Cardinals Fans Deserve Better Than What They Are Getting

Fresh off another disappointing season, the St. Louis Cardinals have a pivotal offseason ahead of them. While the 2024 season was an improvement upon their disastrous 2023 campaign, they once again fell short of expectations, leaving plenty to be desired for their fanbase.

The frustration that Cardinals fans are experiencing is warranted. The front office has been reluctant to push the chips in, despite this team not being far off. That’s been a major contributor to this extended- and puzzling- stretch of lackluster play, especially from a franchise as decorated as the Cardinals.

It’s clear that way of operating is starting to catch up to the organization. For a fanbase as passionate and dedicated as St. Louis, the dissatisfaction is starting to compound, and their 2024 attendance reflects that.

The final attendance total for the Cardinals came in at 2,878,115, which on the surface level doesn’t seem all that bad. In fact, that was the seventh-best attendance in Major League Baseball this season. However, in the context of Cardinals baseball, it was an enormous step back.

Per Katie Woo of The Athletic, it was the first time since Busch Stadium III opened back in 2006 that St. Louis finished with an attendance under three million. They also set the record for the smallest single-game attendance since the stadium’s inception.

Even though they won 12 more games than they did in 2023, their attendance dipped over 360,000 in total. Moreover, their average attendance of 35,532 was the lowest mark of the century for St. Louis.

Cardinals fans deserve better than what they are getting. The actions of the front office this offseason will set the tone for this ball club moving forward. Will they continue with their half-attempt at competing, or will they take the necessary steps to get this ball club back on track to their winning ways?

What’s Next For the Cardinals?

The Cardinals have been competitive for the vast majority of the 21st century, but the past two seasons have felt like low points for Cardinals baseball.

And yet, it feels as if this roster has what it takes to compete. But in order to return to excellence, the front office must show their willingness to make the big move to put them over the top- which is something we just haven’t seen recently.

Now with the Cardinals aiming to reduce payroll in 2025, things will get even trickier for St. Louis. On the one hand, clearly the product they’ve been running out hasn’t worked. An investment into bolstering their player development and technology at the expense of payroll seems reasonable to some extent.

But on the other hand, they still have a solid foundation to build around and have a window to compete right now. Cost cutting in the margins of the roster is one thing, but they should be looking to invest in this team this offseason, not subtract their biggest assets.

Sonny Gray Should Remain a Cardinal

For years, the Cardinals have been reluctant to make any splash in the starting pitching market. Even when it felt as if one big addition could put them over the top, they didn’t pull the trigger, and they’ve consistently come up short as a result.

Until last offseason, when they finally made the big transaction that addressed a glaring roster weakness. The Cardinals inked veteran Sonny Gray to a three-year, $75 million deal to be the ace of their staff, and it was a move that felt necessary if they wanted to bounce back from their dreadful 2023 season.

Now, just a year into his contract, the ball club is rumored to shop Gray this offseason. After one season in a Cardinals uniform, they’re content taking several steps back and moving on from Gray, simply as a measure to reduce payroll.

Sure, trading Gray would be cost efficient. Gray is owed $60 million over the next two seasons, including a club option for $30 million in 2027. But Gray will be 35 years old by the start of next season, and with the way the Cardinals back loaded his contract, it could be tough to find a buyer willing to take on the entirety of that contract.

Still, while he is coming off a down year relative to expectations (3.84 ERA, 3.12 FIP), Gray managed to finish seventh in the NL in fWAR (3.8) among qualified starting pitchers. Likewise, he ended the season with the second-highest K/9 (10.98) and strikeout-minus-walk rate (24.4%), only behind the presumptive 2024 NL Cy Young winner, Chris Sale.

He’s still just a year removed from finishing second in AL Cy Young voting with the Minnesota Twins back in 2023, and moving on from Gray would undo any momentum this team has made in building up their starting rotation.

In 2024, Cardinals starters finished 20th in Major League Baseball in ERA (4.33) and 23rd in opponent batting average (.249). Peripherals were more encouraging than that (4.12 SIERA, 4.06 FIP, 3.91 xFIP), and that’s in large part due to Gray anchoring their group of starters.

Without Gray leading the way, this rotation largely consists of innings eaters, assuming they pick up the club options on 37-year-old Lance Lynn and 36-year-old Kyle Gibson. If that’s the route this front office ends up taking, then they’re content with rolling out the same style of starting rotation that has failed to get the job done in recent seasons.

This team should be working to get back in the postseason hunt, not entertaining trade offers for the ace of their staff simply to reduce payroll. It’s that exact way of operating that has left Cardinals fans disappointed as of late.

Embrace the Young Talent

It was also reported that St. Louis is expected to move on from Paul Goldschmidt, as the 37-year-old will test the waters in free agency this offseason. Combine his decline in performance with the opportunity to slash payroll by letting him walk, and a breakup between the two parties feels like the first step towards trying something new in 2025.

Since winning the NL MVP award in 2022, Goldschmidt has put together the worst two-year stretch of his major league career in 2023-’24.

Goldschmidt has an fWAR of just 4.5 since the beginning of the 2023 season, and he’s coming off a 2024 campaign in which he slashed .245/.302/.414 for a wRC+ of 100. Each of those metrics are a career low for Goldschmidt, and it’s the first time in his 14-year career that he ended the season with an OPS below .800 (.716).

With Goldschmidt no longer a part of the picture moving forward, the Cardinals now head into 2025 with an abundantly youthful lineup. That said, there’s still plenty to like among this group of players.

Below is a table highlighting what the potential group of position players could look like for the Cardinals next season, along with their corresponding contract status:

The only position players currently under long-term contracts are Willson Contreras and Nolan Arenado. Outside of those two, the rest of the projected 2025 lineup consists of players either in pre-arbitration or players entering their first year of arbitration.

Having this amount of affordable talent in the lineup is a huge advantage from a roster construction standpoint. It should be pushing the front office to invest around it, whether that be bringing in veteran bats to help round out the lineup, or bolstering the pitching staff.

Instead, the rumors of subtracting star talent from this roster adds more fuel to the frustration for Cardinals fans.

In order to see different results and stray from their recent path of mediocrity, the Cardinals need to invest in this roster this offseason to push this organization in the right direction. If they continue to operate like they have been in recent seasons, this team could once again end up on the outside of the playoffs looking in for the third-consecutive season next October.

Final Thoughts

It’s an unusual position to be in if you’re the St. Louis Cardinals. For a franchise that’s operated as well as any over the course of the past two decades, they now find themselves trapped in the middle between rebuilding for the future, and making the big investments to compete for a championship.

It’s clear that this most recent iteration of Cardinals baseball was a failure by most accounts. In a time where fans are expecting the ball club to compete for a World Series title, they have continued to fall well short of expectations.

So where do the Cardinals go from here? With Chaim Bloom set to replace John Mozeliak as President of Baseball Operations following the 2025 season, and with a decrease in payroll at the MLB level on the horizon, it’s yet to be seen what the future of the Cardinals will behold.

Are they going to build around this core of players and make an attempt to get back into contention? Or could this be the year in which many of their biggest names are on the move in order to kick off a brand new era of Cardinals baseball?

There’s plenty of questions surrounding the ball club as they head into one of their most important offseasons in recent history.