St. Louis Cardinals: Remembering the good in a tumultuous 2018

2018 was an up and down year for the St. Louis Cardinals, but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t some great moments for Cardinals fans to look back on as we turn towards the new year.

There;s no doubt that for the most part, 2018 as a whole was a trying year for the St. Louis Cardinals and their fans, though the team’s 2018 troubles really started a month earlier. Missing out on Giancarlo Stanton was seen as a monumental setback and it shook both the Cardinals front office and fans everywhere in a way that hadn’t been felt since the departure of Albert Pujols.

The Greg Holland signing gone wrong was simply the first domino to fall as a result of that miss, and the shadow of Stanton loomed over the team all year, especially when given the performance of the man they acquired in Stanton’s stead: Marcell Ozuna.

However, there were plenty of good things that we can take away from this season. While there are plenty of things that Cardinals fans wish to leave behind in 2018, you can see that plenty of good did come out of the year, in spite of its overall results.

Management Shift

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you twice, but the change from Mike Matheny to Mike Shildt was more than welcomed, it was needed by the team. The Cardinals were barely above .500 at 47-46 before the switch was made, and the Cardinals finished the season 41-28. I’m no mathematician, but it seems like Shildt obviously did more with this team than Matheny.

Whether or not it is because Shildt and his staff are good or because Matheny and crew were just that awful remains to be seen, and I wouldn’t be surprised with either honestly. I haven’t been 100% satisfied with many of the moves Shildt makes in game, but it feels that there is concrete thought and reasoning behind each move. You didn’t get that feeling with Matheny very often.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not expecting Shildt to be some move managing god like Tony La Russa once was, but there is unquestionably room for improvement. I am excited to see how Shildt can improve and what he will do with this team, I am just not 100% sold yet.

In spite of that, Matheny simply needed to go, so this move was arguably the most important one in all of 2018 for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Outfield Emergence

Not one, but two outfielders established themselves as legitimate major league level players this season. In particular, Harrison Bader demonstrated his elite defensive upside, finishing with an impressive 2.0 dWAR, placing him just outside of the top 10 in all of baseball.

He wasn’t an offensive machine, but he wasn’t a burden like many defensive players can be. He slashed .264/.334/.422 in 2018, making him a serviceable offensive player to go with his elite defensive prowess. His speed in center allowed him to make web gem after web gem, and if he can continue gradual improvements as a hitter, Bader has the chance to turn into one of the better players in the MLB as a whole.

On the other hand, Tyler O’Neill emerged with explosive power for the St. Louis Cardinals. He had been on a torrent in Triple A in 2018, slashing .311/.385/.693 while hitting 26 homers in just 64 games.

His power translated hasn’t quite translated to the MLB yet, but you can see all of the tools are there. People will point to his discipline numbers as a reason to worry, but his swing is smooth and natural, and the problems he has are a simple matter of adjustment. His 34.9% rate at which O’Neill swings at pitches outside the zone was less than Yadier Molina‘s rate in each of the past four seasons, despite maintaining similar swing rates.

For O’Neill, the issue that needs to be resolved is simply improving his ability to make contact inside the zone. For a player with the talent and natural smoothness that O’Neill has, it feels like it’s only a matter of time before things begin to really click for O’Neill and the St. Louis Cardinals.

An Offseason to Remember

I would be remiss if I didn’t being up the wonderful way the St. Louis Cardinals concluded the year. Acquiring Paul Goldschmidt and Andrew Miller is amazing for the talent of the team, but it meant so much more than that.

Being scorned by Stanton, Jason Heyward, David Price, and the failure to acquire Max Scherzer began to provoke questions that once felt almost insulting to ask. Do players want to play with the St. Louis Cardinals?

The team’s public image unquestionably took a bit of a hit. We see now that there are still plenty of players that appreciate the Cardinals organization and the city of St. Louis for their dedication to baseball success, but that’s not what it felt like at the turn of the new year.

For the first time, fans were questioning St. Louis’ appeal as a baseball town as opposed to bigger markets with more extravagant night lives. That image was a huge part of the identity of the St. Louis Cardinals, and that very nature being challenged made many fans worry about the future of the Cardinals as a whole.