Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful Team Preview: St. Louis Cardinals
Baseball is almost here! With an eventful offseason in the books and spring training underway, it’s time to preview all 30 teams in Major League Baseball. With the help of RotoGrinders PlateIQ Premium, DFS ownership trends from Chris Gimino, and our resident Premium MLB guru Dave Potts (aka CheeseIsGood), we take a look at some information that is definitely interesting and possibly helpful for the upcoming 2019 MLB season.
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St. Louis Cardinals Preseason Overview
— Vegas Win Total O/U: 88.5
— World Series Odds: 14/1
— Key Additions: Andrew Miller, Paul Goldschmidt
Other Noteworthy Players for DFS: Jose Martinez, Jedd Gyorko, Yairo Munoz, Francisco Pena
— Outlook: The Cardinals are aiming to compete for the National League pennant, and nothing says “i’m all in” quite like acquiring superstar 1B Paul Goldschmidt. Goldy was an embarrassment for a long stretch at the start of last season, and suddenly exploded in June with a .494 wOBA and 214 wRC+. He proceeded to play like himself for most of the season and now joins a loaded Cardinals lineup that no starting pitcher is excited to see. Ozuna, Fowler, Molina, and DeJong combined for 76 HR last season. Only Carpenter was above 21% strikeouts and he walks 15% of the time when he’s not absolutely launching barrels at the 29th highest rate in baseball. There is no reason to over extend this preseason look ahead at the Cardinals… they are looking preeeetaaaay good with the bats.
Starting pitching is not as exciting for DFS, but isn’t necessarily a weakness. Miles Mikolas was a low strikeout, high ground ball, and soft contact machine in 2018 perfect for the era of the aerial batted ball. More strikeouts would be nice for everyone involved, but the team will be more than happy if he can just continue his winning ways.
Carlos Martinez is dealing with a shoulder injury in spring training, and that’s a bad sign for a guy who dealt with too many injuries last season. They could really use him at full strength, as his upside is above average.
You may or may not have noticed Jack Flaherty putting up a 10.65 strikeouts per 9 innings last season, but as it turns out he does have some sporadic DFS upside. He’s a name to watch early in the season.
Nobody cares much about Adam Wainwright or Michael Wacha anymore, especially not for DFS. You can still do a lot worse at the back end of your rotation than those guys, and the unit overall should be enough to keep this team near the top of the standings.
— DFS Ownership Trends: Pre-Goldschmidt, the Cardinals were the 9th most popular team in 2018. You might be surprised to hear Goldy was just the 38th most popular hitter in DFS, but pricing converged with an early season slump to depress his numbers on a boring team. If we can afford him, he’ll probably rise up in 2019. Carlos Martinez (Rank 63), Jack Flaherty (Rank 75), Michael Wacha (Rank 82), Miles Mikolas (Rank 84), and Adam Wainwright (Rank 268) constitute a tremendously unpopular pitching staff. If you find a situation hidden beneath the surface in which any of these guys can deliver tournament upside, you’ll very likely be doing it at low ownership should their profiles remain similar.
Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful Notes
— Jack Flaherty had himself a rookie year, becoming just one of four rookies to record 29 percent strikeouts, joining a trio of phenoms in Dwight Gooden (1984), Hideo Nomo (1995), and Kerry Wood (1998). Flaherty was the only one of the group to not win Rookie of the Year honors, but that’ll happen when you’re up against the likes of Ronald Acuna, Juan Soto, and Walker Buehler (Some things, like UFOs and crop circles and how Brian Anderson finished ahead of Flaherty in the Rookie of the Year voting, we just can’t explain).
— Marcell Ozuna ’s first year in St. Louis is largely seen as a disappointment, and rightfully so, as the power he displayed in a career year in 2017 (.237 ISO) seemed to evaporate (.153 ISO in 2018). But Cardinals fans would be wise to not give up on Ozuna just yet. He can still hit the ball plenty hard, as evidenced by the fact that he barreled up more balls in 2018 (46) than any other year in his career.