St. Louis Cardinals prove that defense does not indeed win championships

The St. Louis Cardinals came into the 2026 season finally admitting that they are in the midst of a total rebuild. This strategy gave the Cardinals their first back-to-back losing seasons in almost 70 years and missed the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season. Losing is never fun, but it looks like 2026 will be a stepping stone for the next great Cardinals team.

Having 11 World Championships is nothing to scoff at and shows how the Cardinals have traditionally been in contention, which makes these last few seasons tough to stomach for most fans. The organization had put off a rebuild for as long as they could but finally gave into the dark path that most teams have to follow at some point. That path has now led the Cardinals to no postseason games since 2022 and that is despite having one of the best defensive teams in all of baseball over that span.

Despite the claim, Cardinals are learning that defense does not win championships

To take from the old saying that began in the NFL before trickling to other leagues, "defense (and pitching) wins championships," and that is something that many fans continue to believe, no matter the sport. Of course, the teams still have to score more runs/points/goals than their opponent, but the thought is also that the other team cannot win if they cannot score. In the Cardinals case, they are preventing their opponents from scoring a ton of runs, but the offense has sputtered its way to mediocre or worse finishes in the past four years.

Since 2022, the Cardinals have ranked as the 9th-best team in overall defense by FanGraphs. Looking even further, they check in at fifth place in Outs Above Average behind the Diamondbacks, Brewers, Cubs, and Royals, who have all made the postseason more recently than St. Louis. So if the defense is so good and if defense wins championships, why are we starved not only for a trophy, but for baseball in October?

Looking at the other two aspects of the game since 2022, the Cardinals hitters rank 18th in baseball while the pitching staff ranks 19th in fWAR. Even with spectacular glovework, the players on the field are unable to make up for the lack of performance from the offense and pitchers. Part of this is why I was hesitant to ever put JJ Wetherholt as the leader in the Rookie of the Year competition because while he was phenomenal with the glove, the other saying goes, "you can't win if you can't score," and that bit the Cardinals again this season.

The Cardinals' offense finished 17th in runs scored over the past four seasons while pitchers allowed the 11th-most runs in baseball. Even with a top-5 defense, this type of performance is just not enough to get the job done. Also during that time, the St. Louis pitching staff has allowed the fourth-most hits in the game, so the stellar defenders could not even help out when the pitchers continue to find barrel after barrel. This should also tell Chaim Bloom that it is time to move on from the antiquated way of pitching and putting together a staff of groundball arms is not a winning strategy.

Luckily, Bloom has already started that pitching shift since the 2025 draft and trade deadlines, so the Cardinals are at least moving in the right direction with the staff. While Bloom has shown a desire to target high-octane fastballs to catch up to the rest of the league, his hitter preference is still unclear. Of course, the Cardinals lineup is full of young players, which limits Bloom's ability to make a major change to the offense.

Over the past five seasons, the Cardinals rank 17th in homers, 18th in slugging, 21st in stolen bases, and check in as exactly league average by measure of wRC+. After attempting to have an experienced clubhouse of veterans, the Cardinals had to make a shift to their young bats this season. The youngsters struggled in 2026, putting up a 93 wRC+ (26th in MLB) and finishing 24th in the league in homers. With the 2027 lineup looking very familiar to what we saw this season, we could continue to see St. Louis struggle in the final win column.

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