Cardinals need these 4 players to step up during Ivan Herrera's injury absence

The St. Louis Cardinals teased fans with an opening weekend sweep of the Minnesota Twins but have quickly fallen into a tailspin after a series loss to the Angels and an embarrassing sweep at the hands of the Red Sox. To make matters worse, Ivan Herrera, who had been their hottest hitter to start the year, will be out at least four weeks after a bone bruise suffered in the first game of a doubleheader in Boston.

At the time of his injury, Herrera had popped four homers, including a historic three-homer game, to go along with a team-leading 11 RBIs over his first 21 at-bats. The rest of the offense was also humming, with Lars Nootbaar reaching base in every game he has played this season, Nolan Arenado having a 15-game hitting streak to start the year that ended Tuesday, and Masyn Winn showing signs of turning it around after early struggles. The pitching, however, has struggled mightily since the calendar turned to April. If the current arms cannot alter their pace, the offense is going to continue to have plenty of pressure to score runs just to keep the team in the game.

With Herrera out of action for at least the next month, who needs to step up?

Willson Contreras

First baseman Willson Contreras would be the answer to many questions regarding the Cardinals' offense, as the slugger is fighting through a massive struggle at the dish since heading north from Jupiter. After torching the ball in Florida, Contreras has not gotten things going since the games have started counting. Of most concern is his strikeout rate which is hovering around an abysmal 40% which is almost 10% higher than what Nolan Gorman experienced last season that got him demoted and moved to a bench role.

Contreras currently looks lost at the plate, also sporting a miserable 41% chase rate, and he has not necessarily hit the ball hard with enough consistency to make us think he is close to breaking out. To the viewer, it looks like his pitch recognition is off and he is caught guessing too many times. He tends to chase pitches out of the zone and take too many hittable pitches. A quick look at Contreras' Baseball Savant page shows a lot of blue, and blue is bad. And this is not just a little bit of blue that is hovering around league average. He ranks near the bottom in important peripheral stats like exit velocity, barrel percentage, expected batting average, and whiff rate, which shows that he is not just hitting into bad luck but is truly struggling to the point where the rest of the lineup has to constantly pick up the pieces behind him.

Manager Oli Marmol has continued to hit Contreras in the second spot in the lineup, a spot that I was all for with his hot spring and the power potential while hitting in front of run producers Brendan Donovan and Nolan Arenado. However, his tough start to the year has made that spot a near-automatic out and has left Nootbaar or others stranded on the base paths. So far, 24 of Contreras' 42 at-bats have been taken with a runner on base, with 12 of those with at least one runner in scoring position. With runners on base, Contreras has a total of 3 hits, further highlighting the need for a quick shift in order for his bat to be a major part of this offense.

Without Herrera, even more pressure is going to be put on the shoulders of the burly first baseman. In the game that Herrera was injured, Marmol moved Contreras to the fifth spot in the order, but since the injury, he has been back in the two hole. He did put up two hits in the last game in Boston, but that was lost in the 18-7 shellacking that took place on national television, so even his first multi-hit game of the year did not mean much to the overall offense.

Contreras' move to first base was made in an effort to keep him healthy because the lineup was cooking last year before his fractured forearm put him on the shelf. This position change appeared to pay early dividends when Herrera took off as the primary catcher, but without that big bat in the lineup for the future, Contreras will need an extremely quick turnaround. There is a near-zero chance that he will be asked to gear up again for the Cardinals, as the team trusts Pedro Pages to take over the starting role until Herrera's return.

Pedro Pages

While this may be unfair, it is true, especially if Contreras continues to slump through the next month. Pedro Pages was seen as a quality backup catcher who was expected to see more time than most other backups because of Herrera's inability to control the running game along with the team's overall faith in Pages' abilities behind the dish. He has plenty of support from the pitching staff because he can call a good game while also having at least average defensive value as a backstop. Pages was never seen as a major offensive contributor, but he has had a strong start at the plate, with four extra-base hits and seven RBIs in his limited playing time. That RBI total is good for third-best on the team. In Tuesday's game against generational talent Paul Skenes, Pages' line drive single started a three-run rally and he later drove in a big fifth run with an RBI groundout. His key at-bats led to the eventual 5-3 win to end the team's four-game losing streak.

On the defensive side, Pages has caught one runner stealing in four attempts, while Herrera had failed to throw out any of the seven potential base stealers despite attempts at strengthening his throwing arm and changing his mechanics. Even with the month-plus vacancy created by Herrera's injury, the Cardinals opted to hand the starting keys to Pages and called up journeyman catcher Yohel Pozo, who hit a homer in his first game with the team.

Fans, including me, would not have minded if the team called up top catching prospect Jimmy Crooks, who has gotten off to a nice start with Triple-A Memphis, but doing so would start his service time clock, and the team would most likely want Crooks to get starter's innings, where he will continue to do so in the minors. Marmol mentioned as much when asked about Crooks, saying that the team wants to be careful in rushing up prospects before they are ready. The Cardinals' catching depth appears to be a major strength of the organization, and could also create a potential logjam if Herrera is healthy, if Pages holds his own during his audition, and if Crooks continues to perform in Memphis.

