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

The London Series was a mixed bag for the St. Louis Cardinals, at best.

Saturday's game was a complete embarrassment. The Cardinals were on an international stage, facing off against their biggest rival, the Chicago Cubs, and were blown out 9-1. Adam Wainwright's issues on the mound this season were magnified, and the team couldn't overcome another terribly pitched game.

Honestly, the beginning of Sunday's game looked like a continuation of that. The Cardinals quickly fell down 4-0 on the heels of multiple errors and a shaky start from Matthew Liberatore. The team pulled things together and clawed their way back to a massive 7-5 victory over the Cubs.

The Cardinals now sit at 32-45, 8.5 games back of the first-place Cincinnati Reds. Again, no one saw this kind of start coming from St. Louis. It's been horrible. And I still cannot grasp how they got to this place.

While I was very optimistic about this season, and no one was this pessimistic, many did see the cracks in this team heading into the season. Different media outlets and fans were clamoring for changes to be made this offseason, and outside of Willson Contreras, there was little "added" to this team. Instead, they saw future Hall of Famers Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina walk out the door, hoping their youth movement would cover in their absence.

What changes could the club have made this offseason to improve this ball club?

Here are three offseason decisions that doomed the Cardinals for 2023

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.

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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