By Tom
Our Team: The St. Louis Cardinals
Our 2022 Record: 93-69, 1st NLC
A Brief Summary: Here it is, the end of an era. This season has been a whirlwind. After losing in the Wild Card game last year to the Dodgers, the Cardinals fired then-manager Mike Shildt over philosophical differences–allegedly over his relationship with Jeff Albert. The Cards promoted bench coach Oli Marmol to take over. MLB imposed a lockout that lasted until March 10th when a new CBA was signed, one of the new rule changes was the NL adopting the designated hitter. The Birds signed Steven Matz, Nick Wittgren, Drew VerHagen, and Albert Pujols, and you’ll never guess who lasted a full season!
Pujols got off to a slow start and then mashed. The Cards offense got hot thanks to Nolan and Goldy beating the breaks off the ball. Paul DeJong struggled and got optioned to Memphis and Nolan Gorman got called up. Arenado started a fight with the Mets which gave us this gem and forever ingrained how much of a big teddy bear Peter Alonoso is. Goldy had a 25 game hitting streak that eventually turned into an on-base streak that was one of the longest in the last couple decades. Andre Pallante emerged as a jack-of-all-trades, Alex Reyes was done for the year and Jack Flaherty done for most of the year. Before Nolan Gorman there was Juan Yepez who raked, and then eventually got hurt and optioned before coming back at the end of the season. Ryan Helsley finally put it together to become one of the most dominant late-inning arms in the Majors. DeJong mashed in AAA and got his job back, only to relapse. Goldy and Nolan showed their asses by not getting vaccinated but luckily the team took off after.
Milwaukee’s social media team tweeted an all-timer just over halfway through the season, and the Cardinals took advantage of their criminally weak second half schedule to win 22 of 29 games in August, take the division, and not relinquish for the rest of the year. We almost traded for Juan Soto but thought better of it; Lars Nootbaar emerged as an everyday starter and the Cards committed to Carlson as their long-term centerfielder, which they also did by trading Harrison Bader to the Yankees for Jordan Montgomery and Johan Oviedo for Jose Quintana and Chris Stratton. Monty and Quintana righted a leaky starting corps and everyone changed their tune on John Mozeliak.
Molina returned from a sabbatical that saw his basketball team win a championship, just in time to break the battery record with long-time hurler Adam Wainwright. Pujols mashed 700 and then passed Babe Ruth for 2nd all-time on the RBI list. Goldy and Nolan became the clear MVP frontrunners despite cooling off in September. Gallegos got re-signed, Nolan won’t opt out, and the kids were alright. By the way this is a farewell season to Pujols, Yadi, and Waino three organizational legends. Whew.
Grading the Infield
Paul Goldschmidt: A
Your 2022 NL MVP. Goldy led the NL in WAR for most of the season until a cold September saw Manny Machado and teammate Nolan Arenado pass him. WAR is a wonderful and telling stat, but Nolan and Manny are only 0.1 and 0.2 ahead of Paul. Considering that MVP usually goes to the more dominant offensive threat, Goldy’s 178 wRC+ is 3rd highest in the majors and 27 points higher than Machado. His .981 OPS was also 3rd in the majors and paced the NL–also 86 points higher than Manny. I don’t know, WAR is great, but it has a tendency of punishing positions that aren’t too demanding defensively, which is the only reason Manny is ahead of Goldy by a fraction of a win, and he’s not even the best fielding third baseman!
Brendan Donovan: B+
Donny slashed .281/.394/.379 in his first season in the Bigs, and if Spencer Strider or Michael Harris weren’t around he’d be your NL Rookie of the Year. Donny brings almost no power to his game, what he does bring is scrappiness and a willingness to play everywhere. Donovan played second base, third base, right field, left field, as well as a little shortstop and first base; a real Swiss Army knife. His 15% K rate was nearly eclipsed by his 12.8% BB rate. If you like bWAR he was worth 4.1 wins, and 2.7 fWAR. His .394 OBP ranked 7th in the league among players with at least 400 plate appearances, and 40th–among 203 players that managed to qualify–in wRC+.
Tommy Edman: B+
Tommy Two-Bags/Four-Dicks improved slightly with his bat, but his main contribution was sliding over to shortstop when DeJong and Edmundo Sosa’s struggles demanded a change–DeJong getting sent down to Memphis, and Sosa getting sent to the Phillies for JoJo Romero. Edman’s 5.5 fWAR is top 20 in the league and his 6.2 bWAR tied for 10th. His 18.2 Defensive Runs Saved ranked 3rd in the league and his 8.4 Baserunning Runs led the MLB. Tommy also posted a respectable 106 wRC+ to go along with an improved OBP and OPS. Good for him, now if we can just get that bat to be more consistent next year.
