3 reasons to believe in the St. Louis Cardinals despite poor start to season

The Cardinals offense is on the verge of breaking out

While the Cardinals' offense hasn't felt like a great unit this season, the club does rank 8th in baseball in OPS, 3rd in OBP, 8th in SLG, and 4th in average. If you're interested in advanced metrics, they rank 7th in Brls/PA, 6th in hard hit%, and 3rd in sweet spot%. Basically, it's statistically baffling how few runs they are scoring.

Boosted a bit by their blowout win over the Diamondbacks on Wednesday, the Cardinals rank 14th in runs scored on the season despite those great numbers. A large part of that can be attributed to their performance with runners in scoring position. So far this year, the club ranks 26th in baseball by leaving 3.75 runners in scoring position per game.

I would be shocked if the Cardinals continued to struggle that much at the plate when there are opportunities to score this season. Nolan Gorman has started off the season scorching hot, and while Willson Contreras has heated up lately, Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado have been quieter than you'd expect them to be.

It's only a matter of time before this offense gets rolling, and when it does, that itself should put them back into their winning ways. Luckily, there is reason to have some optimism about their pitching as well, even if it won't be a top unit with their current staff.

The Cardinals' pitching has been bad, but numbers say they've been very unlucky.

Would you believe me if I told you the Cardinals rank top 5 in one of the best stats to predict future pitching performance?

If you're familiar with the stat xFIP, it measures all outcomes that a pitcher has control over and then uses projected home-run rate rather than actual home runs allowed. They determine the projected home run rate by measuring the season's league average HR/FB rate.

Right now, the Cardinals rank 5th in baseball with a 3.87 xFIP. The other four teams ahead of them? The Twins, Giants, Cubs, and Yankees, with the Rays ranking right behind the Cardinals. Why is this important? Well based on this stat, it seems like the Cardinals are getting disproportionately impacted by home runs this year compared to other teams. Am I saying the Cardinals should be a top 5 staff in baseball? Definitely not. But they have the ability to be much better than they are right now.

Sure, you could say the 2023 performance has to do with bad stuff from the Cardinals' rotation and bullpen, but in all honestly, you can see the two reasons for the high ERA every game.

First, the Cardinals are not getting as many ground balls as you'd expect from a staff with so many ground ball pitchers. The amount of line drives, fly balls, and bloop hits the club has given up this season is much higher than you expect from a veteran staff that has, for the most part, pitched better for their careers than they have this season.

That doesn't mean there isn't any real regression happening here, but do we really believe Miles Mikolas is just one of the worst starters in baseball now? Sure, Steven Matz hasn't been good in his Cardinals' tenure yet, but he hasn't been this bad at any point in his career. The Cardinals' bullpen has also had some weird performances from guys who you'd expect to be better.

The second thing that backs up what this stat is saying is the random big innings this club gives up. Whether it's the other night when Jack Flaherty was great all game long, and then fell apart in his last inning of work and the bullpen couldn't save him. Or Miles Mikolas imploding again at the end of his start against Seattle after pitching well most of the game. It feels like every game, you can count on one inning where the pitching staff falls apart.

The club doesn't need the pitching staff to be great to win a lot of games in the regular season, but they do need them to be better. I think the club has the arms internally to right the ship for the next few months, but my third reason for optimism involves outside help.

The Cardinals have plenty of assets to reinforce the team through trades

Even with all of that being said, I said coming into the season that the club would need to make more moves to compete for a World Series this year. I still believe they can make the playoffs and make a run in October this year, but it's become even clearer that they need more pitching to be taken seriously.

The club has plenty of assets to pull off a deal for one or two high-level starters. They have plenty of depth in their outfield options, with Dylan Carlson and Tyler O'Neill appearing to be the two likeliest trade candidates. Bats like Juan Yepez and Moises Gomez could be attractive to other clubs as well. They have plenty of top prospects like Masyn Winn, Tink Hence, Gordon Graceffo, Cooper Hjerpe, Michael McGreevy, Matthew Liberatore, and more. The Cardinals can put together packages that can compete with anyone else in the game.

Even if you deem some of those guys as untouchable (which I would with Masyn Winn and Tink Hence), you still have a ton of assets to play with. The club could even get creative and offer up a Tommy Edman or Brendan Donovan and promote Masyn Winn if they wanted to.

If this club turns things around and gets back into contention this summer, they will be the team to look out for whenever big-name starters hit the trade block. And I'd be very surprised if they didn't land at least one to boost their chances this year.