The 6 biggest concerns we have about the Cardinals as the 2024 season begins

The St. Louis Cardinals are just days away from beginning the 2024 season, and while I am optimistic that the club will get back to its winning ways this year, that optimism is not without a variety of concerns.

If you read my posts on the site, or especially if you follow me on X (formerly known as Twitter), you may be of the opinion, or have seen the opinion thrown around, that I am a front office defender, or what makes me chuckle every time, that I "carry Mo's water".

My goal with writing has always been to have informed, thoughtful conversations about the state of the Cardinals. While there are a lot of things the Cardinals do that frustrate me or make me scratch my head, I just don't find it helpful to rant about those things on end. Instead, I voice my frustrations, but I also try to present what the Cardinals appear to be doing, and how it could turn out.

Even if I disagree with the strategy, it doesn't mean we shouldn't dive into how it could work.

Prime Example: The Cardinals' strategy to rebuild their rotation.

At the beginning of the offseason, I was clear that I believed the Cardinals needed two front-line starting pitchers. They got one in Sonny Gray, but instead of getting a second top arm, they went for Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn.

I disagree with this strategy. I do not like that they went in that direction. I think the margin for error with this rotation is razor-thin, and they should have been extremely aggressive this offseason after one of the worst seasons in franchise history.

But that doesn't mean their plan can't work. Just because I disagree with the plan and I don't like it, doesn't mean we cannot talk about the ways it can work out in their favor.

Today though, I want to get into the concerns I have with this team, because the concerns are real. Even though I believe they'll be a contender again this year, 2023 showed that the range of outcomes is wider than we think. There are things that can derail this team once again, and now that games are about to begin, we'll see if they can overcome these concerns or if they'll be derailed by them once again.

Here are the six biggest concerns I have with this Cardinals team as the season begins.

6. Tough scheudle to begin the season

We saw how quickly things snowballed in 2023, so a daunting schedule to begin the year is certainly a concern I have.

It's not an excuse to begin the year poorly. If they are around .500 or a few games under, that's one thing. But if they get off to a start like their 10-18 beginning to the 2023 season, this team will be destined to underachieve again and major changes could be coming in St. Louis.

The Cardinals have to find a way to navigate the month of April, even with the injuries and tough opponents they'll face. Good teams don't need to have cakewalk schedules in order to compete.

This is the least concerning thing to me honestly, mostly because if they struggle with the early schedule, it's likely because the five other concerns were actually valid.

If you forgot, here is what the month of April looks like for the Cardinals:

Four games @ Dodgers
Three games @ Padres
Three games vs. Marlins
Three games vs. Phillies
Three games @ Diamondbacks
Three games @ Athletics
Three games vs. Brewers
Three games vs. Diamondbacks
Three games @ Mets
Two games @ Tigers

Is it tough? Yes. Is it harder now that the Cardinals have multiple players beginning the year on the injured list? Sure. But that's no excuse to begin the year like they did last year. Again, they don't have to have an awesome record in April to be a contender this year, but they for sure can't fall apart like they did last year.

If they do, it will be another long year.

5. Is the defense really improved?

One of the biggest surprises from the 2023 season that led to the Cardinals' downfall was the major regression they experienced defensively.

No one should have been surprised that Willson Contreras was a major downgrade from what Yadier Molina provided (well, somehow the Cardinals seemed to be more surprised than anyone else), and his transition to becoming the new backstop for St. Louis was far from a smooth transition. Even though the Cardinals handled the situation about as poorly as they could have, it's still true that Contreras was not good enough behind the plate, and it showed throughout the season.

Most of us were surprised by just how bad Jordan Walker was defensively. Yes, he was changing positions, so no one should have thought he'd be great in right field, but man, he's far too gifted athletically and too smart of a player to be that bad defensively...right? Well, he did get better as the year went on, but overall, it was a mess.

The most surprising development of all though was the defensive woes of the Cardinals' best defenders. During the first half of the season, Nolan Arenado was nowhere near the world-class defender we have come to know him as. Tommy Edman was making mistakes at shortstop and second base. Paul Goldschmidt was not bad, but he was not a Gold Glove-level first baseman anymore either.

Nolan Gorman did make significant strides defensively and was almost league-average at second base. Brendan Donovan should be healthy and able to fill in all over. Edman, when he's back, has proven to be one of the best defensive center fielders in baseball. Masyn Winn is now the full-time shortstop, and it won't be long before Victor Scott II is contributing in St. Louis.

The pieces are there for this defense to improve dramatically in 2024. Will it? That remains to be seen.

4. Was now really the time to give Oli Marmol a "vote of confidence" extension?

I like Oli Marmol, but I did not like the decision to extend him before the season started.

I understand the rationale that the Cardinals gave, but I'd simply respond to it by saying "I don't think you can afford to buy him that vote of confidence right now". Even as someone who is a believer in Marmol as the Cardinals' manager, the massive PR hit that the Cardinals took with that decision was not worth it in my opinion.

