4 perplexing mysteries that the Cardinals must unravel

Baseball is an unpredictable sport, and the season's length provides for many twists and turns. Memorial Day is often cited as the day where teams know what they are for a season, and if that's any indication for the St. Louis Cardinals, the team looks to be painfully average.

But even average teams have stories woven throughout the year, and many of these tales are ones of mystery. Why isn't a player reaching his normal heights? What happened to a pitcher's spin rate? Teams' abilities to solve and rectify these questions are what separate the good organizations from the bad ones.

The Cardinals would love to piece together these four puzzles and get to being a model organization again.

Dylan Carlson's collapse

Expectations were high for outfielder Dylan Carlson after his first full season in 2021, where the team's former top prospect slashed .266/.343/.437, but he has taken a step back in each of his three seasons since then and appears to have reached rock bottom in 2024. In 45 at-bats, Carlson has managed only five hits, which is good for a .133 batting average and a .369 OPS.

Carlson has also regressed in the field. After amassing six defensive runs saved in center field in 2022, Carlson had zero in 2023 and is at -1 this season in both center field and right field. The Cardinals wouldn't receive anything of significance if they attempted to trade Carlson, which is a far cry from John Mozeliak's famed utterance that other teams could pry Carlson from his "cold, dead hands."

The Cardinals toyed with the idea of having Carlson drop switch-hitting and hit only from the right side, where he is far superior in his career: His average batting right-handed is .297, while he has hit only .218 batting from the left side in his career. Carlson has minor league options available, so the Cardinals could demote and let him work on ditching switch-hitting in a lower-pressure environment.

Pitchers have clearly learned how to attack Carlson, and Carlson hasn't been able to adjust. With his struggles to even put together competitive at-bats, one must wonder if Carlson has lost confidence at this point and needs a mental reset in Triple-A Memphis

Jordan Walker's loss of power

Jordan Walker was the Cardinals' hotshot top prospect who razed the minor leagues in 2021 and 2022, hitting 33 home runs across the two levels. After raking throughout Spring Training in 2023, Walker forced his way onto the roster and hit 16 more bombs.

The Cardinals sent Walker down to Memphis in late April of last season to work on his launch angle, and while the action was widely criticized, his adjustments seemed to bear results. However, Walker's power has evaporated in 2024: He failed to hit a home run in 67 major league plate appearances, and in Memphis, he has only hit one home run in 118 plate appearances.

In the Cardinals' effort to change Walker's swing to have him the ball in the air more often, they might have done lasting damage to his power production. His ISO in St. Louis before his latest demotion was only .103, and he had a whopping 50% ground ball rate. He also showed issues with pitch recognition, particularly fastballs and sliders that were low and away.

Walker's power drain is extremely concerning, and he'll need to find that lost thump before earning a promotion to St. Louis. Walker needs to play every day and receive regular at-bats to develop well at the major league level, but if he can't find his stroke in the minor leagues, the Cardinals' most hyped prospect since Oscar Taveras could wind up falling far short of fans' expectations.

Nolan Arenado's defensive degradation

For 10 years, Nolan Arenado was the epitome of perfection at the hot corner, winning a Gold Glove every year in his first decade in the major leagues. For his career, he has 149 defensive runs saved. But in 2023, Arenado's defense cratered, decreasing from an elite 19 defensive runs saved in 2022 to only one in 2023.

Arenado mentioned last season that his back had been bothering him throughout the year, and many people understandably assumed that his back injury was the cause of his defensive collapse. But in 2024, Arenado's fielding has continued to slide, and he is now seven runs below average at third base.

At 33 years old, Arenado should still be a strong defender, even if not at his peak levels. This fall-off is extreme, and it's possible that Arenado is still concealing an injury. That could also partially explain his hitting woes, as he is hitting .257 with only five home runs and a career-low ISO of .115.

Masyn Winn has also come under scrutiny for his 10 errors, tied with Oneil Cruz for second among shortstops behind Elly de la Cruz, but some of that can be misleading, as Winn is able to get to more balls and make chances out of more plays than most other players.

Arenado's contract with the Cardinals runs through 2027, and if the aging cliff has arrived sooner than anticipated and he continues to slip in the field, he may be an expensive obstacle that the Cardinals will have to work around.