The Cardinals Were “Done” Before They Began

Busch Stadium III has plenty of seats available these days.

A Hall of Fame pitcher and character, Dizzy Dean used to note when a pitcher was struggling by suggesting “You can stick a fork in him, folks. He’s done.”    

Scrolling through Facebook recently, I came across that sentiment to describe the Cardinals. After the club lost a recent game in Seattle, few observers got Dizzy with it and posted, “You can stick a fork in them.”

Hmmm? 

So, to be clear, we can forget about the Cardinals contending for postseason glory now, just now. One hundred forty five games into this championship season it looks as if they might not pull it off. 

That’s right. We have come to the conclusion that the jig is up, these 2025 Cardinals may not be on a playoff path. Cancel your plans, World Series title No. 12 is not going to happen. 

With cheek removed from tongue, don’t you find that declaration a bit amusing?

The statement suggests that, up until now, until that recent September loss, it was anyone’s ballgame, i.e. this Cardinals edition was not done. The season was still in the oven, baking up some October magic.

Some fans die hard, no question. They gulp the Kool-Aid, remain credulous, and go down with the ship. God bless ‘em.  

But if we’re being more pragmatic, even Captain Obvious with the “fork” comment would have to admit this ship never left the harbor. Poking it with a utensil at this point would be kicking a dead horse, cruel and unusual.

Oh, sure, things got a little heady back in May. The team won nine in a row and 12 of 13 at one point, went from five games under .500 to four over. And in late June, 10 wins in 13 games pushed the record to nine over (47-38). First place was within 2 ½ games.

Jack Buck might have been saying, “I don’t believe what I just saw,” all over again. 

But there was good reason to be skeptical. Over the last 62 games, the Cardinals (25-37) have played at a .403 clip. And while Milwaukee surged, they have descended from 2½ back to 17 back in the National League.

Believing in Santa Claus makes more sense. 

MLB teams play at least 162 times. Ebbs and flows take place, good and bad. To wit: Colorado has lost 106 games this season. The Rockies are so bad that when they hit a ball into the stands, even crazy Phillies fans don’t want it.

Colorado also has won 40 times, and had two four-game winning streaks. As my dad liked to say, “That’s baseball.”   

With few exceptions - the 2006 Cardinals being one - you are who you are in a major league season. Most of the time, six months of baseball proves it. A .230 hitter might hit .330 for a week or two. But that just means he’s going to hit .130 for a while afterwards. 

Look up and down the Cardinals lineup. It’s chock full of .300 hitters - for a day. More importantly, take a realistic look at their pitching staff. When you do, you should realize that what happened back in May and June was nothing more than an acid trip.

Yes, for short stretches, this 2025 staff acted like it’s 1985. And yes, John Tudor and Danny Cox were at the ballpark last weekend - but they were in street clothes. Those two combined for 39 wins in ’85 and along with Joaquin Andujar, who passed away in 2015, three starters had 60 wins.

The 2025 staff has leaned primarily on six starters - including Erick Fedde. The six have combined for 42 wins and 56 losses. This definitely is not 1985.  

St. Louis native and Hall of Fame manager Earl Weaver once said,

“They key to winning baseball games is pitching, fundamentals and three-run homers.”

Whitey Herzog’s Cardinals in the 1980s could take issue, but Weaver managed Baltimore in the American League from 1968-82, and then agains in 1985-86. He managed at a time when the AL had a different personality than its NL cousin, a station-to-station, wait-for-the-big-inning personality. Now the AL and NL joined at the DH, but have the designated-hitter rule, both play a stagnant, unimaginative style. So  the philosophy translates to today’s brand.

Using Weavermetrics, take a sober look at the current Cardinals. 

First, and foremost, is the pitching ingredient. As things wrapped up in Seattle, the Cardinals’ staff ranked 21st among the 30 major league teams with a 4.27 ERA. Opposing hitters were batting .258 off our boys - that ranked 25th. The staff had struck out 1,075, 29th best in the league, and allowed 1,284 hits, sixth most. 

By the way, Colorado was No. 1 with 1,520 hits allowed - you can’t teach that. 

