If you鈥檝e noticed St. Louisans in slightly better shape of late, perhaps this is the explanation. So the grocery store Schnucks offers free donuts (via its app) on the day after a Cardinal hits a home run. But in all of Major League Baseball, the Cardinals rank 24th in homers.
Not going to sugarcoat this with sprinkles: This is a primary reason why the Cardinals鈥 final game this year will be in September and not October.
We鈥檝e written about the Cardinals鈥 sluggish slugging all season, but as the final homestand begins, we can take stock of all that鈥檚 gone on 鈥 fewer baseballs long gone.
Alec Burleson and Paul Goldschmidt lead the Cardinals with 21 homers each. The last time the Cards had a year without a 25-homer hitter was a decade ago. Jhonny Peralta hit 21 in 2014 (but that St. Louis team could sure pitch 鈥 it had a 3.44 ERA, sixth-best in MLB).
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The Cards entered this season with some things they could earmark or pencil in. One of those was that the club would club 鈥 this looked like a team that could hit 180-200 homers.
鈥淚 think you go into the season and you can have a decent guess as to what your corner guys are going to do,鈥 Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said, in reference cornerstone corner players Goldschmidt at first base and Nolan Arenado at third. 鈥淵ou had (Nolan) Gorman, who has proven ability to hit homers. Then you add in kind of what you think the next step for Jordan Walker looks like, and you add some of those other guys to that, with Wilson (Contreras) behind the plate. Burly, he鈥檚 an all-fields hitter, but he can also jump ship and give you some power. So yeah, you have an idea of where you think that鈥檚 going to land 鈥 and we were off.鈥
St. Louis entered Monday with 153 home runs. Counting Monday, there are a baker鈥檚 dozen games left. Last year, the Cardinals hit 209 home runs. The year before, they flirted again with 200 (finishing with 197).
In 2024, only six teams have fewer homers than the Cards do 鈥 and they鈥檙e the teams you would expect: the Chicago White Sox, Washington Nationals, Miami Marlins, Tampa Bay Rays, Toronto Blue Jays and Pittsburgh Pirates, who are visiting Busch Stadium this week.
Conversely, the top five teams in home runs are all in playoff spots. And 11 of the 12 playoff teams (if the season ended Monday) are in the top 14.
So what the heck happened in St. Louis? The coaches, to be fair, work tirelessly, but the reality is that under the watch of hitting coach Turner Ward, nearly every Cardinal has had a down year from a homer standpoint. It鈥檚 astonishing.
Take Arenado. Since 2015, the fewest homers Arenado hit in a non-pandemic year was 26. That was last year. Well, this year, Arenado has 16.
Goldschmidt, who turned 37 this month, had hit 30 or more homers every full year from 2017 to 2022. Last year, though, he hit 25. And this year, 21.
Quite simply, the Cardinals expected Arenado and Goldschmidt (or at least Arenado or Goldschmidt) to have big slugging seasons. Neither did. And the club is loitering around .500.
Of course, the Gorman fall has been stunning. He led the 2023 Cards with 27 homers in just 406 at-bats. I wrote that the guy would hit 35 this year. Alas, he didn鈥檛 even get to 20. Gorman hit 19 homers this year before his demotion to Class AAA Memphis. He just struck out too much.
And Walker, yeah, we know the story. Couldn鈥檛 get the ball off the ground often, so the 22-year-old spent the majority of his second Cardinals season not on the Cardinals.
Contreras鈥 home run rate of 4.2% is very similar to his past four seasons 鈥 but his two injuries sidelined him and he finished the year with 15 homers.
The Cardinals are particular abysmal with runners in scoring position. They have hit just 25 homers with RISP 鈥 tied for worst in MLB with the embarrassment that is the White Sox.
鈥(RISP) definitely plays a large part in where we are at the moment, so I don鈥檛 want to minimize that,鈥 said Marmol, whose team entered Monday at 74-75. 鈥淏ut when you look at our numbers as a whole, what鈥檚 missing with runners in scoring position is the same thing that鈥檚 missing with no runners 鈥 we don鈥檛 do damage. We don鈥檛 get extra-base hits. And then with runners in scoring position, when you looked at our overall extra base hits, it鈥檚 just it鈥檚 not there. So it does go hand in hand, but yeah, not being able to drive in a run has been (impactful).鈥
Counting this season, there have been 12 times since 1990 that the Cards were led in the category by a player with fewer with 30 home runs (2020 notwithstanding). Sure, Albert Pujols and Mark McGwire helped. In fact, the Cards had a 30-homer hitter every year from 1996-2012. This was mind-boggling. In 1992, Ray Lankford led the Cardinals with 20 home runs. And that as a huge upgrade. In 1991, Todd Zeile led the Cards with ... 11 home runs.
Back then, the home run wasn鈥檛 supposed to be part of the Cardinals鈥 game.
Here in 2024, the home run was supposed to win the Cardinals games.