St. Louis Cardinals: The 2017 Cardinals are the ultimate tease

The old saying goes that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. For the St. Louis Cardinals, an alternate take might be: Fans keep watching the same team and expecting different results. But why?

As much as I’d like to say otherwise, the 2017 version of the St. Louis Cardinals is a tease. As in, the kind of boy or girl that you think may ultimately become your next love but pulls back before committing to any semblance of intimacy.

I think I get it. After all, we’re all devotees of the Redbirds (on this site, anyway). And there are enough individual parts on the club to excite. We see their potential in the Randal Grichuk homers and the Tommy Pham emergence and the Adam Wainwright renaissance to think that it could all come together, some way, some how.

But here’s the thing: We’re now a solid sixty percent of the way in, and the same pattern — one step forward, two or three back — has repeated itself over and again during the season.  The combined efforts of the individual talents have not produced more than the sum of the parts.  If anything, they have produced less.

It’s not always an analytical exercise to determine how the team on the field will gel. Sometimes it’s the best team mostly money can buy (read: Los Angeles Dodgers). In other instances it’s the best team drafts can mostly buy (Houston, with a 2017 opening day payroll half that of the Dodgers).

Or it’s a really, really good hybrid (2016 Cubs, duh, but even they have been surprisingly stymied this year).

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And even with those winning formulas, the results don’t always pan out.  Despite the cries of always dissatisfied fans, the St. Louis Cardinals have spent plenty of dough both on their major league team and on their scouting, player development and international operation. Spending without restraint is just dumb (if you don’t believe that, check out the  almost two-decade cold spell of the George Steinbrenner Yankees).

The St. Louis Cardinals have tried to compete as always, but this particular iteration just doesn’t have the “je ne sais quoi,” the thing that makes a team stand out in its performance, resilience, combativeness, whatever.

That doesn’t mean it can’t change. Teams change on a dime, and sometimes are propelled by an unexpected mid-season thrust into postseason. It happens.

But how likely is it that it will happen? As we saw in the Cubs series, the St. Louis Cardinals blew away the North Siders one day, then had plenty of opportunity to take either of the series-determining games, but as has happened so often this year, no go.

Despite my critiques of manager Mike Matheny, this is hardly all on the manager. A baseball team’s upside can sometimes be unlocked by the head coach; sometimes not; and other times can succeed or fail on its own, despite the best managerial tactics possible. It’s a mystical and oft-unpredictable thing.

At this point in the season, I think the best description of the St. Louis Cardinals’ chances might be summed up by Douglas Adams in his Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy: “It’s not impossible. Just highly improbable.”

Next: Pham or Fowler in CF?

This famous quote might best describe that teasing boy or girl you pined for as well; in most cases, they’ll break your heart. The remaining forty percent of the St. Louis Cardinals season might go either way too.