3 reasons the 2023 Cardinals will be World Series Favorites

The Cardinals will have the best lineup in baseball

The Cardinals already have one of the best lineups in baseball when healthy, but this lineup will become the deadliest in the game by mid-season in 2023.

St. Louis can expect sluggers Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado to maintain elite, MVP level play for at least one more season, giving St. Louis a scary 1-2 punch. What makes the club even scarier is who will be surrounding those two bats.

The continued development of Nolan Gorman, Dylan Carlson, Tyler O’Neill, Tommy Edman, Brendan Donovan, and Juan Yepez will give the club bats up and down the lineup who can hit with the best of them. Gorman, Carlson, O’Neill, and Edman all have the ability to be All-Stars for the club, with the first trio being bats who can change the game any given night.

The biggest game changer for the club will be the addition of Jordan Walker, who national writers already project as the NL Rookie of the Year next season, will provide a young slugger in the mold of other young starts in baseball.

Just take a look at the potential firepower any given night (lineup could be constructed different ways).

CF Dylan Carlson

2B Nolan Gorman

1B Paul Goldschmidt

3B Nolan Arenado

LF Tyler O’Neill

RF Jordan Walker

DH Juan Yepez

SS Tommy Edman

C Ivan Herrera 

Any given night, 1-8 of the lineup can change the game at the plate. There is elite length to this lineup, and the ability to add runs throughout the game and breakout for huge innings. Even without major improvements to pitching (more on that later…), this lineup can put up runs at an elite rate that will win ball games.

This lineup does not even include Donovan or Harrison Bader, two other outstanding options for the bottom of the team’s order. The team could fill out the bench with the likes of Lars Nootbaar, Edmundo Sosa, and Andrew Knizner, or they have the payroll flexibility to fill out the bench even further.

Expect the St. Louis to put up runs better than any other team in baseball next year, but there is reason to believe the pitching will also take a step forward.

Offseason Improvements to Pitching Staff

Let’s face it, the Achilles heal of the St. Louis Cardinals in 2022 has been pitching. The club has the ability to get hot and make a run, but if they want to be a powerhouse favorite, changes need to be made before the 2023 season. First, let’s look at how much money they’ll be working with.

$38.2 million is coming off the books, with only one of those players being a true impact guy in Adam Wainwright. The Cardinals also have the ability to offload up to up to $20.2 million of salary by trading away the likes of Paul DeJong, Drew VerHagen, Alex Reyes, or using Harrison Bader as a valuable trade chip. Depending on how John Mozeliak wants to reconstruct this roster, he can be looking at between $38-$58 million dollars in flexibility to hand out extensions or bring in new talent.

Let’s say that $20 million is spent on arbitration raises and maybe one extension, the club now has $18-$38 million to work with. If Adam Wainwright decides to come back one more season, he’ll likely command around $8-$10 million, if not, then the club could go shopping for two new arms.

Potential free agent targets for the club could be the likes of Noah Syndergaard, Nathan Eovaldi, Kyle Gibson, Sean Manaea, Joe Musgrove, Tyler Anderson, Jameson Taillon, Mike Clevinger, or Zach Eflin. There are plenty of options on the market, meaning the Cardinals can grab one or two on a good value.

Not only should the club be looking at the free agent market to add an arm, packaging the any of the likes of Harrison Bader or Dakota Hudson alongside some of their up and coming minor league talent could be the key to netting controllable arms like Shane Bieber, Pablo Lopez, Frankie Montas, or any of the other elite arms in the game.

Even just adding a few dependable arms would go a long way toward helping the club be on top of the National League, but it’s clear that the Cardinals have the flexibility to make big pitching moves, which the offseason is when they tend to make blockbuster moves.

A rotation with Jack Flaherty, who’s entering his last year before free agency, Miles Mikolas, Matthew Liberatore, and Steven Matz could take the next level if the club adds one or two of these names. The rebuilt starting pitching paired with the best offense in baseball makes St. Louis a force to be reckoned with.

The NL Central will lack a true competitor for the crown

In order to be the best team in the league, you must be the best team in your own division. Winning your division gives you a great advantage when heading into the postseason, especially now that the playoffs have expanded.

In 2022, the NL Central has been the weakest division in all of of baseball, but with three of the five clubs in rebuilding move, records for some of those clubs may improve next season. The bigger piece of this puzzle will be the continued decline of the Milwaukee Brewers.

St. Louis has been in a fight with Milwaukee for the NL Central title since 2018, with the Chicago Cubs fading from contention in 2021. The Brewers have been difficult to beat during this run, but the cracks in their club can be seen in 2022 and the club has likely already hit their peak with their current core.

Milwaukee does not have a strong farm system to make moves or infuse young talent, as Fangraphs recently ranked their system at 26th in all of baseball, by far the worst in the NL Central. The club also is not a huge spender, as evidence of the rumors of a Josh Hader trade in recent seasons and their ranking of the 19th highest payroll in baseball. With the club needing a revamp, the potential improvements appear bleak for the Brew Crew.

As for the rest of the division, the Cincinnati Reds are in the beginning stages of their rebuild, and will likely be bottoming out during the 2023 season. The Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs have the 2nd and 6th ranked farm systems according to Fangraphs, but will not be serious contenders in 2023.

The decline of the only true contender in the division in Milwaukee and the continued rebuilds of the Cubs, Pirates, and Reds gives a clear path to St. Louis to win the division, and potentially even have the best record in the National League.