Marmol had a really good season in 2022 and a really bad season in 2023. His contract was up after the 2024 season. Why not just let him play things out and see where they go? And if you were that concerned about locking him up in March, maybe you should have taken care of it in November?

Here's the cynical view of that decision, and one I think may be correct. If the Cardinals were worried about underperforming to begin the year and how that could reflect on Marmol's ability to manage, then that may be John Mozeliak's subtle way of acknowledging the flaws this roster has and believing that there's a world where his manager cannot change the fact that this club is not good enough. At the very least, Mozeliak is not going to let himself be surprised by a terrible start like he was in 2023.

At the time of writing this, Yadier Molina still has not shown up to Cardinals' camp, so it's becoming really muddy as to what his actual role with this club is going to be. As of right now, he seems to be a much bigger threat to Marmol's job in fans' eyes than in the eyes of the front office. I don't think that reality, or the fact that Marmol just got an extension, actually means they won't fire him midseason if things are going poorly. They did it with Mike Matheny before, and they won't be afraid to put the blame on Marmol if they need to.

So, why give him the extension then? Honestly, I don't really think it matters all that much, but knowing the outrage it's caused amongst their fans, I think ownership and the front office should have held off on that kind of move until the results on the field backed it up.

3. Will they do what is necessary to improve the team at the deadline?

The Cardinals ownership group talked about "climbing the payroll rankings" this offseason. The front office said they did a lot of self-reflection and were motivated to make sure 2023 did not happen again. While the Cardinals did raise their payroll this offseason, it wasn't by much, and even if they were aggressive in making a variety of moves, they certainly were not aggressive in making big moves (outside of Sonny Gray).

The Cardinals have historically been pretty safe at trade deadlines. In recent years, much of that can be attributed to the fact that their biggest "holes" were ones that were cheap to fix. Both in 2021 and in 2022, the Cardinals desperately needed to "stop the bleeding" with the back end of their rotation, and they went out and made smaller moves to get arms that could fill those gaps. Well, the issue got so bad in 2023 that they couldn't even make it to the trade deadline, which is why they'd say they went out and got Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn this offseason.

So, what if their plan works? What if they are contenders when the trade deadline comes around? Frankly, adding another fourth or fifth starter won't move the needle. They already have four of those kinds of guys (Mikolas, Matz, Lynn, and Gibson), not to mention young arms who can backfill that role. What do they need? A second front-line starter.

Well, that's going to cost a lot to acquire. Mostly in prospect capital, but it's fair to say it'll require money as well. Will ownership sign off on taking on significant money for their payroll, or projecting a potential extension to make the prospect capital given up worth it? Will Mozeliak and the front office be willing to make a big swing in the trade market to acquire the kind of pitcher that can truly make a difference?

That's a question that is going to burn in the minds of Cardinals fans if they are competing for a playoff spot come July. The conversation won't matter if they are sellers again, but that's not what the Cardinals are aiming for. So if they expect to be threats this summer, do they also understand what it will take to make a run? Or will they truly settle for a "just get in" mentality?

1. Can their underwhelming rotation overhaul be carried by an elite offense and strong bullpen, or is it destined to sink the team once again?

Finally the elephant in the room. Can the Cardinals' starting pitching in 2024 be meaningfully better than what they got from their rotation in 2023?

When you look at the names they are rolling out to begin the season, it certainly does not inspire much confidence.

Again, looking at that rotation, it's easy to see why people are concerned that the results won't be better than 2023.

If you want some reason for optimism regarding the rotation, here are three stories I've written that dive into how, on paper, this group is actually a pretty sizable upgrade from what the Cardinals got in 2023.

1. Here is my piece on the the Cardinals' inability to get quality starts (the stat) from their back-end of the rotation in 2023, and how Lynn/Gibson performed much better in that area compared to Wainwright/Woodford/Rom/Liberatore/Hudson. It's pretty jarring when you see the difference.

(Side note: Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had an excellent story on this recently as well).

2. I recently went back and looked at the Cardinals' horrible month of April. The rotation was horrendous, and we'd have to see major steps back from Gray/Mikolas/Matz/Lynn/Gibson in 2024 to repeat how bad that was last year.

3. And lastly, I just posted a story on the Cardinals 15-13 month of May, which is good for an 87-win pace over a full season. The Cardinals had a great offense that month, a good bullpen, but surprisingly, the rotatoin was awful still. Once you see how bad the starters were when they were still winning games, you'll see why even the small improvements the Cardinals are expecting from their rotation can reshape this team.

Even so, I and most Cardinals fans still wonder if the pitching can actually be good enough for the Cardinals to contend. Heck, can the pitching even just not be so bad that it sinks the ship? If the Cardinals had paired Gray with someone like Aaron Nola, Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Dylan Cease, or whatever other front-line starter, I think we'd be having a much different conversation.

But they didn't. So here we are.

One year later, the same major concern remains.

The Cardinals believe they've done enough to fix the problems from 2023, and we'll find out soon enough if their choices will pay off for them or not.