2016 was a disappointing year for the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cards finished the season at 86-76, missing the postseason for the first time since 2010.
St. Louis Cardinals 2016 Season Review
Offense Stands Out
For the most part, the offense wasn’t the problem for the Cardinals; St. Louis finished with 779 runs, good for third in the National League. The Cards led the NL in doubles and home runs, and finished in the top three in the league in slugging percentage and OPS.
Where the Cardinals struggled on offense was in batting average. St. Louis hit only .255 as a team, ninth in the league. Only Yadier Molina, Aledmys Diaz , Stephen Piscotty, and Matt Carpenter finished the season hitting over .270. After Carpenter’s .271 batting average, the next highest on the team was Brandon Moss at .255, marking for quite a steep drop off.
Carpenter and Molina had typical seasons, while Diaz had a very impressive rookie campaign. Other standouts for the Cardinals were Piscotty and Jedd Gyorko. Piscotty finshed the season with 60 extra-base-hits, while Gyorko, the former Padre and first-year Cardinal, slugged 30 home runs. Diaz had an even better season, sliding in for the oft-injured Jhonny Peralta at shortstop. The rookie finished the season hitting .300 with 17 home runs and 65 RBI, and ended up with the third-best OPS for qualified NL rookies, trailing only Trea Turner and Trevor Story.
The biggest disappointment for the Cardinals offensively was Kolten Wong. The second basemen struggled to live up to expectations and hit a porous .240, with no type of power whatsoever. Matt Adams also disappointed, failing to show off his power stroke while also struggling to reach base. Adams failed to eclipse 20 home runs and barely reached base at a .300 clip.
Pitching Falters
While the Cardinals had an impressive offense, their pitching left much to be desired. St. Louis finished right in the middle of the NL in team ERA, but finished in the bottom half of the league in strikeouts and batting-average-against. While neither the bullpen or starting staff were too impressive, the starters struggles were a bigger problem.
Of their usual starters, only Carlos Martinez finished the season with an ERA under four. Adam Wainwright, Mike Leake, and Jaime Garcia finished with ERAs near five, while Michael Wacha‘s exceeded five. Not only did starters struggle with giving up runs, they didn’t give the team much help in terms of eating innings. None reached 200 innings pitched. If it wasn’t for Martinez (3.04 ERA, 174 SO), the Cardinals rotation would have been much worse. Phenom Alex Reyes, albeit in only five starts, bolstered the starting staff down the stretch as well.
Closer Trevor Rosenthal struggled, positing a career-worst 4.46 ERA, and was eventually replaced by rookie Seung-hwan Oh. Oh, originally from South Korea, finished the season with 19 saves and an ERA under two after taking over as closer. Outside of Rosenthal’s struggles and Oh’s emergence, the rest of the bullpen was hit or miss. Jonathan Broxton averaged under a strikeout per inning and posted an ERA over four, while Kevin Siegrist pitched to a 2.77 ERA in his usual lefty specialist role.
2016 had its bright spots for the Cardinals, but will be seen as a failure because of the lack of a playoff birth. The emergence of Oh, Diaz, and Reyes bodes well for 2017, but the struggles of Rosenthal and Wacha could give Cardinals fans reason to temper expectations. The Cardinals will most likely return with much of the same roster, though a bullpen arm or two and an outfield bat are potential additions for next season. With additional growth from their young players and bounce-back years from their veterans, the Cardinals should once again compete for a postseason berth in 2017.
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