ST. LOUIS — What had emerged as inevitable over the past few weeks finally became official late Friday night. Shortly after the Cardinals’ 5-1 loss to the Guardians, the Diamondbacks beat the Brewers, officially eliminating St. Louis from the postseason.
Come Saturday afternoon, conversations about yet another disappointing season began.
Seasons like this weigh on everyone. But for Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado, the cornerstone veterans brought to St. Louis in efforts to secure the organization’s 12th World Series title, the burden is heavier.
“It’s frustrating,” Arenado said. “Expectations are high, and unfortunately we haven’t reached them. I have no regrets on my decisions, I love playing in St. Louis. But fans, and players, expected a little bit more — and obviously I wanted to play better here.”
An All-Star in each of his first three seasons with St. Louis, Arenado is on track to post his lowest full-season .OPS (.715) since his rookie year in 2013. His 16 home runs would serve as his fewest in a season since hitting 18 in 2014. He has not played up to his capabilities this season, and he’s said as much publicly many times throughout the year. It’s why he often struggles to express his disappointment in the team’s performance. It’s hard to feel frustrated about another dispiriting season when you also feel partly responsible for it.
“I always feel weird talking about the team, how we didn’t do this, we didn’t do that, when individually I didn’t perform the way I wanted,” Arenado shrugged. “It’s always a tough conversation to have.”
Tougher conversations may be in the future. Goldschmidt, 37, will be a free agent at the end of the year. Arenado, 33, is under contract through 2027, though uncertainty over the Cardinals’ trajectory heading into 2025 and beyond doesn’t guarantee he’ll remain in St. Louis either. For four seasons, Goldschmidt and Arenado were the Cardinals’ marquee players, the respected faces of the franchises, two of the top players of their generation.
And yet, as St. Louis wraps up its 2024 campaign, the reality is grim. After four years of rostering both Goldschmidt and Arenado, the Cardinals have played just three total postseason games. They have yet to win one.
“The last couple of years, it’s definitely been disappointing to not even have that chance,” Goldschmidt acknowledged.
We are proud to celebrate Paul Goldschmidt as our nominee for the 2024 Roberto Clemente Award.
In honor of the late humanitarian, Major League Baseball will once again bestow the prestigious Roberto Clemente Award to the player who best represents the game of baseball through… pic.twitter.com/FlYpPcimfo
— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) September 17, 2024
Neither veteran posted a season they were proud of. Two years removed from his National League Most Valuable Player award, Goldschmidt trudged through the worst first half of his career, registering a .230 average and a .664 OPS, raising questions about the longevity of his career. He salvaged the second half — Goldschmidt’s .480 slugging percentage and .809 OPS entering Saturday are much closer to his career marks — but that hasn’t stopped him from thinking about the opportunities missed in the first half.
“It’s frustrating, disappointing, whatever negative emotion, looking back and knowing a percentage of this is my fault,” Goldschmidt said. “The way I played for a large majority of the season, I’m going to look back and feel like if I could have played better the first four or five months, maybe we would’ve won some of those games.
“This is probably the worst I’ve performed on the field in my career. That was disappointing, a good bit of that burden was on me. If I could’ve played how I believe I’m capable of playing, we could’ve won more games and maybe this might have turned out differently.”
The 2024 season wasn’t nearly as disastrous as last year’s 91-loss debacle. For the first five months of the year, the Cardinals believed they had a chance to be a playoff team. They were three games over .500 at the trade deadline and 2 1/2 games out of the wild card, close enough to be buyers at the trade deadline.
“There were a little more bright spots this year than last year,” Arenado said, acknowledging emerging young players such as Masyn Winn, Pedro Pages and Alec Burleson, along with the bullpen. “There were definitely some positives.”
But a tailspin in August resulted in the team falling out of the playoff picture entirely come early September. What ultimately sank the Cardinals was their inability to soundly beat opponents. St. Louis had one of the thinnest margins of victory in baseball this season with 101 of their games decided by three runs or fewer; only the Tampa Bay Rays (103) had more. That’s something both Goldschmidt and Arenado believed hindered the team’s ability to pile on wins. The longest winning streak the Cardinals recorded this season was five games in mid-May. They won four consecutive games once in late June. That was the extent of their winning streaks this season.
“We won so many close games, we lost so many close games,” Goldschmidt said. “It just seemed like that was the story this year, we couldn’t find a way to really pull away. I don’t remember having some longer winning streaks where that’s the difference. You look at these teams, especially in the wild card, and they had some stretch runs. At the halfway point, that’s what I felt like we were going to have to do in the second half at some point, is have a two-week stretch where we went 12-2 or something. We could just never get over that stretch of being a few games over .500.”
“It seemed like (winning) was really hard this year,” Arenado agreed. “Last year, we just weren’t good; this year, it seemed like every series was a dogfight and that made it very difficult.
“Nothing came easy for us this year. Every series was really tough, it’s hard to win like that when you’re facing a team’s best relievers and our best relievers are throwing all the time.”
For a while, the Cardinals considered playing in tight games to be an advantage. They won 56 of those 101 games, and eventually the team adapted to the high-stakes pressure. But as the season wore on, it became apparent that the long-term sustainability of that strategy wasn’t feasible.
“If we would’ve gotten in (the postseason), I think it would have been an asset,” Goldschmidt said. “It would’ve been good to have that experience and have played in so many close games. That would’ve been the positive.
“But you can’t do that the whole year. It’s pretty obvious that over 162 games, you’re going to have to have some times where you’re not using all your back-end relievers and playing those close games. When the game depends on one pitch, or play or one at-bat, you just can’t come through every time. That’s what it felt like on some of those losses, as frustrating as it was.”
Arenado ties it up with a solo shot! #ForTheLou pic.twitter.com/MJNdxGuo77
— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) September 12, 2024
The Cardinals will wait until after the season to discuss any plans with either player. While there is internal interest to bring Goldschmidt back for next season at least, St. Louis must first address if it plans to field a competitive team next year or focus on building up their young core. What the organization decides will be key. Both Arenado and Goldschmidt want to win at this point in their respective careers, and it’s unlikely either player would be eager to play on a team that is rebuilding, though no certain decisions have been made.
Those decisions are for the offseason, one that will again come much earlier than Arenado or Goldschmidt would have preferred. For all they’ve accomplished in their decorated, illustrious careers, what they’ve strived for the most, a World Series championship — or even the opportunity to play for one — still eludes them.
“The Brewers won the division three out of the four times I’ve been here,” Arenado said. “They’ve shown they’re the team to beat in this division.”
“And that’s been tough,” he added, trailing off for a moment. “Because I thought that would be us.”
(Photo: Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)
