JUPITER, Fla. — Full-squad workouts for the Cardinals are underway and the first Grapefruit league game is less than a week away (Saturday against the Nationals on KMOX). That means we will start to get a glimpse of what the 2023 Cardinals will look like. While you know what to expect from players like Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Arendado and some of the other veterans on the club, there are three players that will largely help determine just how good this club will be.
Jack Flaherty
If there is one area where it feels like the Cardinals are a step behind some of the other upper echelon National League teams, it’s at the top of the rotation. The Cardinals have very good depth in the rotation, which is great for the regular season, but questions remain about how good their top-of-the-rotation pitchers are. The Cardinals could cut down the difference between them and other NL teams if Jack Flaherty remains healthy and pitches to the level he was at in 2019. That year, he finished with a 2.75 ERA with 231 strikeouts in 196.1 innings over 33 starts. In the three years since, injuries have limited him to just 35 starts and 154.2 innings pitched. Flaherty finished 4th in the Cy Young voting in 2019 and 13th in the MVP voting. A year that even slightly resembles 2019 puts the Cardinals in a much better situation especially for the playoffs.
Tyler O'Neill
The Cardinals outfield situation is one with a lot of promise but also a lot of inexperience. Lars Nootbaar, Dylan Carlson, Juan Yepez, Alec Burleson and organizational top-prospect Jordan Walker are all players who have great promise but also have never produced for a full season in the big leagues. Tyler O'Neill is the only outfielder on the Cardinals roster who has a full season of high-level production. In 2021, he finished 8th in MVP voting hitting 34 home runs and producing a .912 OPS. Injuries limited him to 96 games in 2022 and even when he did play, his numbers took a step back as he hit just .228 with a .700 OPS. He spent the off-season going through a workout regimen that was designed to allow his body to last through the rigors of a 162-game season. While many Cardinals fans were hoping the team would add a big bat during the off-season, O'Neill returning to his 2021 production level would accomplish that goal.
Nolan Gorman
Cardinals fans were clamoring for Nolan Gorman to get called up from Memphis last season after he had put up elite offensive numbers for the Redbirds and throughout his run through the Minor League system. While he produced early on in his big-league tenure, his production started to fall off and he finished 2022 hitting .226 with a .721 OPS. He hit 14 home runs in 283 at-bats but also struck out 103 times. Only three of those home runs were hit after August 1st. After hitting .387 in May, he never had another month where he hit above .231. The Cardinals gave him some instruction following the season and all indications are that he has done good work tweaking his swing to have better success at the big-league level. Gorman is capable of producing 30 home runs and could replace some of the DH production that the team lost with the retirement of Albert Pujols.