5 terrible trends the St. Louis Cardinals must leave behind in 2023

4. Miscommunication

As frustrations mounted, the trend of publicly criticizing players became Marmol's go-to tactic. Starting with a perceived lack of hustle from Tyler O'Neill to Contreras not being exactly like Molina in his preparation, it was something new every couple of weeks for Marmol and Mozeliak.

It was cringe-worthy and entirely unprofessional to handle in such a public way. Issues like this in a typical work environment are handled one-on-one or even with an intervention from a mentoring teammate. It showed that the team didn't have a vocal leader like Molina or Albert Pujols. The players you would expect that leadership from, like Paul Goldschmidt or Nolan Arenado, were battling through their issues at the plate. The presence of Molina and Descalso paired with Gray and Lynn as well as Goldschmidt and Arenado returning to heath, should show some improvements in this department.

3. Inconsistency at the plate

When Goldschmidt and Arenado have terrible seasons at the plate, and the rest of the team follows suit, it is a terrible combination. Each player did have stretches of finding some consistency at the plate, but nothing was sustained, and players were looking lost.

According to social media postings, several of the team's hitters have gone to training locations such as Driveline to work on hitting techniques to try to unlock their issues. It will be interesting to see how they return to action in the spring.