The question is: Just how bad are the 2017 St. Louis Cardinals? I guess it depends who you ask, but the stats are not pretty. No matter how you slice it, this team is not playing good baseball. You can fire Mike Matheny.. You can fire John Mozeliak.. You can cut Player A .. You can send down Player B.. But no matter what – the 2017 St. Louis Cardinals through a pretty solid sample size are simply not good. Here are some reasons why:

  1. The St. Louis Cardinals have scored the 4th fewest runs in all of the National League. The teams worse? San Diego, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Oh, and those teams are bad, too.
  2. St. Louis has 41 errors. On surface, that doesn’t look as bad, since it’s 18th in Major League Baseball. But, their .984 fielding percentage simply is not an ingredient to winning baseball games.
  3. Jedd Gyroko has the best batting average on the team. God bless his heart, but Jedd Gyorko is a career .244 hitter for a reason. The guy hasn’t even reached 100 career bombs, and some Cardinal fans want to make him the cornerstone cleaning hitter for years. I’ll eat my hat if Jedd Gyorko hits above .270(said on May 15th, 2017). And still holds true today.
  4. Kolten Wong is calling me a liar. Okay, Kolten Wong has the best batting average on the team. He is batting .301, but his 153 at bats will remain that way if he doesn’t find a way to get healthy. Actually, Kolten Wong has been the best hitter on the team. Wong can be a good player in Major League Baseball, but he should not be your best hitter. We can look past his team leading 8 errors, if can hit .300, right?
  5. Dexter Fowler is the leading homerun hitter on the team. God bless his heart, but Dexter Fowler has 90 career homeruns in 9 seasons in Major League Baseball for a reason. The guy is trying hard, but Dexter Fowler is still the definition of the most average player in Major League Baseball. And he leads the Cardinals in homeruns.
  6. Matt Adams has hit 9 homeruns with the Atlanta Braves. And that’s in 107 at bats. He hit just 1 in 48 at bats with the Cardinals in 2017. John Mozeliak had no use for a power hitter. 
  7. Matt Carpenter is hitting .246. And, we keep hearing about how good Matt Carpenter’s batting eye is. He leads the team with 57 strikeouts.
  8. Randal Grichuk is still in the minor leagues. And while Randal Grichuk may be no better than a minor league player, the guy that the Cardinals want hitting in the middle of their order is still in the minor leagues.
  9. Carlos Martinez has DOUBLE the runs batted in that Greg Garcia has. Garcia has 64 more at bats as well. Greg Garcia has no business on a roster that wants to be good. As I am thinking neither does Chad Huffman or Jose Martinez. While we are at it, Magneuris Sierra played 8 games, and has the same amount of RBI’s as Garcia. Please send Garcia with Jhonny Peralta.
  10. Is Paul DeJong allergic to walking? 1 walk, 19 strikeouts.
  11. Adam Wainwright leads this team in wins. He has 7. And Adam Wainwright has been woeful in 2017.
  12. Mike Leake is finding the 2016 Mike Leake. Leake started as one of the hottest pitchers in Major League Baseball. Leake lost four straight starts in May and June, and now the Cardinals suddenly don’t look as strong with the starting rotation.
  13. Michael Wacha can barely throw enough to qualify for a win. In fact, Wacha is averaging just over 5 innings pitched in his 12 starts this season. And now, the Cardinals suddenly don’t look at strong with the starting rotation.
  14. Brett Cecil, who is signed for like 15957 years.. The guy that John Mozeliak added to “beef” up the bullpen has a 4.56 earned run average. And, he may be the best lefthander in the bullpen. Siegrist has a 4.62, and Lyons is at 4.96.
  15. The guy in the bullpen that’s been the best in 2017 is a guy by the name is Sam Tuivailala. And he’s made 12 appearances all season.

While these might not be the saber metrics version, and somewhere out there one of you stat nerds is shaking your head at this article, and wanting to tell me the 2017 St. Louis Cardinals are ACTUALLY better than I think. The Cardinals are 31-37.

At this point, the St. Louis Cardinals will finish 74-88. The St. Louis Cardinals have not finished with less than 80 wins since the 1999 season when they went 75-86. The good news, the Cardinals reached the postseason the next three seasons, winning 285 regular season games those three seasons, and started a streak of reaching the postseason 6 out of 8 seasons.

But, going even deeper, the Cardinals have finished with UNDER 75 wins just 5 times since the 1980 season. That’s how bad the 2017 St. Louis Cardinals are – on pace for 74 wins.

Until next time…