Well, I don’t have a ton to chirp about, as I expected a pretty decent showing of the team. They didn’t really let me down so much as I think they could’ve done a little better.
While I have been a fairly staunch Oliver Marmol supporter, at times defending him sternly, at others saying that he’s at least better than his two predecessors, the duo I like to call The Two Mikes” in a row. Both were good at motivating the troops in the regular season and not horrific enough to derail good teams in a large
sample of data that they are viewed as “Good Record Managers” and competent, stoic Leaders of Men. They turned out, in my opinion, to neither be competent nor worthy of the term stoic. So Oliver Marmol it is, a younger, more player friendly, open minded candidate. And I’m definitely all for that, don’t get me wrong please.
It’s just that Oliver Marmol has some kind of old school traits. He likes guys to get used to assigned roles, just like most managers. Especially in the bullpen. He can get creative positionally, but he’s a ride or die guy. He will push his favorite go-to players past logical constraints. Especially towards the beginning of the season. Is this a good way to stretch out young high potential (athletic) players? I would like to hear what you all think on that, especially ones more on the scouting end of things with personal observations from video or better yet, at the events. I get if there’s a “split” (platoon) playing time, it should be limited at first, but what about players like JJ Wetherholt? High end defenders without hugh splits on offense…
It was fun seeing the team overachieve for a while. The fans kept showing up as they did last season, thinned but still supportive. I enjoyed a promotion early in the year where I sat in Big Mac Land and ate too much. That made me want to go back more, so they’re on the right track. I didn’t end up going as often, as I had planned to go more in September, but September ended up one I didn’t want to remember both in life and with the team I watch and support as much as I can. It was ok but, I just kind of tuned out.
Needless to say, I didn’t get to go to a lot of games, but this year was encouraging enough for me to finally replace my old hat from 2013. So there’s that I guess, and all the other things I wrote about last week in praise of the team.
Ok there’s also the promotions, Baez annoyed a lot of fans before his historic, uncanny debut… he could’ve been up working on things sooner at the MLB level. But he also needed to work on his K rate. So I cannot really gripe about it too much, all things considered. The most excellent weirdo 3 home run debut will do!
Considering injuries to Fitts, Dobbins, Rajcic, and the loss of Romero, ineffectiveness from Svanson, the signing of the wild insane spin rate guy Ryne Stanek, a shaky Riley O’Brien, and more untold bullpen horrors, how can I be too mean about the bullpen? Well, I would have bolstered the bullpen at the deadline, there are areas of depth in this org to be traded from. It’s a Cardinals tradition, we always add something real to the bullpen, not Turd Ferguson or whoever that guy was. But it’s whatever, I guess. Be more creative next time.
This is an asshole opinion piece, and I stand by my scoop. Ready to poop.
I don’t know, can you wait until the end of the season to extend JJ Wetherholt? Give me a freakin’ break!! No one else is getting one, why do that?? No excuses, whatever. No. Maybe after the CBA?? what do they know
Anyways, the easiest way to critique the Cardinals this year is to look at how they’ve deployed their players, it was all or nothing in the first half until production went down, and then even resulting in injuries. Thankfully, not major injuries. They were much more conservative with the pitching staff, while really pushing the position players. I would like to see more of a balance with both gravitating toward the middle somewhat. Marmol going ride or die with Wetherholt and Herrera at the top of the order ended up producing a lot of RBI because Walker and Burly had good seasons, but damn, those two rarely had a day off for half a season! And it wasn’t much better for Alec and Jordan.
Why was there such a shock in the second half? Was it negligent managing in player deployment, or were there too many distractions around the time of the All Star Break? Sometimes it could seem like the team would have been better with only one player going to the All Star Game, while Marmol prepped and planned for the second half. The second half was a whole different story from the first few months.
A team that had peaked at 9 games over, twice, started to fall apart.
One of the problems of the 2025 roster were the unproductive positions. Jordan Walker was one of them but he turned it around into a positive in 2026. Third base was another problem, as was center field. Were those problems fixed in 2026? No. Not really.
3B
The Cardinals were dead last in third base production in 2026 MLB. -1 fWAR. My main recommendation from last year was to eliminate all counterproductive positions. My critique at this point: a year too late on determining Nolan Gorman. A valient effort on all parts, but… third base in part ruined the season. And Blaze Jordan wasn’t the answer, just yet. Just a bad situation at third base in 2026.
Only Cincinnati was about as bad at third base production and their third baseman hit much worse than Victor Scott II.
CF
St Louis was second to last in all of MLB regarding center field production. Using WAR as the determining factor, the combination of mostly VS2 and Nathan Church was barely above replacement level. Playing guys like Nootbaar and Fermin there make it look worse than it probably is, but, it’s just not a good situati0n in center.
Bullpen
The Cardinals bullpen could not even add 1 full fWAR and that is the least offensive thing I could say about it other than Riley O’Brien had a lot of saves. Their overall stats were not really horrible, but they had a propensity for throwing games down the toilet. The Cardinals relief corps was tied for third in total blown saves. The Cardinals were in an abnormal amount of close games, so there were also a lot of saves, but wow, 46 saves minus 29 blown saves… I guess that coming out 17 ahead, but.
Perhaps the biggest critique is that some of the games this season were managed more to capture data on players than to win games. That is my feeling anyway. The catching situation is even more complicated than ever before. You might think Jimmy Crooks III has been written off, but he actually had some lifesigns if you look closely at what he did. Pedro Pages is most definitely still around. As is Ivan Herrera, who has not been moved or even tried at another position any further. Leo Bernal has stolen the spotlight, but the other players remain, while Rainiel Rodriguez is still a candidate at catcher. We have gone a year and it is just even more a conundrum. Good problem to have, but it’s confusing right now. Cognitive dissonance anyone? That’s probably not even the right term for it.
The last part of the critique involves the lackluster fan involvement overall, as we also see a severe park factor penalty that seems to have effected the Cardinals offense as much or probably more than most other teams. That is just not a fun environment to watch games in, especially if the weather is usually just unbearable and/or the bullpen just will cough up games left and right. That’s not entertaining, even if the young players are fun to watch and the starting rotation isn’t as bad as you might think it would be.
The last thing is, please don’t make us watch another season of 2026 Liberatore in the starting pitching staff, please and thank you. Or make me eat my words with a Walker-esque turnaround performance.
1998 in electronic music: a playlist for you
I will produce more music writing, about 1998 next week, I have run out of time but have made a playlist for you. Just hit random/shuffle before you listen to the whole thing, please! Thank you, it’s electronic and downtempo/lounge focused. Check it out.
Thanks for reading, hope to see you all here next week.
