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.

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

Infielders

Once thought to be the best positional group of the team, the infielders have struggled due to positional shuffling and an underperforming star on the corner. ZiPS had the infield projected for 20 WAR with a combination of Edman/Dejong at short and Donovan/Gorman at second. Nolan Arenado led the team with a projected 5.8 WAR. Contreras/Knizner combined for a projected 3 WAR overall. The infield was clearly the strength of this team, both offensively and defensively (four players with a Gold Glove history).

Nolan Arenado, Paul Goldschmidt, and Tommy Edman were all projected to have averages above .260 and lead the team in plate appearances. Willson Contreras and Nolan Gorman were pegged to be above-league-average batters in addition to Arenado and Goldy. Lastly, the defense was projected to be very strong, particularly on the left side of the infield (Contreras, however, was projected for negative defensive value). Basically, the infield was supposed to be very strong and the backbone of this team.

However, that has not necessarily been the case. While Goldschmidt and Arenado have been near their 80th-percentile projections, the remainder of the infield has fallen short, particularly at catcher and short. Shortstop has been lackluster due to Edman's transition to the outfield and Paul Dejong's play at the position. Dejong was initially projected to be the fourth middle infielder behind Tommy Edman, Brendan Donovan, and Nolan Gorman. However, he has seen by far the most amount of infield innings of those four. This was not initially in the plans for the team. While Dejong has performed above replacement level (0.7 WAR so far), the team would have preferred him to be a bench piece with Edman, Donovan, and Gorman splitting time up the middle.

Another weakness on the team has been its defense, particularly from Nolan Arenado. Initially projected to have a +9 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), Arenado instead is sitting at -2. His poor defense has severely hurt his overall WAR (1.1 currently and on track for 2.4, projected for 5.8). His offensive stats are on track for his career, but he is having his career-worst defensive season.

Between injuries in the outfield causing positional displacement, a catcher who isn't living up to his contract and career, and a third baseman who appears to have lost his defensive touch, the infield is underperforming its expectations.

Rotation

The weakest spot on the team was pegged to be the rotation. Without a true "ace" and with plenty of injury history, the starters were not projected to carry the team in 2023.

ZiPS has seven primary starters listed: Miles Mikolas, Jordan Montgomery, Adam Wainwright, Jack Flaherty, Steven Matz, Matthew Liberatore, and Dakota Hudson. Montgomery was projected to lead the team in WAR at 3.4 while Hudson was bringing up the rear with 0.5 WAR. Mikolas, Montgomery, and Wainwright were all figured to pitch around 160 innings. Interestingly enough, Hudson and Liberatore were projected to pitch around 140 innings with Flaherty near 100. ZiPS must have really leaned on the injury history of players with these projections.

The starting rotation has actually been relatively close to its projected numbers. The starter ERA is higher than projected by about 0.7 points, but the other numbers (FIP, walks, Ks, etc.) are all within the margin of error when averaged across the whole staff. Jake Woodford has replaced Dakota Hudson as the last man in the rotation, while Matz has been moved to the bullpen after struggling mightily as a starter. Liberatore replaced Matz in the rotation.

Mikolas (1.6 WAR) and Montgomery (1.3 WAR) have led the staff thus far. While neither is pitching at an ace level, they are doing admirably in giving the team a chance to win. Montgomery has pitched into the 6th inning in 12 of his 14 starts so far with an ERA of 3.91 with a FIP of 3.62. Mikolas has also pitched into the 6th inning in 12 of his fourteen starts with an 8-inning appearance thrown in there. His ERA sits a smidge above 4.00 while his FIP is 3.85. While both have slightly elevated ERAs, their FIP numbers are below projections. Both pitchers are on track to exceed their innings projections for the season.

Wainwright has struggled mightily this year. Projected for a 3.96 ERA and 4.45 FIP spread across 154.7 innings, Wainwright instead has an ERA of 5.75(!!!) and a FIP of 4.43. He has had a very hard time limiting runs. Both lefties and righties are hammering him; however, his WHIP against lefties (2.22) is nearly a whole point higher than his WHIP against righties (1.32).

Flaherty has also struggled slightly as a starter. His walks are well documented. When looking at his game log, you will see a scattering of 7-inning appearances right next to some 4-inning and even 2-inning appearances. This volatility has made it hard to rely on Flaherty as an ace of the staff, let alone a solid starter. His season stats (4.64 ERA, 4.33 FIP, 1.588 WHIP, 93 ERA+) are drastically shy of his projections (3.47 ERA, 4.02 FIP, 1.157 WHIP, 113 ERA+). Flaherty, however, seems to have figured something out as his last six starts have been markedly better than his first eight.

While the rotation may not be as good as fans want, it is about as good as it was projected to be. A couple of players are playing at or above their projections while others are performing below them. It was not out of line, however, for the fanbase (and many pundits) to clamor for support in the rotation. While Mikolas and Monty are leading the way well, the team could use strong outings from Waino and Liberatore.

Bullpen

The most volatile unit of any team in the majors is the bullpen. Projection systems struggle to predict accurately the success or lack thereof of a bullpen for any given team in any given year. Dan Szymborski discusses a discrepancy in projections between the two systems: Steamer and ZiPS.

Where Steamer views the team’s bullpen as middle of the pack, ZiPS much prefers the team’s second-tier relievers, seeing Chris Stratton, Génesis Cabrera, and Andre Pallante as plus contributors, while Steamer thinks of them as closer to replacement level.

The bullpen, headed by Helsley, Gallegos, Pallante (high innings), Hicks, and Zack Thompson was supposed to be relatively strong for the team. Despite having a dearth of left-handed options, ZiPS still believed the bullpen to be a strength for this team, accruing a total of 5.0 WAR over the course of the season.

After those listed players, ZiPS expected players such as Chris Stratton, Genesis Cabrera, Jake Woodford, and Drew VerHagen to provide some relatively effective innings out of the bullpen. The projected strikeout percentage was high in addition to low FIP numbers. The bullpen, with erratic pitchers who have high ceilings, was susceptible to home runs and walks, however.

In reality, the bullpen has struggled. Poor appearances by Jordan Hicks (16.5% BB% and 1.7 WHIP), Genesis Cabrera (13.8 BB%, 2.10 HR/9, and 1.636 WHIP), and Andre Pallante (4.45 FIP and 1.419 WHIP) have hampered the team's ability to use these pitchers in high-leverage situations. Marmol has in turn been forced to use Helsley, Gallegos, and VerHagen in situations that would not normally require their services. Furthermore, Zack Thompson was sent down to AAA to build up as a starter for 2024 and beyond.

While the bullpen is always tough to predict and quantify, the Redbirds' bullpen has had weak spots, making it difficult for other players to thrive in their planned spots.

Conclusion

The Cardinals are clearly not meeting or exceeding their projections. Injuries, underperformance from specific players, and positional irregularities have impeded the team's ability to gain any traction and put on a good stretch of games. The outfield and bullpen are clear underperformers, while the starting rotation is slightly worse than projections, and those projections weren't very optimistic to start.

Hopefully, with players returning from the IL soon, the infielders can get back on the dirt and the bullpen can get more settled. Also, the rotation appears to be pitching better in the last few weeks. These improvements would benefit the team greatly, possibly launching them closer to the lead in the division before the Trade Deadline.