St. Louis Cardinals: Quiet at the deadline, the Cardinals still have a chance to make noise in October

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ST. LOUIS, MO – JULY 27: Tommy Pham #28 of the St. Louis Cardinals bats against the Arizona Diamondback in the third inning at Busch Stadium on July 27, 2017 in St. Louis, Missouri. (Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images) /

With the St. Louis Cardinals in need of a few pieces to turn the season around and rumors swirling around faster than a whirlpool in the Bermuda Triangle, it’s easy to be discouraged that none came to pass. But not all is lost. Here’s what the team can do now to turn things around.

The St. Louis Cardinals have never been a team that hard sells for a rebuild, nor are they a team that is willing to invest the kind of top-tier money that some elite players are expecting and being currently paid. So while the lack of moves as the deadline passed was frustrating, you cannot tell me it was all too surprising.

As a team struggling for a playoff spot in an uncharacteristically mediocre NL-Central, there is no big shake-up or moral booster coming in to bring an offensive epiphany or to glue the roughshod bullpen together.

Now we have a middle-of-the-road team with a dysfunctional bullpen, struggling hitters, a questionable manager, and a locker room that’s as tense as ever. Pitchers don’t have any clear use or role to develop rhythm, hitters are completely out of their comfort zones, and upper management hasn’t done much to alleviate the tension.

That being said, the Cardinals are still very much in the playoff race. The defending champs and projected overlords of the division Cubs have struggled as well, and are only ahead of the Cardinals for the division lead by 4.5 games, and still very much have a chance to make the playoffs. But in order to do that, things need to change.

I am not just saying that for the immediate future and the 2017 playoffs. There are also ramifications of the struggles this year that could go beyond this season if not rectified. Baseball is about rhythm and developing said rhythm, and a whole season’s worth of difficulty can make it hard to return to previous success.

Having this kind of down season signifies the transition that the Cardinals have been going through since Albert Pujols departed following the 2011 World Series win. While there are always down years for franchises, its holding even a down year to a high standard that separates the dynasties from the flashes in the frying pan.

For a team with as much pedigree as the Cardinals, a playoff berth has been something almost expected over the years. For this year’s team, it should be the goal to make a playoff berth the floor of the Cardinals. Setting that kind of high standard is important in teaching the young players the quality, the effort, and the toughness that is expected.

Things will not be easy. There is a great deal of discord and a negative culture that has built up over the course of the season. Here are some of the things the Cardinals need to do in order to get away from that and work back towards winning.

The St. Louis Cardinals need to establish bullpen roles as soon as possible.

This is something that falls on both St. Louis Cardinals management and the players equally, and it’s clear that they understand how important this is as comments from Brett Cecil a couple of weeks ago suggests.

To me, the weight of this falls most heavily on Trevor Rosenthal. Now that he is seen in the plans for at least the immediate future, the Cardinals need that top-tier reliever potential Rosenthal showed in years past.

At the same time, the coaching staff needs to do a little bit more about Rosenthal’s struggles. He looks like he is aiming 100 mph fastballs, and has a great deal more trouble staying in the strike zone because of it. While Seung-Hwan Oh‘s struggles have been a problem, relying on a now-35-year-old sophomore closer was only going to get the Cardinals so far.

At the end of the day, it’s Rosenthal who is clearly the most talented option in the Cardinals bullpen, so rebuilding confidence in that talent and urging him to challenge batters with his stuff is key. If you can do it before the season ends, you might be able to put a playoff run together. If not, Rosenthal isn’t eligible for free agency until 2019,

As for the rest of the bullpen, the closer will act as the beam that supports it. With the ninth inning established and injuries are recovered from, there will be much more comfort and flexibility in the ‘pen, allowing other guys to find their niches within the bullpen. In particular, Oh and Cecil can finally establish their roles in the seventh and eighth innings.

The bullpen seems like a lost mess now, but a closer to a bullpen can be like what a franchise quarterback is to a football team. The stability at that head position creates a rhythm and a stability that will bring good things. The Cardinals need to find that as soon as they can, preferably with time to gain rhythm for October while actually competing in the division.

The St. Louis Cardinals must find comfort swinging the bat.

This may seem like a broad topic, but I am specifically talking about players who have fallen out of their comfort zone this season because of a change in their approach. I discussed this extensively about Stephen Piscotty here, but here I will discuss another St. Louis Cardinals player whose hitting tendencies have shifted, resulting in struggles.

Matt Carpenter has said in the past that he wanted to try and hit for power, a statement created by the growing hole in the middle of the lineup and overall lack of consistent power following the departure of Albert Pujols and magnified by the loss of Matt Holliday this season.

While it worked to some effect in 2015, the positive effect was negligible, while the negative was noticeable. While his 28 home runs were a huge step up from his career high of 11 that he had in 2013, he only finished with 84 RBIs, just six more than his mark in 2013.

Carpenter’s strikeout rate spiked in that 2015 season, going from 15.7% to 22.7%. He has tamed back on that now, but the problem didn’t simply shifts from one area to another. When Carpenter was able to bring down his K rate and slowly become one of the better walk drawers in the league, his contact started to suffer.

He maintained his average and slugging percentages from 2015 to 2016, but his batting average on balls in play dropped from .321 to .307. In a sense, he is trying to swing too hard, and is missing solid contact as a result. Another more concerning trend popped up as well that demonstrated how drastically he changed his approach.

Season	LD%	GB%	FB%	IFFB%	Pull%	Cent%	Oppo%
2013	27.3 %	38.7 %	34.0 %	0.6 %	36.6 %	37.4 %	26.0 %
2014	23.8 %	41.0 %	35.2 %	3.5 %	31.9 %	43.4 %	24.6 %
2015	28.5 %	29.7 %	41.7 %	2.3 %	39.3 %	36.8 %	23.9 %
2016	26.2 %	30.6 %	43.2 %	4.4 %	48.1 %	32.8 %	19.1 %
2017	23.4 %	27.9 %	48.7 %	5.3 %	47.1 %	31.8 %	21.2 %

Carpenter has slowly drifted away from the things that made him great in 2013. He has showed that he is a spray hitter who can put the ball where it needs to be on the field for production without needing to swing for the fences. The pressure for power and the pressure that he has put on himself has significantly changed the player.

At this point, when considering the amount of time Carpenter has tried to change himself, it may be impossible for him to replicate the kind of year he had in 2013. But he does have time to turn this into a good year. By realizing what made him great in 2013, and using some of the added power he has now, the task is to find a comfortable balance.

This will never happen if the constant pressure to produce slugging from the lead-off is present, so the first step is somehow alleviating him of that, whether it be through talking to management and teammates or from an epiphany coming from within himself, players need to be comfortable in their own skin for the team to be successful.

The St. Louis Cardinals need to embrace the future.

While this is more of an idea that goes beyond this season, with the talent that we have seen, this can also be applied to a run this season. We have seen short stints from many of the top prospects in the St. Louis Cardinals system, and most have gone very well.

But there is a huge difference between these short stints and consistent time on the major league roster. There are huge differences in life at the major league level both on the field and off the field. Many of these things are eventually condensed into routines and rhythms on game days, in between game days, on travel days and so on.

With the St. Louis Cardinals in need of a few pieces to turn the season around and rumors swirling around faster than a whirlpool in the Bermuda Triangle, it’s easy to be discouraged that none came to pass. But not all is lost. Here’s what the team can do now to turn things around.

The St. Louis Cardinals need to establish bullpen roles as soon as possible.

The St. Louis Cardinals must find comfort swinging the bat.

The St. Louis Cardinals need to embrace the future.

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