St. Louis Cardinals: Revisiting 3 preseason predictions gone bad

Prediction: Signing Albert Pujols was a mistake

This appears, at least so far, to be a big one.

When the Cardinals signed Albert Pujols to a one-year, $2.5 million contract, I thought it was a mistake. Actually, a huge mistake.

After all, in his last several years with the Los Angeles Angels, his production had crashed. Since 2017, his OPS+ has been less than 100 and hasn’t been close to a 100 RBIs. Additionally, his RAA and WAA had fallen into the negative territory, and his WAR, during the last few years was barely staying above zero.

When the Angels DFA’d Pujols on May 6, 2021, he was hitting a slash line of .198/.250/.372. It appeared Albert was at the end of his career.

Nevertheless, the Dodgers did pick up Pujols ten days later, and used him primarily against left handed pitching. Here, he was effective during 2021, hitting a slash line of .294/.336/.603, with an OPS+ of 158.

Still, overall, Pujols’ 2021 was the worst of his long and exceptional career. It would seem to be time for him to hang up his cleats.

He didn’t, and signed with the Cardinals. Consequently, I thought the Cardinals had made a big mistake. The Cardinals needed offensive help, especially at the DH spot. I just didn’t see Pujols helping, and thought he would be drag on the roster.

Initially, my fears seemed justified. In May, Albert hit a slashline of .188/.328/.333, followed by an even worse June with a slashline of .158/.214/.21. Although his clubhouse presence was being praised, his bat didn’t seem to be helping the Cardinals.

However, although still primarily a pinch-hitter or DH, Pujols has been on tear since the  start of July.  In July, he hit a BA of .320 with an OPS of .944, while in August he has a BA of .368 and an OPS of 1.323.

Despite the fact that most of his production has been against LHP, he has shown success recently against some RHP. On July 10th, against a series of Phillies right-handers, Pujols had three hits with a home run.

While the season is still not over, my bold prediction of signing Albert Pujols would be a disaster for the Cardinals, I’m happy to say, appears to be wrong.

X-Factor

One of the predictions we were asked to make at Redbird Rants was our “X-Factor.” Here was mine:

“Jack Flaherty’s return from injury will make the difference whether this team has any shot at the NL Pennant. Without Flaherty, there just isn’t enough depth with the rotation. If Flaherty returns by May, and he’s healthy, this team is good enough to make a deep post season run.”

Wrong. Not only are the Cardinals not sure when Flaherty will return, they may not need him to make a deep postseason run. Especially with the added depth to the rotation made at the Trade Deadline.

Jose Quintana and Jordan Montgomery are shaping up to be the X-Factors the Cardinals need to make a postseason run. So far, they have given the rotation much needed depth and additional innings.

Obviously, the return of Flaherty would be a big lift. But Flaherty’s return is not a certainty, nor can we predict how much help he will if and when he joins the rotation.

A better X-Factor prediction this year would have been John Mozeliak’s moves at the Trade Deadline. When will we learn?

We were also asked to make a Bold Prediction. Mine was Harrison Bader would get a serious look at batting lead off.

“Bader has one stat from last year that may give the analytic driven Cardinals a cause to consider: when leading off an inning, Bader has a slash line of .333/.370/.670 with an OPS+ of 179 in 92 PA.”

Bader got exactly 4 plate appearances at Lead off before he was traded. HIs slashline was .000/.000/.000 with one strikeout. I think we can now say the Cardinals have written off Bader as a future leadoff bat.

Maybe a better Bold Prediction would have been that Albert Pujols would be carrying an OPS+ of 124 by mid-August.