The Cardinals “ace” is Sonny Gray, who had a .445 ERA while allowing 203 batters to reach in 163.2 innings. Andre Pallante, was sporting a 5.28 ERA, which means when he pitches, local authorities are required to issue “shelter-in-place” orders for residents near the ballpark.

Miles Mikolas had a 7-10 record with a 4.85 ERA, piggy-backing off his 10-11/ 5.35 season in 2024. Mikolas, who missed 2020 due to injury, is putting the final touches on a sixth consecutive losing season since he was 18-4 in 2018.  

For some reason, some people have confused Matthew Liberator with a young Steve Carlton. But Liberatore, who turns 26 in November, is 7-12 with a 4.35 ERA this season. Over his last 11 starts, he has acquired as many as 16 outs one time. 

Carlton turned 26 in December of 1971. Earlier that summer, he won 20 games for the Cardinals. The following summer, he won 27 and a Cy Young Award for the Phillies. See the similarities?

For much of this summer, the Cardinals ran Erick Fedde out there every fifth day. He was 3-10 with a 5.22 ERA before being transferred to Atlanta. The Braves kept Fedde for a 1-2 record and 8.10 ERA before dumping. Apparently in need of a crash dummy, the Brewers picked him up.

Of course, Fedde’s failure was hard to predict, right? After all, he has a career record of 34-55. 

Fedde’s replacement has been Michael McGreevy, a 25-year old right-hander who has been touted as a promising addition to next year’s rotation.

McGreevy has made 13 starts and worked more than six innings once. He has allowed four runs or more in seven of those starts. In 79 innings, he has allowed 100 batters to reach. As a GPA , his 4.44 would certainly bode well for his future. As an ERA, it’s somewhat less inspiring. 

The most concerning aspect of the 2025 staff is that it was obviously not capable. Yet, management allowed it to walk the plank anyway.

The “fundamentals” category is more difficult to certify. The Cardinals were 18th in the majors in sacrifice flies, 10th in sacrifice bunts. Their catchers had 13 passed balls, only two teams have more. The team grounds into .69 double plays per game - which ranks 23rd - and the team’s .313 OBP ranks 20th. Defensively, the Cardinals average 0.51 errors per game, which is 14th best in the majors.

At the same time, brain farts and fundamental mistakes don’t often show up in the boxscore. Bottom line, it’s fair to say the Cardinals are far from being the worst fundamental team in baseball, but they’re not the best, either.

As for “three-run homers,” or a potent offense, this team is less than Weaver worthy. The Cardinals ranked 28th in the majors with 137 home runs, and only 17 had been the three-run variety. What’s more, only 31.5 percent of their hits had gone for extra bases, also 28th. 

Wilson Contreras paced the team with 20 home runs, and it’s possible he’ll be the only Cardinal to crack that plateau. Alec Burleson was leading in average with .282, meaning they don’t have a player within 18 points of .300. 

However, they do have someone batting .103 … and he’s been in 35 games … and he’s still around.

Again, the upsetting part is that no one is drastically underperforming. Jordan Walker was batting .215 - he batted .201 last season. Nolan Gorman was batting .219 with 14 homers - he batted .203 with 19 homers last season.

Cardinals ownership has something in mind. Baseball’s labor deal expires after next season, maybe that’s it. Maybe the Cardinal are positioning financially to deal with a whole new world. Maybe ownership is preparing to put the team on the market. 

Or maybe the organization has just misfired, invested in youngsters like Walker, Gorman, Liberatore that have not delivered, banked on veterans like Nolan Arenado who have aged poorly.  

Hard to say. 

But in the process, the golden goose has gone belly-up. “Baseball Heaven” now looks like the rest of downtown - lifeless, abandoned. At this stage, the Cardinals would be hard-pressed to fill the stands at Heine Meine Field.   

This is who the Cardinals are right now, who they were last year. And frankly, barring surprises, there’s nothing just over the horizon, nothing in the minors to suggest they will be someone else in 2026.

We don’t need to stick a fork in them. We need to pull it out.