6 Cardinals front office missteps that put the team in this terrible position

We are approaching the halfway point of the 2023 season and it is fair to say that the St. Louis Cardinals are not having a great time. In a National League Central division that looks like the second worst division in baseball (wow does the AL Central look bad), the Cardinals haven’t come close to contending so far and even a .500 record this season seems like a lofty goal at the moment.

Look, the Cardinals aren’t going to win the division every year and it is important to note that other teams in the division have a say in where the Cardinals place. The Pirates have somehow become an actual force to be contended with at times although their recent losing streak took some wind out of their sails. The Brewers and Cubs have turned inconsistency into an art form as they have averaged out to be decent if unexciting. As for the Reds, they are showing real signs of life especially since they called up Elly De La Cruz and they have rode a massive win streak all the way to first place.

However, that doesn’t explain why the Cardinals are off to one of their worst starts in decades this season and like with most things, the answer is complicated. Some of it can be explained by waving one’s hands around and saying “baseball is weird sometimes”, but there were clearly missteps small and large that have combined and cascaded into what has become a glorious dumpster fire of a first half for St. Louis.

Some of these mistakes looked like mistakes at the time and we wonder what the team was thinking. Others seemed like fine decisions at the time, but have turned out poorly because baseball is hard and guys (especially prospects) that seem like they SHOULD perform ended up flaming out. In the end, though, all moves have to be judged on their results and, well, the results haven’t been great in 2023.

Without further delay, here are six mistakes that the Cardinals' front office has made in recent years that have helped to put the team in the terrible position they are in right now.

Not being proactive last offseason

This one has been beaten to death by just about everyone, but can’t be ignored here. The Cardinals were a pretty good team in 2022, but certainly not good enough to tread water for this season and expect the wins to come like candy. The rotation’s viability and injury concerns were known going into the offseason and the only real move they made for pitching was to bring back the 41 year old version of Adam Wainwright.

It hasn’t helped that the one big move the Cardinals did make last offseason, the Willson Contreras signing, hasn’t panned out so far and has also caused a bunch of organizational drama. Replacing what Yadier Molina meant to the team was always going to be a tall order, but Contreras has still fallen well short of what St. Louis was hoping for when they signed him. 

It seems like the Cardinals were at least semi-interested in signing other big names like Carlos Rodon and Dansby Swanson last offseason, but they got neither of them nor did they make any other moves to improve the roster beyond the bare minimum. That's a problem. 

The 2016-2019 Drafts

Look, the MLB Draft is very often a crapshoot and every team makes picks that don’t work out. However, when looking at the Cards’ 2023 roster, one cannot help but look at the 2016-2019 drafts which, in theory, should be contributing at some level to the big league club now and seeing some missed opportunities with their day one picks. This is especially true when we look at the total lack of pitching depth on the Cardinals' big league roster right now..

While the 2020 draft class is looking quite good with Jordan Walker, Masyn Winn, and Tink Hence coming from the five round draft, the previous few years are looking decidedly less kind. In 2016, the Cardinals spent their first pick on Delvin Perez who was rumored to have failed a PED test and subsequently flamed out in the minors and is now in the Yankees' organization. 

The Cardinals lost their first and second round picks in the 2017 MLB draft because of the hacking scandal and they didn’t get anyone of note the rest of the way. Nolan Gorman is showing a lot of promise from the 2018 class, but St. Louis doesn’t have much to show beyond that and 2019’s top pick, Zack Thompson, was converted to the bullpen and hasn’t exactly shown out there. Four draft classes being that shallow and not getting a single arm of note for the big league roster is pretty rough. 

Tommy Pham Trade Return

The deal that sent Tommy Pham (along with $500,000 in international bonus pool money which is not a small deal) to the Rays is a weird one because deals like this end up flaming out all the time, but this one uniquely compounded the Cardinals’ existing problem of not using their assets efficiently. Pham had real trade value back at the trade deadline in 2018 and should have provided St. Louis an opportunity to shore up their minor league ranks.

Instead, they got a few players that have made minimal impact in a Cardinals uniform. Justin Williams was banged up for St. Louis and was granted free agency a couple years later after doing next to nothing. Genesis Cabrera has turned into a decidedly medium reliever with issues walking too many guys. Finally, we have Roel Ramirez who made one (bad) appearance in the big leagues for the Cardinals and ended up getting claimed off waivers by the Mets. 

Trading Pham wasn’t the sin here. The issue is that the return looked weird back then and now we know for certain that it wasn’t good and cost St. Louis some prospect/youth depth all these years later.

The Adolis Garcia trade, but the Cardinals were not alone

This one goes firmly in the “baseball is dumb sometimes” category. No one denied that Adolis Garcia had some prodigious power in his bat at the time, but his initial call-up to the big leagues did not go well (in an admittedly very small sample of plate appearances) and the Cardinals ended up trading him to the Rangers for cash considerations after the 2019 season.

The 2020 season came and went without Garcia contributing in the big leagues at all for Texas and the Cardinals were looking quite smart in getting anything for him at all after he cleared waivers for the Rangers and was outrighted to Triple-A. Unfortunately, Garcia got called back up in 2021 and he has been one of the consistent sources of power for Texas’ lineup ever since. We don’t necessarily blame the Cardinals for moving on from Garcia because he certainly had his warts at the time, but having a bat like his in the organization would have made some other roster considerations a lot easier.

The Randy Arozarena/Matthew Liberatore trade

It is clear that during the offseason after the 2019 season, the Cardinals recognized that they might need some pitching help before too long and they deserve kudos for at least trying to remedy the problem. St. Louis again turned to the Rays for their needs (they may want to stop trading with Tampa) and traded for former 1st round pick LHP Matthew Liberatore along with Edgardo Rodriguez and a supplemental 2nd round pick in the 2020 draft for OF/1B Jose Martinez, a supplemental first round pick in 2020, and an outfield prospect by the name of Randy Arozarena.

In fairness, the jury is still out on Liberatore and he could easily still turn into a useful big league starter, but he hasn’t exactly been awesome so far. Jose Martinez didn’t do much for the Rays at all, but Arozarena has turned out to be a stud. Is he as good as he was when he was basically Babe Ruth during the 2020 playoffs? Absolutely not because, well, no one can sustain that. However, he is quickly turning into one of the better young players in MLB right now and is a big reason why the Rays have been on a warpath this year.

One final note, trading away their supplemental first round pick in 2020 didn’t help their previous draft woes even though they got a second rounder back. 2020 was a five round draft and while the Cards did well with the picks they had in that draft, the extra bonus pool and higher pick could have potentially made the class even better.