Comparing the St. Louis Cardinals preseason projections vs. reality

The St. Louis Cardinals' season has not gone as planned. Before the year started, they were projected to win the National League Central and be a top-4 or 5 team in the NL overall. They currently sit in the bottom three of the league. There are numerous instances of underperformance on the team. Certain players aren't performing the way they have for their careers, the defense has seemed lackluster given the team's history, injuries have placed players in unfamiliar positions, and the bullpen has been sporadic at best.

Each year, ZiPS produces projections for every player that is in the majors or will possibly see time in the majors. Dan Szymborski does a great job creating and breaking down these projections.
Before the season started, Josh Jacobs wrote a great piece about the 80th and 20th percentile projections for the team. Give it a read here. Dan Szymborski also wrote about the Cardinals and their projections here.

"[I] think the Cards are a 89-93 win team and not quite in the tier of the very best in baseball, but ZiPS disagrees, putting St. Louis in the same range as the Padres, Astros, Braves, Dodgers, and Mets."

- Dan Szymborski

Using ZiPS preseason projections and current statistics from Fangraphs, we can see which players have not met their preseason projections. The team will be broken down into positional groups: infielders, outfielders/DH, rotation, and bullpen. The positional units as a whole in addition to particular players will be highlighted and discussed. All stats are accurate as of June 16th. Let's take a look at them and see which Cardinals players have lived up to their projections and which have fallen short. Spoiler: most players have fallen well short of their preseason projections.

Comparing the ZiPS preseason projections to the Cardinals' current reality