2015 St. Louis Cardinals’ Season Review: Surprises

Oct 10, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Cardinals players stand for the national anthem before game two of the NLDS against the Chicago Cubs at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

Well, here we are the season is over. It really is unfortunate that we are going to be without Cardinals’ baseball for the next 5-6 months. It is even more unfortunate to have your season end against your bitter rivals. Even worse for me with so many friends and family members that are fans of said rivals.

With that said, let’s move into offseason mode!

Without a doubt, this was one of the most unique seasons I have ever witnessed. We saw a team go through so much this season and it all started about a year ago, when they lost a teammate in a tragic fashion. To work through that had to be hard on the team, especially for the guys who played with him in the minors. John Mozeliak had to move on and try to replace his prized prospect and that he did with the acquisition of Jason Heyward.

Then we had the injuries, oh the injuries, the injuries that wound up being too much for the Cardinals to overcome in the postseason. However, the club was able to work through those injuries and win an MLB best 100 games. Kudos, to Mike Matheny and John Mozeliak for working through the injuries.

I want to go ahead and split this review into a few different areas. I want to talk about surprises, top performers, disappointments, and a piece on where the team goes from here.

With that said, let’s go ahead and tackle this season’s surprises.

Oct 9, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Cardinals pinch hitter Thomas Pham (60) hits a solo home run against the Chicago Cubs in the 8th inning in game one of the NLDS at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Scott Rovak-USA TODAY Sports

#2 Tommy Pham 

Wow, another player that stepped up big for the Cardinals that I simply did not see coming. Pham had a great start in spring training, but his hopes of making the club to start the season were derailed when he suffered a quad injury in early March. The quad injuries turned out to be a theme this season, with Matt Holliday and Matt Adams suffering from quad injuries as well. 

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Pham did have a strong season at AAA last season with a .324/.395/.491 slash that included 32 extra-base hits. However, with the quad injury and past injuries, the question for Pham was always his health. Unfortunately at times his manager had questions about Pham’s ability to perform as he decided to lean on veteran Jon Jay way too much this season with a more talented Pham wasting on the bench. Pham finished the season with a pretty good line of .268/.347/.477 with 29 extra-base hits (5 Home Runs, 7 doubles, 5 triples) in 153 at bats, and a wRC+ of 125 according to Fangraphs.

For next season, I am going to temper my expectations way down for Mr. Pham as he will be going into his age 28 season and with Piscotty and Randal Grichuk ahead of him on the OF depth chart, I simply don’t see him having a chance to start in the OF unless there is a catastrophic OF injury meltdown again.

Oct 10, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Cardinals pinch hitter

Randal Grichuk

(15) hits a solo home run against the Chicago Cubs during the fifth inning in game two of the NLDS at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

#3 Randal Grichuk 

Let me preface this, last season I was a staunch pessimist on Grichuk’s ability to hit consistently. I did not see Grichuk as a viable option in either CF or RF to start the season and wanted to see him develop a little bit more and cut down on the strikeouts a bit.

Grichuk’s season started with a back injury he suffered while weight lifting, injuries being the theme of the season means that Grichuk of course got injured again later in the season. This time it was a little more serious injury with the strained elbow.

Again, the reason I am listing Grichuk as a surprise here is that last season wasn’t the best introduction for the rookie OF. Yes, he hit some bombs (including one off of Kershaw in the playoffs), but he struggled mightily with the strikeout. Grichuk did have the fortune of not having much competition in terms of making the roster out of spring training.

However, when he came back from injury, Grichuk budged his way into the OF conversation with a .279 average during his first month back and Jon Jay and Peter Bourjos’ inability to do anything. Once Holliday went down he became the starting LF. From the point he took over for Holliday until the elbow injury sidelined Grichuk was torrid with a slash of .294/.353/.597 with 30 extra-base hits (13 homers, 12 doubles, and five triples) with an absurd wRC+ of 157 according to Fangraphs.

