Cardinals Power Outage Continues To Raise An Eyebrow

Picture yourself grabbing a salt shaker from the dinner table. Now pour a little out. Identify, if  you can, the biggest grain.

And that’s about how much stock you should put in spring training stats.

But.

BUT…

If the Cardinals had an Achilles heel in 2015 during their 100 win season, it was their lack of pop. Very few games were won by just pounding the other team into submission. And by the time the Cubs had hit roughly 1,400 home runs in the NLDS, it was painfully obvious that Birds were bereft of big bats.

Instead of chasing down power in the off-season, the Cardinals stayed the course and decided that any increase in pop was going to come from more regular playing time for Randal Grichuk and Steve Piscotty. And possibly from a healthy trio of Matt Adams, Brandon Moss and Matt Holliday.

So far? Not so good.

The Cardinals have hit 14 HRs in 20 games. Worse, 8 of those 14 come from players that have little to no chance of making the Opening Day roster or have already been optioned to minor league camp.

Here’s the list of HRs hit by ‘core’ players (through SAT MAR 26):

• Grichuk (2)
• Adams (1)
• Carpenter (1)
• Moss (1)
• Pham (1)

4 of the 20 team HRs and 2 of 6 ‘core’ player HRs came in a single game (versus the Mets on 3/12). So throw out a single game and the numbers are even more anemic.

Derrick Goold tried to see if anyone in Florida was concerned about this.

The same forensics the Cardinals use on losses to find evidence of improvement is how they’re left to study the offense. There hasn’t been much to go on. The Cardinals have scored the third-fewest runs this spring (82), hit the fourth-fewest homers (13) and posted the fourth-lowest slugging percentage (.397) in the majors. A lot of what production there is has come from players who won’t be on the opening day roster. This spring could be viewed as a microcosm of the three-year trend that has seen the Cardinals overcome their offense, not rely on it. Matheny has remained bullish on the team improving offensively this season, insistent even.

“I take zero away from what I said early on,” Matheny asserted. “This team is going to drive the ball. This team is going to score runs. This team is going to slug. We’re going to have extra-base hits. I like a lot of the things we’re seeing at the plate. I look at the at-bats.”

I guess not.

To be fair, Goold’s piece explored if the wind/stadium in Jupiter is causing a lack of offense for the Cardinals (and Marlins) and people, including Barry Bonds, say it’s not an easy place to hit.

Again…

HUUUUUUGE grain of salt.

The Cardinals still have a week left of spring training and it’s generally the week that the 25 man roster get the most ABs to ramp into the season.

So we’ll see.

But for now, the Cardinals still can’t seem to hit home runs.

Photo: Fox2Now