3 offseason decisions the St. Louis Cardinals are paying for right now

Choosing not to address starting pitching

I'm sure by now most of you have seen the meme or remember John Mozeliak's quote from this offseason that the team has "six starting pitchers" when asked about a potential pursuit of pitching help.

The Cardinals were never going to be in the Jacob DeGrom, Justin Verlander, or even Carlos Rodon market. And in hindsight, none of those guys would have made a major impact this year due to various injuries and underperformance.

Where the Cardinals did mess up though, which our own Thomas Gauvain broke down in depth last week, was not pursuing some of the "mid-tier" starting pitchers with high upside this offseason. Nathan Eovaldi, Zach Eflin, or even Chris Bassitt would have provided the club which much-needed stability in their rotation and would have come at an affordable price.

While I don't blame Mozeliak for not seeing the rotation being this bad this year, not bringing in an outside arm was a big mistake.

Signing Willson Contreras instead of trading for Sean Murphy

Speaking of not signing a pitcher, part of that was due to the major dollars that were being shelled out to free-agent catcher Willson Contreras. Now, don't hear me as saying I think Contreras is a bad player or a bad signing in general, but for what the Cardinals needed and how they decided to handle the rest of their offseason, a Sean Murphy trade makes way more sense in hindsight.

Contreras has really struggled at the plate this year, although he's started to come on as of late. The whole debacle with his catching duties was a mess the Cardinals created, but I guarantee it would not have happened with Murphy behind the plate. Contreras is not the source of the Cardinals' pitching woes, but he's not a part of the solution either.

Murphy, on the other hand, is one of the best defensive catcher's in today's game. Not only that, but he's playing like an MVP candidate this season as well, slashing .290/.388/.531 with 12 HR and 43 RBI.

Trading for Murphy would have cost a lot. It likely would have meant parting with one of Nolan Gorman or Brendan Donovan, paired with one of Dylan Carlson, Gordon Graceffo, Alec Burleson, or Juan Yepez. But getting that kind of production at catcher is worth a haul for St. Louis.

It also would have freed them up cash flow-wise to upgrade their rotation, add bullpen pieces, or even pursue some stability in their outfield...which we'll look at on the next slide.

Not stabilizing their outfield mix

It was not until recently that Tommy Edman and Lars Nootbaar began to lock down the Cardinals' outfield for them, but outside of those two, it's hard to see what the plan is for St. Louis.

They've tried Tyler O'Neill, Dylan Carlson, Alec Burleson, and Juan Yepez with mixed results. Brendan Donovan has played well out there, but the Cardinals do not value him as an everyday outfielder as much as they do as a utility man. The club doesn't trust Jordan Walker out there, and rightly so, as he's been arguably the worst defensive outfielder in baseball.

Cody Bellinger is a name the Cardinals were reportedly looking at but were unable to bring into their fold due to the Contreras signing and a lack of a clear role for Bellinger with their outfield glut. There were other names the Cardinals could have gone after as well, but no one wanted to join an outfield that was already way too crowded.

The Cardinals really needed to diversify their assets this offseason and shrink their outfielder pool, while helping to upgrade the roster elsewhere. Instead, they held onto all of their cards, and it has come tumbling down.

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