Cardinals could be 10-wins better than last year. Is that progress or treading water?

The St. Louis Cardinals would prefer that the ignominious landmark arrived sooner, but Wednesday night’s series clinching victory over the Milwaukee Brewers was their 71st of the season, equaling their 2023 win total with 22 games still to play.

They’ve done enough this season that they’ll likely remain mathematically in contention into the season’s final week, though their odds of actually reaching the postseason are between slim and none with slim having already purchased a ticket out of town.

By going just 10-12 over this final stretch, they’ll improve by 10 wins on a year-over-year basis, something they haven’t done since the 2015 team jumped to 100 wins from 90.

It’s difficult to explain how much of that improvement is real and how much is simply variance cutting back to more reasonable levels. For as poorly as the Cardinals played in stretches in 2023, a good deal of that was influenced by a fallow post-trade deadline period in which they were simply scrambling to find bodies to fill roles on a daily basis.

Returning the starting rotation to baseline confidence also played a big role.

Last season, the Cardinals saw a quarter of their games started by the combination of Dakota Hudson, Adam Wainwright and Jake Woodford. Hudson and Woodford have combined to be designated for assignment by each of the Chicago White Sox, Colorado Rockies and Pittsburgh Pirates this season. Wainwright casually admitted on a television broadcast during last year’s playoffs that he felt a significant injury in his shoulder during spring training.

Sonny Gray has pitched to a line a touch below expectations and both Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn have largely met theirs; those performances, if no one else improved throughout the season, would be sufficient to haul the Cardinals back to where they are now, which is squarely in the middle of the pack without a clear path to either the top or bottom of the standings.

After a winter spent patching holes, there hasn’t been a great deal of air pumped back into the team’s tires.

The frustrations of the current season have been well documented, and they all seem to spring from the same player development well that has failed to nourish the roster. Hudson and Woodford were completely homegrown starters who ultimately had very little to offer. Stepping outside the organization for a trio of free agents was necessary because of the lack of internal replacements, which again springs from the combination of drafting and development.

Both Gordon Graceffo and Michael McGreevy made strong debuts this season, but neither has received an extended look. Neither has put up the sort of persuasive case at Triple-A that would necessitate that look either; perhaps a full-time arrival in the big leagues causes them to repeat their momentary success, but it’s difficult to be too critical of being too skeptical.

Andre Pallante has asserted himself as a big league caliber starter over the last three months, which does provide both some relief and some cause for optimism heading into the winter, but it’s difficult to see from where more help might arrive.

Steven Matz and Miles Mikolas both have another year on their contracts; Matz had another season lost to injury and Mikolas’s performance continues to spiral. If the Cardinals choose to return this year’s starting group for another run, that would be the lowest-difficulty option. It would also be difficult to see much room for improvement.

To make a jump of 10 wins in consecutive seasons would be quite a feat; indeed, that feat hasn’t been accomplished since 1933 and 1934. Getting the sort of improvement next season from the position group that they received this season from the pitchers might do it, but that would require the pitching to stay firm in place.

Every team is constantly fighting a small flood of problems which could threaten to capsize their season, but some teams have better buckets for bailing the water than others.

Then there are the teams which prefer to let the boat sink and use the insurance payout to build a brand new boat out of brand new pieces. This is the model the Cardinals have long avoided and long claimed their fans would not stand.

This is also the franchise, though, which has seen the largest year-over-year fall off in average home attendance. That is in part due to 2023’s total having been inflated by the London Series, but that is the comparison they invited for themselves by accepting the inflation in the first place.

There is something to be said for radical honesty, and an admission to the fan base that the current path has become untenable. That admission may come tacitly for the Cardinals with major personnel changes, or they may continue to be a boat against the current lost in an unachievable chase.

If last year’s 71-win team becomes an 81-win team on its way to becoming next year a 91-win team, that will look like linear progress. What’s occurring under the surface may tell a different story, and that story is increasingly difficult to ignore.