuna. So, in short, it stands to reason that he’ll be significantly weakened if he doesn’t see any decent pitches because opposing hurlers work around him all year.

Goldschmidt probably suffered some of his 2019 issues because of a the trade that lead to a change of scenery. But it also seemed that he pressed, expanding his strike zone to try to make something happen when the opportunity just wasn’t there. Goldschmidt has always had issues with strikeouts throughout his career, averaging 146 per campaign since his rookie year.

If Ozuna comes back to St. Louis, Baseball-Reference predicts he’ll have something of a bounce back year after a disappointing 2019. He’s projected to match Goldschmidt with a .271 batting average, getting on base 33.8 percent of the time while belting 26 home runs.

With no Ozuna, the Cardinals will regress

Without Ozuna in the batting order, the Cardinals don’t have another established cleanup hitter on the roster. Shortstop Paul DeJong strikes out about a quarter of the time. His batting average, which is .251 for his career, has faded each of the past two seasons and he has a lifetime on-base percentage of only .218. As unappealing as those numbers are, DeJong would be the clear-cut second choice if Ozuna isn’t around in 2020.

It just doesn’t seem to make much sense for the Cardinals to expect the same crop of players — potentially without Ozuna — to find another gear and produce better next year than they did last. In fact, with the remarkable strides the Cardinals took in improving their defense and their base running, it would seem more likely that the team would statistically regress to the mean than continue to push forward for a second year in a row.

The more time that passes, the more likely it seems that St. Louis won’t do anything to address its offense this winter. But it just doesn’t seem that move is a viable strategy. Especially because, with the Chicago White Sox headed in another direction, it appears the Cincinnati Reds are the chief competition for Ozuna’s services. The Reds have added both offense and pitching so far during the Hot Stove League and, with the Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers apparently retooling, they could be the biggest threat to the Cardinals’ plans to defend their division title.

Scott Wuerz

Belleville News-Democrat

Scott Wuerz has written “Cheap Seats,” a St. Louis Cardinals fan blog for the Belleville News-Democrat, since 2007. He is a former BND reporter who covered breaking news and education.