While the team needs a major offensive outburst from Contreras to help ease Herrera's loss, the catching performance may not be as much of a priority if the rest of the lineup does their job. Pages' job will first and foremost be to command the pitching staff, and the team will take any offense he provides as a bonus. So far, though, his at-bats have been competitive, and he has shown a little clutch gene with a game-tying double after coming off the bench when Herrera was hurt to go along with his offensive performance against Skenes. With an extended run of at-bats, Pages will look to prove that he is more than a late-game defensive replacement or solid backup. The potential is there, especially with a further look into his career to this point, as Pages hit 16 homers in Double-A in 2023 and was graded as a 45-grade in the power department, so he could end up providing more value with the bat than initially expected.

Whoever is at designated hitter

The current setup at designated hitter appears to be Alec Burleson against righties and either Contreras or Luken Baker standing in against left-handed starters. This could get even more complicated when Nolan Gorman returns from the injured list after what was described as a very minor hamstring pull. So far this season, Burleson is doing fine in the role but is still lacking the power that can take him from an average hitter to an above-average DH who deserves everyday at-bats regardless of the matchup. The lefty showed his ability to be a quality hitter against tough pitching, notching an RBI single against Paul Skenes. It would be encouraging to see some more lift in his swing, but it is also hard to be upset with consistent contact.

With Herrera's thump out of the lineup, the DH spot should be a place in the order that other pitchers fear to face, and that has just not been the case to this point. The Cardinals are an organization who have shied away from rostering a specific DH, typically preferring to have defensive flexibility and use that spot as a way to rotate off days or keep guys fresh.

This thinking may have to change, but only if one of the current hitters can seize the role. Baker has flashed plenty of power throughout his professional career, but his defensive shortcomings and roster construction have limited his at-bats at the big league level. He hit four homers in Spring Training to win a roster spot but has only received 11 at-bats at this point of the season but has taken advantage of those opportunities, with a .955 OPS and 2 RBIs. It is unlikely that the team shifts Baker to a full-time role unless Burleson and Contreras struggle and Gorman is unable to keep his hot start up when he returns from the injured list in the near future.

No matter who fills that spot in the order, they will have to do so with power, and I personally would love to see Burleson change his approach and swing for the fences more often. He has above-average contact ability, so even if this results in more swing-and-miss, he could still be near the mean in regards to chase rate and strikeout percentage. Burleson slapping singles is nice for the batting average, but to truly grab onto the role, he will have to start producing runs with extra-base hits.

When Herrera returns from the injured list, it could be possible that he gets his legs back under him in the designated hitter spot, especially if Pages shows he is capable of handling everyday duties both offensively and defensively. This would be both a luxury and a detriment to the current DH options but it is always hard to argue against keeping a hot bat in the lineup.

The starting pitching staff

A week ago after the first stretch of games, I wrote that the starting pitchers did their job to keep the team in games thanks to the offensive outbursts up and down the lineup. Oh how the tables turned...

Since that writing, the Cardinals' starting staff is last in the majors in ERA and, outside of Matthew Liberatore's and Sonny Gray's most recent starts in Pittsburgh, the pitchers have been unable to work deep into games because of constant hard contact and inability to strike hitters out. Gray, the de facto number one in the underwhelming rotation, continues to struggle with keeping the ball in the ballpark and allowed another home run on Tuesday but was solid overall in his five innings of work to tally the win. Erick Fedde was unable to build off a quality start in his season opener and was lit up in Boston. The same goes for Miles Mikolas, who will continue to be a piece of the rotation despite numerous calls from fans for him to be immediately removed completely from the roster even with his high-cost contract.

While Herrera's shortcomings on the defensive side relate to his throwing ability, there has not been much feedback regarding his ability to receive or call a game, but his limited sample size on Baseball Savant shows that he had been at least average in framing and blocking before the injury. If Pages truly is a better game-caller, then the pitching staff could see a bump in performance, but, of course, placing blame or giving props to the catchers is a slippery slope. Either way, though, Herrera's absence from the lineup gives the pitchers even less breathing room if the rest of the offense cannot pick up the slack.

Even with the current performance of the rotation, it does not look like there are any reinforcements for the starters coming in the near future. It is believed that the team will be moving to a six-man rotation next week with Steven Matz slotting in to that newly created spot, but that leaves the bullpen a man down, which could be damaging with the way the pitchers have been allowing runs. Gordon Graceffo was the 27th man in the doubleheader in Boston but was torched for seven runs and also failed to give the bullpen a breather. Michael McGreevy appears the closest to Major League-ready, but his call-up to the bigs will only be if he is receiving consistent innings out of the rotation.

No matter who has the ball to start the game, the team needs a massive bump in performance, and that was the case even before the Herrera injury. Another issue is that Herrera contributed for 17 of the 66 (26%) runs the team has scored before he hit the shelf, and the entire team is going to be missing that production. In order to remain competitive, both the offense and defense have some work to do if the St. Louis Cardinals want to make noise in the NL Central.