With that said, Grichuk did have a really high BABIP during that time of .385 and a K rate of 32% and as a staunch critic of Kris Bryant due to his abnormal BABIP and K rate, I have to temper my Grichuk expectations a bit.

However, I do think what we are seeing with Grichuk is what we will see for his career. Grichuk has extreme power and has the potential for 30 homers in a full season. However, there will be times like the latter half of his season (.192 with just 2 homers and one double) when he will struggle mightily.

The biggest concern for me is with his elbow, the team was very cautious with him after the injury (even in the postseason). I am concerned that it will pop at any time and he then will be forced to undergo Tommy John surgery. So, color me concerned on that front.

Next: Matt Holliday takes a holiday and the Cards lose

Oct 10, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Cardinals third baseman

(13) celebrates after hitting a solo home run during the first inning in game two of the NLDS against the Chicago Cubs at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

#4 Matt Carpenter

I have already talked a lot about Carpenter’s season, and I am going to do so again here. This season was without a doubt a surprise season for Carpenter. If you had Carpenter hitting near 30 homers this season…wait nobody had him hitting this many homers and there was no reason to think he was going to do so.

I think we all thought Carp was capable of hitting maybe 15-20 homers, but definitely not leading the team with 28. The most surprising part in all of this is that Carpenter struggled mightily from May 26 to July 19 where he hit .184 with just five extra base-hits – with only one of them being a home run.

When Carp was put back into the leadoff role on July 30 he took off again. He hit .300/.377/.643, 40 extra-base hits (18 homers, 20 doubles, and two triples), with a ridiculous wRC+ of 176 according to Fangraphs. Carpenter did have a .362 BABIP during this time that could be a slight cause for concern. 

FanSided

I am still in awe of these numbers and I have seen them multiple times now. If we can get this type of performance out of Carpenter again next season, it wouldn’t be inconceivable to see him vie for MVP honors as I talked about early in the season.

With an established hitter like Matt Carpenter, it wouldn’t be too crazy to see him maintain a whole season like his second half performance, look at Bryce Harper this season maintaining a .369 BABIP. No, I am not saying Carpenter is better or on par with Bryce Harper, simply stating that maintaining a high BABIP is not out of the question for a good hitter like Matt Carpenter.

May 21, 2015; New York City, NY, USA; St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Jaime Garcia (54) pitches against the New York Mets during the third inning at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

#5 Jaime Garcia

Ok, Cardinals fans turn your postseason blinders on for a second and let’s take a look at Jaime Garcia’s surprise season. Jaime started the season on the DL with shoulder fatigue, which was a surprise to nobody except maybe Garcia. Before the injury, most of Cardinal nation wanted to trade Jaime because there wasn’t any room for him in the rotation. That Garcia actually got to start this season is a bit of a surprise and came about due to the injury to Adam Wainwright.

When Jaime first came off of the DL, I previewed what we could expect from Jaime this season. I really expected him to have an ERA in between 3 and 4, and expected him to be a decent starter for this team. What, I didn’t expect was for Jaime to have an ERA of 2.43. Garcia was lights out this year and as I stated over the weekend had a ridiculous home ERA of 1.70. I did not expect this from Garcia. Garcia has shown flashes of brilliance at times in his career and had it not been for the injury at the end of June, we could have been talking about a legitimate comeback player of the year and we still may.

I fully expect the Cardinals to consider taking Garcia’s $11,500,000 club option and keeping him in the rotation for next season. This would set the rotation up as Wainwright, Martinez, Lynn, Wacha, Garcia in whichever order the team chooses. I don’t expect this team to pony up for a free agent starting pitcher or two more seasons of John Lackey. So, the best case scenario here is another season for Jaime, with Tim Cooney/Tyler Lyons/Alexander Reyes waiting in the wings if an injury were to present itself. I would also fully expect Garcia to have another similar year as the advanced pitching stats don’t present any concern for the left-handed starter.

These are my five surprises for the St. Louis Cardinals this season. Who was most surprising to you Cardinals’ fans?

Be sure to check back over the next couple days as I continue the season review and talk about the top performers, the disappointments, and where the team will go from here.