St. Louis Cardinals: Uncertainty remains in 2016

Roster turnover, a slew of injuries, and young, less familiar faces leave questions to be answered for the St. Louis Cardinals in 2016.

Last season was one of the more bizarre years in St. Louis over the past decade of baseball. Kick started by the tragic passing of Oscar Taveras last offseason, the St. Louis Cardinals reached out to Jason Heyward and figured to have their cornerstone outfield talent for the next decade in St. Louis.

Obviously, those plans did not pan out, and Heyward will be spending 2016 and beyond with a ball club that nobody around here feels much affection for.

Then, of course, there were all those injuries. It started in April, with Wainwright’s freak achilles rupture and Jordan Walden‘s bicep strain that shelved him for the entire year. Then the Adams and Holliday quad strains that nagged both for the majority of the 2015 season.

Don’t forget Yadier Molina (thumb) and Carlos Martinez (shoulder) right before the playoffs. Even Randal Grichuk and Jon Jay spent extended stints on the DL, and Lance Lynn just landed there for the entirety of 2016 after undergoing Tommy John surgery in November…the list goes on and on.

And yet, that club won 100 ballgames in the premier division in Major League Baseball. That club figures to be very competitive again in 2016, albeit, with questions to be answered as we progress into the spring and back into baseball season.

General Manager John Mozeliak addressed the innings concern of losing a guy like Lance Lynn by picking up innings eater Mike Leake in free agency to the tune of five-years, $80 million. Still, though, there are legitimate concerns about the stability of that rotation in 2016.

How does Adam Wainwright bounce back from missing virtually all of 2015? How about the durability of youngsters Michael Wacha and Carlos Martinez, both of whom have had arm troubles before the age of 24? Jaime Garcia hasn’t pitched a full season since 2011, how does he hold up over the 30-plus starts he could be in line for in 2016?

More from St Louis Cardinals News

• Cardinals Rumors: 3 pros and cons of signing Carlos Rodon
• Cardinals: Here is Willson Contreras’ first message for St. Louis fans
• How do the St. Louis Cardinals stack up with Willson Contreras?
• Cardinals: The insane asking price the Athletics had for Sean Murphy
• St. Louis Cardinals: Ask me anything with Josh Jacobs – 12/8

Is somebody going to step up and produce offensively at the first base position?

Both Matt Adams and Brandon Moss are on the dawn of career-defining years. Adams, with all his power potential, needs to show he can be a run-producer at the big league level and he needs to do it for an entire season.

Moss needs to show that he still has some of that thunder left in his bat that he showed off during his three year run in Oakland where he hit a combined 76 long balls from 2012-2014.

Does Kolten Wong improve his plate discipline and OBP in 2016?

Will he instead revert back to the over-aggressive and free-swinging approach that resulted in 95 strikeouts against just 36 walks in 2015? If anybody on the Cardinals roster is a candidate to take over the leadoff spot so that Matt Carpenter can shift into more of a run-producing position in the order, Wong is that guy.

How about Matt Holliday?

How does he rebound from his injury plagued 2015 season? Is he still a prolific offensive option in left field for St. Louis? While Holliday had that 45-game on base streak before his quad injury last season, both his Slugging Percentage and OPS has declined each season since 2010.

What do the Cardinals get out of Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty over 500 at-bats?

Both seem poised for breakout seasons, based on small sample sizes at the tail end of 2015. Are the St. Louis outfielders of tomorrow going to continue to produce  as opponent scouting reports improve and each goes through the rigors of a 162-game schedule?

What about the Cardinal backstop?

Its no secret, Molina is not getting any younger. His days of catching 130-plus games are probably over. How does Mike Matheny handle Yadi’s workload, so that he can be at 100% for a playoff run? What does he get out of Brayan Pena, both as a field general behind the plate as well as a bat in a lineup that continues to seek run production?

2016 should undoubtedly be an intriguing baseball year in St. Louis.

All of this assumes that the Cardinals make no more offseason moves, which is pretty unlikely. Regardless, for the first time in a good while, the Cardinals figure to enter a season as an “underdog” to Chicago and maybe even Pittsburgh as well in the NL Central.

The manner in which the questions posed above are answered are going to have implications not just in 2016, but also into 2017, and far beyond that. As the veterans look to continue to facilitate that winning environment in St. Louis, the time is now for the youngsters to emerge and assure the Cardinal Front Office, along with Cardinal Nation, that the future of the organization stands on solid ground.

Next: Cardinals on the move for power

As we enter an era that is set to feature ultra-competitive NL Central races among the three-headed Chicago, Pittsburgh and St. Louis monster. The 2016 season is going to go a long way in forecasting the future of baseball’s strongest division.