Nolan Arenado: A
One year removed from posting his worst full offensive season, Nolan rebounds with his best. He also won his damn division title too. Nolan’s 151 wRC+ is 20 points higher than this next best season, and currently ties Machado for the MLB league for the hot corner. Machado and Nolan are separated by only 0.1 WAR, with Machado posting a 41.5 Offensive Runs Saved to Arenado’s 35.2, but Nolan possesses a 12.9 DEF compared to Manny’s 6.5. Only Ke’Bryan Hayes has posted a better defensive mark this season. Hayes is well-deserving for his first Gold Glove, but the award will likely go to Nolan who will have an easier time defending it this year than last year when he was bested by multiple corner stalwarts. Anyway, if Goldschmidt doesn’t win the NL MVP it’ll come down to Nolan or Manny, who are both a push. Manny has a 4 point lead in OPS but they’re tied in wOBA and wRC+, but Nolan plays better defense.
Yadier Molina: D+
Yadi sucked. Don’t fucking lie to yourself. It’s okay that he sucked he’s a hundred million-fucking-years old. Catchers are terrible at hitting to begin with, but Yadi had a 54 OPS+. Yikes, dawg, it’s not like Knizner or anyone else really seized their opportunity to usurp him for at-bats. Yadi did that himself when he took some personal time to go back home to Puerto Rico to recover physically and mentally, and by all that I mean get thrown out of a basketball game. Fine, I don’t care, it’s the last season of a big hoorah take as much as time as you need; you won us 2 World Series and will go down as either the number 1, 2, or 3 greatest defensive catcher of all-time. Despite my bitching, he posted the 13th best DEF for catchers and threw out 39% of baserunners and he also pitched twice. Yadi came back in September and slashed .268/.288/.482, just in time for the postseason at least.
Andrew Knizner: D-
Here’s a guy who will be happy Yadi’s gone, even though we won’t once we see he’s next. Knizner got service time this season and completely fumbled it. He played in 95 games and posted a .603 OPS, and believe me when I say it was much worse than that. The Yadi-Knizner tandem led a catching corps that posted the 26th best fWAR for the position. After entering June with a respectable .247 average Kniz would go 6 for his next 62. Cardinals catchers combined to hit 9 goddamn home runs all season, only the Pirates, White Sox, and Mets did worse than that. We can blame Yadi all we want, but he’s a fossil. Knizner had his shot this season and sucked an egg. His defense wasn’t that good either, he posted a -7 DRS and a -7.2 Framing Runs. The future is not bright.
Grading the Outfield
Tyler O’Neill: C-
Bro’Neill regressed heavily this year, failing to complete 100 games after being injury prone throughout the season. His 101 OPS and wRC+ would have earned him a C but the injuries hurt him a little here. We made plenty of hot takes for the season, perhaps the hottest of the hot being that O’Neill would replicate the success of his 2021 season. Well he definitely didn’t fucking do that. To his credit he was incredibly unlucky, posting an expected batting average of .240 and an expected slugging of .423. Last year O’Neill was top 94th percentile in average exit velocity, 97th in Barrel %, 93rd in HardHit%, and 87th in Outs Above Average. This year he was 65th, 80th, 67th, and 72nd. I get that those digits are still above average, but c’mon, did we expect Tyler O’Neill to be anything but great this season?
Dylan Carlson: C
The 23 year-old top young talent churned out a meh season. Nats GM Mike Rizzo wanted Dilly Doubles in whatever Soto trade manifestations transpired. Mo said no, shipped Bader, and committed to Carlson as our centerfielder going forward. And that lasted all but three weeks when Dylan was moved to bench in favor of a lineup that had O’Neill, Nootbaar, and Corey Dickerson. It was bad circumstances for Dylan; Dickerson was in the middle of an otherworldly hot streak, Nootbaar was posting a .900+ OPS since June, and O’Neill was…well a slight offensive upgrade. Dylan finished with a .696 OPS mark, good enough for a 100 OPS+ on the dot. If you didn’t commit to getting Juan Soto, should it be because of a league average hitter? I’m being too harsh, the one thing Dylan has going for him is that he’s 23. His BB% was pretty much the same as last year, and he struck out almost 5% less, the problem was that he hit the ball like shit. Carlson’s Savant page is full of a lot of blue and little red, the one red that gives a lot of hope is his defense where he ranked in the 74th percentile in OAA. Great news if he’s going to play a defensively demanding position as center, bad news in that he’s bottom 9th percentile in average exit velocity and bottom 4% in HardHit%. Carlson had his fair share of nagging injuries, including a thumb that saw his offensive output nose-dive after the trade deadline. His 2.4 fWAR was good enough for 28th in the league for outfielders with 450 plate appearances, his 100 wRC+ means he’s neither good nor bad, and his 3.9 OFF value all came from his 3.9 baserunning runs saved. It was a disappointing year for Carlson, who hit 8 bombs compared to 18 last year, but he survived, and honestly we should be good with that.
