The St. Louis Cardinals will field a lousy team this season, but maybe it’ll all work out

It was a nail-biter of a Super Bowl with our neighbors in Kansas City making like the St. Louis Blues as the Chiefs won their first championship in 50 years to end the NFL season.

So can we put that all behind us and get on with the important business of firing up Major League Baseball once again?

While St. Louis Cardinals President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak preaches patience, it seems like this winter has taken forever as Cardinals fans wait for SOMETHING to happen. For the most part, unless you include importing a swing man pitcher from South Korea and bringing back a second string catcher, it never did.

So, if the Cardinals are not going to try to win the offseason, can we please get to playing the games so we can see if St. Louis can win the regular season?

The championship from the Chiefs puts the Cardinals in the unusual situation of being the major league sports team from Missouri that has gone the longest without a championship.

In addition to wins from the Kansas City Chiefs and hockey’s St. Louis Blues, let’s not forget that the Kansas City Royals managed to win a World Series five years ago, post-dating the most recent Cardinals championship by four seasons.

I sure hope St. Louis is going to be better than I think they’ll be.

Cardinals pitching and offense a concern

I just don’t see this team being able to score enough runs to be a division contender and I worry about what that will do to prospects like Lane Thomas and Dylan Carlson. While players do a lot more learning on the job these days than they ever did in the past, I still believe in easing them into the picture as opposed to putting them into a sink or swim situation.

I’m also worried that the pitching staff is due for a setback. After three years of struggling, Adam Wainwright had a wonderful comeback season in 2019. But was that the new normal, or was last season the longtime Cardinals ace’s last hurrah? We shall see. And what about Carlos Martinez? He showed up for spring training last year in no shape to be a starting pitcher because of shoulder weakness. It seems his shoulder has been a concern for about three seasons now. Will it be magically better? Or will this be the season it blows up and puts him on the shelf for a year?

Mozeliak decided to go with the logic that, because almost all the Cardinals’ hitters statistically under performed last year, they’re due for a bounce back. I’m not sure if I can believe that. Matt Carpenter’s decline has been disturbing and, unless he is able to completely retool his uppercut swing to allow him to be more competitive hitting the ball to all fields, he’s going to continue to struggle. Especially as he continues to push deeper into his thirties.

Same for Dexter Fowler. We can hope he’s going to improve upon his mediocre (at best) 2019 season as much as he improved last year over his absolutely horrific 2018. But he’s not getting any younger. He is who he is. Fowler is to the point in his career where he ought to be a part time player, not someone who St. Louis is relying on to have a bounce back.

Finally, the biggest worry of all is superstar catcher Yadier Molina, the leader of the Cardinals on the field for years. Yadi’s bat showed some signs of fading last year and he’s had an awful lot of wear and tear on his knees in his decade-and-a-half in the major leagues. Is Molina still an important part of this team? Absolutely. But the Cardinals need to rely on him to play solid defense and manage the pitching staff on the field, not to be the big bat in the middle of the lineup at this point of his career. That’s too much to ask and is certainly unfair to him as the two-time World Series champion seeks another shot at a ring.

I don’t mean for this to sound like it’s all doom and gloom for the Cardinals. If everything goes right, the pieces are there for this to be a really good team. But I’m concerned because of age and track record that the odds are against everything going just right. Every time a team wins a championship it seems a major contribution comes from an unexpected source. So these kids are going to have to turn in a year like Willie McGee or Albert Pujols’ rookie season if the Cardinals are going to have a real chance at a World Series championship. I wouldn’t bet the house on it. But stranger things have happened. So, I am ready for the teams to get back on the field so we can all stop speculating and worrying about what’s going to happen and see it with our own eyes.

Bring on baseball!

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.