The Cardinals’ offense was “double unlucky” in 2023

While that was bad news for 2023, it's actually good news for 2024

DALL-E

Coming off a 2022 campaign in which the St. Louis offense ranked fifth in MLB in both OPS and runs scored, that offense was expected to be a pronounced strength in 2023. That turned out not to be the case, at least according to top-line results, as the Cardinals this past season wound up ranking a meager 19th out of 30 MLB teams in runs scored. The rotation is of course the main offender in the surprising struggles of 2023. However, the offense’s loss of more than 50 runs scored from 2022 to 2023, even as league run-scoring levels increased sharply, was a supporting villain. 

On this front, there’s good news. The good news is that Cardinal hitters in 2023 were victimized by misfortune on not one but two levels, and said misfortune is not likely to persist. Let’s explore why that’s the case.