3 Cardinals that won’t be on the roster by September 1 and why

The St. Louis Cardinals saw themselves as contenders before the July 30th trade deadline. They showed this commitment to winning by dealing away younger players and acquiring aging veterans like Tommy Pham and Erick Fedde to help them win right now.

But they have practically fallen apart since making these moves despite their additions playing well. It has many wondering what the Cardinals are going to do to turn their season back around and make the playoff push that many expected them to make. It has manager Oli Marmol on the hot seat without much job security beyond 2024.

A lot need to change in St. Louis, beginning with a few players who won't be on their roster by this time next month.

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3. RHP Shawn Armstrong

The most important thing to look into when trying to decide which players could be DFA'd or sent down from a postseason contender is making sure there's a big-league-ready player in the minors to replace them.

The first player that could and likely will be off the roster this month is reliever Shawn Armstrong. Armstrong has posted an ERA north of 5.00 with a negative WAR in 40 appearances split between the Cardinals and the Tampa Bay Rays. He hasn't been the worst pitcher in the world, but he's definitely an arm that the Cardinals could upgrade from.

The answer to replace him, as I wrote earlier this week, is Andre Granillo.

"The righty has three impressive offerings and could be the perfect addition to the front end of the Cardinals bullpen. Given his dominance in Triple-A, besides two outings, he looks like a perfect fit in the big leagues."

Granillo has been solid the entire year besides a handful of outings. He's a future piece of the Cardinals bullpen and given how bad Armstrong has been, Granillo should see his debut this month with the Cardinals.

2. INF Brandon Crawford

The Cardinals need to continue to work on their depth as the season goes on. They have dealt away a few major league players this season leaving them with some position player depth that really isn't MLB talent at this point in their careers. I mean this in terms of players that are out of their prime and in terms of players that haven't yet reached their full potential.

The person that I'm discussing now is a player that's well beyond his prime and really shouldn't be on the Cardinals active roster. It's infielder Brandon Crawford.

Crawford is slashing a lousy .179/.276/.299 in his age 37 season this year. The left-handed swinger is really providing nothing to the Cardinals besides a body that can play in the infield and some veteran leadership. On a team that has as many veterans as the Cardinals do, a veteran presence is the last thing they need to keep a guy on the roster for.

Baseball is a business at the end of the day and it's a tough on at that. Crawford knows this as well as anybody and he will likely end up on the wrong side of a roster change in the next few weeks.

1. OF Victor Scott II

Everybody in St. Louis was hopeful that Victor Scott, one of the most anticipated prospects in the Cardinals organization, would be ready for the big leagues down the stretch this year. Sadly for St. Louis, he just isn't. And it's not really close.

The outfielder has looked very overmatched more often than not and it's doing him more harm than good playing in the big leagues right now. He has an elite glove and an incredible run tool, but he's slashing .085/.138/.136 and that's just ridiculously bad through 59 at bats.

The Cardinals have an obvious replacement for him as well. I wrote a piece about a few prospects that St. Louis could call up this season and one of the names that stood out to me was former top prospect Jordan Walker.

"Over his last 67 Triple-A at-bats, Walker is slashing .269/.338/.522 with over five multi-hit games. On the season, he's slashing .252/.317/.405 with seven home runs and 20 doubles."

Walker packs a punch with his swing when he is consistently making contact. He's a star in the making, as is Scott. The difference between the two is how overmatched Scott looks at the plate. Walker is ready for a return to the big leagues and Scott could use some confidence in Triple-A for a few weeks.