St. Louis Cardinals: The mirage will likely end soon

The St. Louis Cardinals are not in any bad place at all in the standings currently but is this really where they should be?

The St. Louis Cardinals are just 3.5 games out of the NL Central. This is a number that many fans and optimists around the league keep pointing at to try and prove to everyone that the Cardinals are actually a good team.

The problem is that anyone who watches literally anything more than the standings can tell you that the team should not be that close to the top of the division and not just 2.0 games back from the second wildcard spot.

Statistics and math are cruel things that do not care about anything and most importantly, they don’t lie. Statistics do not think that this Cardinals team is good or bad, but that they are strictly, painfully and monotonously average.

This tweet from Matt Snyder shows that the only reason that the Cardinals are anywhere close in the standings is that everyone else was equally bad. Good teams can have bad months, and bad teams obviously have bad months too. So we need more statistics to separate the pretenders from the true contenders.

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

One good statistic to judge the overall expected performance of a team is run differential. If on average, a team is scoring more runs than the teams they play, then it’s reasonable to expect they should have a positive record. If they score less than their opponents and have a positive record, there’s some statistical disparity there that will even out eventually. Run differential is not the end-all-be-all of expected performance, but it can serve as a warning light to show where corrections could be coming.

Looking at just the NL Central, a different picture comes to light. Right now, the Cubs lead the NL Central in run differential with a +51 differential. The Brewers have a -2, Cardinals have a -1, Cincinnati has a +37 and Pittsburgh has a -43 differential.

Compared to the standings, the Cubs are a game behind the Brewers, the Cardinals are 3.5 back, Reds are 5.0 back and the Reds are 6.5 back. By run differential, the Reds and Cubs have been the best two teams in the NL Central by a very big margin.

The Brewers, based on strictly the talent they have, are better than the run differential they currently have but looking at those statistics, it would not be unreasonable to expect that the Cubs and the Reds could go on a run soon. The Cardinals, with a 41-41 record, seem to be right exactly where they are supposed to be.

Another statistic to see expected vs. actual performances is Pythagorean win and loss formula. This formula takes the run differential and spits out what the team’s Pythagorean W-L should be. It’s not the law as there are a few interesting ways to find expected W-L, but it is another solid way of looking at things. The formula is winning percentage =[(Runs Scored)^1.81]/[(Runs Scored)^1.81 + (Runs Allowed)^1.81].

The NL Central’s Pythagorean W-L is as follows: Cardinals: 41-41 (+0) , Cubs: 47-38 (+2) , Brewers: 42-43 (-4), Reds: 45-37 (+7), Pirates: 38-45 (-2).

The number in parenthesis is what the amount of games more or less than the Pythagorean formula says the team should’ve won and clearly, the teams with the biggest disparity are the Reds and the Brewers. I disagree with what those numbers would say as clearly the Reds aren’t the second best team in the division, and the Brewers certainly aren’t worse than the Cardinals.

The main point I wanted to prove here is that the Cardinals, by all accounts, are playing exactly how they should be. They aren’t getting unlucky, if they keep playing the same way that they are, they aren’t going to go on a run, they are just a mediocre team. Other teams around them are playing above or under where they “should” be, but the important thing for Cardinals fans is that the team should not be as close to first place or the Wildcard as they are.

It’s tough and disappointing to say, but nobody who watches the team regularly will agree. The biggest thing that matters is admittedly the overall standings, but there’s enough time left this year that these statistics will likely even themselves out, as all statistics do.

Management has kept pointing to the standings as proof that this team is good, but in this fan’s eyes, I’m not buying it. I’d rather be 3.5 out than 8.0, but this team needs a lot of things to turn around before they will truly be worthy of making the playoffs.