3 STL Cardinals most to blame for historically terrible April

Cardinals to blame for April slump: No. 3, Willson Contreras

Willson Contreras was the big win of the Cardinals’ offseason, with St. Louis luring him away from the division-rival Chicago Cubs. So far, that has not really panned out how they might have hoped.

Contreras’s bat has been pretty much the same as it was in Chicago, and in the second half of the month, he has gotten a lot better offensively than he had been.

But, defensively, he already has three errors — two of which came in the last five days of April — which is on the higher end for catchers, and his framing has been atrocious. So far this year, he’s above the league average in just three zones of the plate, with zero catcher framing runs accrued this year. His strike rate comes in below the league average.

Last season, Contreras was above or right on the cusp of league average for six of eight zones, comparatively.

The pitching has been atrociously bad, with a fifth-worst WHIP. It’s easy to critique the guys on the mound, but remember that that part of the game is dictated by the catcher. Catchers arguably get more say into what pitches are thrown in the pitch clock era because pitchers have less time to shake off pitches they don’t like.

Both parts of the battery have a responsibility for the results driven.

Let’s give Contreras some grace here, too, though. He has already had to deal with 13 wild pitches this season. In all of 2022, he only had 22 such instances.