5 difficult roster decisions the St. Louis Cardinals must address ASAP

No. 4: Should Jordan Hicks become the permanent closer?

Man, oh man, were we wrong about Jordan Hicks to kick off the 2023 campaign. The once-promising reliever has been riddled by a multitude of injuries over the past handful of years and once he began to struggle at the beginning of the year, we were ready to throw the towel in on him.

However, he has turned things around in a big way for this Cardinals team and appears to be one of the top players in line to earn some additional save opportunities. After a rough month of April, he allowed just three earned runs in all of May, all of which came in the same game against the Tigers on the 5th of the month. In June, he has looked sharp as well, this time allowing three earned runs across two games, but holding the opposition scoreless in each of the other six outings he's made.

Hicks has been a Statcast darling, too, which is good news for the Cardinals. He ranks at or near the top of the league in a whole slew of pitching categories, which is exactly what we were hoping to see from him a few years back when he was a budding star.

If that doesn't bring a tear to your eye, I don't know what will.

Hicks has been money for this team and is one of the very best players on the roster right now. Across 29 outings this year, he has a 4.15 ERA, 3.34 FIP, and 105 ERA+. These numbers are a bit skewed by the poor start he had in the month of April, but they're trending in the right direction and seem to be destined to continue to do so. He is also not a stranger to save situations, as he racked up 14 of them as recently as 2019.