ESPN Chalk's Joe Peta is sharing his season win total projections for every MLB team, including a reason for optimism and pessimism. Plus, he recommends an over/under play, or a pass. This is the entry for the St. Louis Cardinals.
St. Louis Cardinals
Reason for optimism: St. Louis' front office recognized and addressed 2014's weaknesses.
Reason for pessimism: The Cardinals need to improve a lot this year to win 90 games again.
It's quite possible that the Cardinals will be a much better team that they were last year and win fewer games. Let's step through the logic. St. Louis won the NL Central for the second year in a row, knocked off the mighty Dodgers in the NLDS and advanced to the NLCS despite only outscoring its opponents by 16 runs during the regular season. That run differential, which is more indicative of an 83-win team, wasn't the result of one-off events either -- the Cardinals had the same profile before and after the All-Star break. Basically it came down to this: The Cardinals played .582 ball (nine games over .500) in one-run games. That's an unlikely profile for almost all teams, but especially one with a below-average bullpen (10th in the NL in ERA.)
The stunning development though, was the lack of offense the Cardinals generated. The highest scoring team in the NL in 2013 -- by a whopping 79 runs -- barely hit 100 home runs in 2014 (last in the NL) and dropped into a ninth-place tie with the woeful Phillies in runs scored. Notwithstanding another round of postseason success at the expense of the Dodgers, the Cardinals weren't nearly as good as oddsmakers priced them last year on a daily basis.
With current expectations sitting in the 87.5-win area and residing in a very competitive division, it would appear that the Cardinals are a prime candidate for disappointment this year. However, St. Louis actually projects to be better at both scoring and preventing runs in 2014.
In one of the more dramatic trades of the winter, St. Louis added Jason Heyward, about to enter his prime years, to fill 2014's huge hole in right field production. Heyward's lifetime triple-slash line of .262/.351/.429 represents massive improvement over the .237/.283/.326 results the Cardinals got from right fielders last year, largely from since-traded Allen Craig. Additionally, Heyward brings tremendous defensive skills to the table. Although it cost St. Louis a starting pitcher in Shelby Miller, that decisive move by the front office is enough to raise last year's squad back to 90-win production.
Elsewhere the lineup is stable, and the defense should rise to top-five levels (eighth last year in adjusted-defensive efficiency).
In the rotation, Miller's 31 starts will effectively be replaced by full seasons' worth of starts from part-time starters in 2014, Michael Wacha and John Lackey. That leaves the fifth starter as the Cardinals' one spot of weakness. Last year, seven different pitchers started no more than seven games for the Cardinals and their collective ERA totaled 5.05. Carlos Martinez, part of last year's problem, will get the first chance to nail down the role, and if he can simply provide 4.00 ERA-worth of production, the Cardinals' path to 90-plus wins will be on track.
Given the relatively young age of the lineup (no one was 35 or older in 2014) the most likely explanation for the Cardinals' power outage in 2014 was variance. Not surprisingly for a franchise with the second-longest active streak of over-.500 seasons (seven behind the Yankees' 19-season streak), there is once again consistent balance on the roster. It's not a lock the Cardinals will win more games than last year, given the true level they performed at in 2014, but the addition of Heyward makes it a very good possibility.
Thanks to the recent success of the Pirates and the tremendous amount of attention the Cubs are receiving, the Cardinals, at a market of 88 total wins, actually offer significant value to the "over" this year.
2015 projection: 92-70 (first, NL Central)
Bet recommendation: Over