Lars Nootbaar: B-
Nootbaar finished with a .228/.340/.441 slash line, among outfielders with at least 350 PAs he ranked 4th in BB% and 28th in slugging. He was also top 9th in average exit velo and 84th in Barrel %. Noot dug himself a deep hole early in the season, so deep he got optioned to Memphis. He posted a .482 OPS by the end of June, but slashed .253/.374/.507 from July on. His .881 OPS during that span is 9th best in the league for outfielders. He was also pretty good defensively, posting a top 20 arm in the league along with a 4th rank Outfield Arms Runs Saved. He put up a 4 DRS and a 0 in OAA, meaning great arm with an average to slightly above average glove, a great combo for a right fielder.
Corey Dickerson: D+
Dickerson posted the most banal fucking season imaginable. I nearly nailed his projection. Corey finished 2022 with a .699 OPS to go along with a .267 average in 96 games. He was so bad early on that he didn’t get over the Mendoza line until mid-July. He got hurt in early June and spent a month licking his wounds before coming back and catching fire. Dickerson slashed .411/.411/.589 in August, you read that right he didn’t walk a single goddamn time and didn’t have to. The highlight of that span came when he recorded 10 hits in 10 consecutive at-bats in a series against the Cubs. Dickerson pushed his average to as high as .298 in early September before going 10 for his next 63. His defense was absolute shit, he had the weakest arm in the majors, and when employed as a DH he was putrid. He posted a replacement level 0.0 WAR. It’s a miracle he recovered at all, but I guess he was worth that $5 million. Welcome to the Corey Dickerson experience.
Grading Everybody Else
Albert Pujols: A-
I’ve written enough about Albert throughout the year. He hit 700 and then some, he passed Babe Ruth, he put up vintage numbers after July becoming maybe the best NL hitter during that span. He hit 24 tanks, more than Carlos Correa, Javy Baez, Kris Bryant, Alex Bregman, Freddie Freeman, and Joey Gallo. For $2.5 million Albert was easily worth $16 mil, probably a lot more I mean have YOU SEEN the lines to get into Busch?
Paul DeJong: F
DeJong sucked and never recovered and while it’s cool he got his shit together momentarily and battled his way back from Memphis he undid all that good will when he marred himself in going 23 for his last 133, hopefully as a Cardinal. Next.
Nolan Gorman: C+
Gorman survived, that’s what mattered. It sucked that he got sent down briefly at the end, but Juan Yepez earned his time back. Gorman struck out 32.9%, so…yeah that’s a lot. He walked a little above league average, fielded like shit, and hit 14 bombs, some of them that are still travelling across the galaxy as you read this. He posted a 106 OPS+ and a 0.7 WAR through 89 games, all while 22. It ain’t much, but if you look closely you’ll see that it was a decent year for a guy called up this young. He’ll be fine and this season produces a lot of hope.
Juan Yepez: C+
Yepez slashed .253/.296/.447 through 76 games. He came up before Gorman and Burleson and got off to a fine start before cooling his jets. He got hurt with a forearm strain that sidelined him much of the second half of the season. The 24 year-old rookie hung a 114 OPS+ for the season and was on pace for over 20 tanks before he got hurt. Shame, Yepez has a lot of offensive upside, but hardly no defensive value–although he is more than willing to play both corner positions in the infield and outfield. He’ll be a decent DH or trade-bait, he deserves more at-bats.
Grading the Starters
Miles Mikolas: B
Mikolas was good. That’s all you can say. He posted 200 innings for the second time as a Cardinal and carried a 3.29 ERA to end the season. He’s our ace, but he shouldn’t be if you get what I’m saying. An ace shouldn’t carry a 116 ERA+. No matter, Mikoals set a career high in strikeouts and innings and nearly threw a no-hitter. He doesn’t walk a lot of guys and pitches effectively. He also burns sage and wears cowboy hats because of course he does look at this weirdo.
Adam Wainwright: B
Waino did more than enough, it sucks how things unraveled for him in the last month. Uncle Charlie entered September with a 3.09 ERA, but over his last 6 starts of the year he pitched 28 ⅔ innings, surrendered 23 runs, and posted a 7.22 ERA. Waino was plagued by a dead arm during this span, something that seems to still be with him as we enter the postseason. Regardless, the 40 year-old veteran gave us more than we could have asked for pitching 191 ⅔ innings and posting a 103 ERA+. The Birds were 17-15 in his 32 starts. His 11-12 win-loss record marks the first time in his career that he’s pitched a full season and recorded a sub .500 record–it’s his 17th year in the majors. The last three seasons have seen a reinvented Waino. One of the most genuine and charismatic guys in the game.
Dakota Hudson: D
Dak sucked and showed signs of promise when he got sent down to AAA, came back and went 11 innings giving up 1 run, only to derail all that good juju when he got lit-the-fuck-up last night against the Pirates for 7 runs in 2 ⅔ innings. Hudson doesn’t strike out guys, his velocity is down, and he labors on and on and on. You can’t have a guy who walks that many dudes and gives up that many hits who posts a 5.0 K/9; he may be better off working from the ‘pen.
Steven Matz: D+
Matz looked good returning from injury, but I called it at the beginning of the season that he was injury-prone and look what happened. Here’s to another 3 years of shit like this.
Jordan Montgomery: B+
Honestly if Monty didn’t perform so poorly against teams above .500 I’d give him an A. He feasted off the bottom-feeders and did well against his former team. He hurled 63 ⅓ innings, pitched a 1-0 shutout against the Cubs, posted a 123 ERA+, and went 6-3. Good news, we get him for another year.
Jose Quintana: A-
Quintana was largely overshadowed by Montgomery who won his first 4 starts and posted a 0.35 ERA with the Cardinals. Meanwhile, Quintana hurled 62 ⅔ innings in 12 starts and the Cards won 9 those. Jose posted a 2.01 ERA and a 190 ERA+ in that span. Last year Mo righted the ship by bringing on a bunch of seniors in LeBlanc, Lester, and Happ, this season he knocked it out of the park with Monty and Quintana.
Jack Flaherty: C-
I’m ranking Flaherty this low because it’s been a disappointing season. This fucking front office can’t stop getting him hurt and pissing him off. He’s gonna be so good in Dodger Blue.
Grading the Bullpen
Andre Pallante: B-
Pallante really shouldn’t have pitched as well as he did. But he did. For guys with at least 100 innings pitched, he ranked near the top in GB%, other than that he was mediocre to the bottom of the pack in everything else. However, he still posted a 3.17 ERA, a 121 ERA+, and a 3.98 FIP. Pallante’s 1.417 WHIP is nightmarish, but he worked around those misgivings and was hard to take yard. He started 10 meaningful games and really kept the rotation intact in June. July not so much. Regardless, he was the unsung hero of this pitching staff.
Ryan Helsley: A
Helsley remembered he was good this year! He was stellar in 24 games in 2019, but regressed to a liability in 2020 and 2021. Those years seem behind him, as he put up an electric 305 ERA+; only Dodger Evan Phillips topped that mark. Helsley’s 1.25 ERA was 3rd best in the league for relievers, and his 93.4 LOB% best. He ranked 6th in fWAR, 3rd in K%, and 1st in opponents batting average. He was so nasty all season. Oh and he won 9 games on the season, 3 of those came against the Braves and their racist-ass chop. Fuck those guys.
Jordan Hicks: D+
Hicks was hurt–surprise–and sucked when he wasn’t injured. Whoever thought it was a good idea to have him start 8 games should be thrown out of a helicopter.
Giovanny Gallegos: B-
Gio started the year off as the primary closer before he lost a little something-something on his slide-piece. The past 3 seasons, hitters hit .123, .071, and .160 off Gio’s slider. This year they hit .183. It’s not that much of a concerning trend, but Gio lacks the explosive stuff to be a closer, at least a dominant one. Also he takes so fucking long to pitch, a half-inning of Gio is a half hour of waiting for the next slider in the dirt. Gio posted a 3.05 ERA and a 125 ERA+, it was a little touch and go throughout the season, the kind of season where you sometimes dread he’s coming in, but Gio right himself in August until the end of the year, even though he shat himself blind in Pittsburgh a couple nights ago. Gallegos posted a 2.29 ERA in 19 ⅔ innings down the stretch.
Genesis Cabrera: D+
Also sucked. Got hurt and ineffective. Throws so hard, but posts shitty strikeout and walk ratios. Keep him away from the playoff roster.
Nick Wittgren-TJ McFarland-Drew VerHagen: F
They sucked so so bad. Wittgren got released and a payday. McFarland DFA’d and sent to Memphis. VerHagen is rumored to be injured but I hear he’s hunting puppies in his free time.
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