Elly De La Cruz’s Reds among 4 new MLB teams 'eliminated' from playoff contention

In a lot of ways, this section could be exactly the same as the one we just finished. The Cardinals are a team with a lot of young position players that are struggling to hit right now, they’re also tied for dead last in the NL Central and they also have a manager under heavy fire from the fan base. Heck, they even wear the same color.

It isn’t just the young guns struggling, though. The two most decorated, respected veterans on the team in Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado are having the worst seasons of their respective careers. Jordan Walker struggled so mightily he got sent back to AAA. And the Cardinals as a team are hitting .191 with runners in scoring position, worst in the league and one of only two teams under .200.

And just to really rub in the fact that this is not St. Louis’ year, the hitter who was off to the hottest start, catcher Willson Contreras, got hit in the hand by a J.D. Martinez swing and fractured his forearm. Everything that could have gone wrong in the past two seasons has done just that for these Cardinals and it’s going to take a painful rebuild and/or organizational restructuring to get back on a winning track.

Pittsburgh Pirates

Wow, this article really has turned into a roast of the NL Central. We promise it wasn’t intended to be that way. Anyway, the Pittsburgh Pirates fooled the entire baseball world once again, starting 11-5 only to go 8-20 from that point forward. They are not to be trusted ever again in the future, even if they lose literally zero games next April.

There are almost too many culprits to name for the Pirates’ recent drop-off, but a few certainly stand out. Jack Suwinski, who last year hit 26 home runs as a 24-year-old, can’t buy an extra-base hit. Rowdy Tellez, who was a cheap bounce back candidate at first base, has instead been perhaps the worst first baseman in the sport. And 2021 first overall pick Henry Davis isn’t even on the roster anymore because he hit so poorly he needed to be shipped back to AAA.

The good news, at least for fans looking for reasons to keep watching, is Paul Skenes is finally on the MLB club and looks destined to become one of the best pitchers in the sport. But there’s only so much one rookie pitcher on a strict pitch count can do to turn the fortunes of a team. It’s yet another year in Pittsburgh where the only positive refrain to offer is “We’ll get ’em next year.”

Washington Nationals

A number of interesting candidates emerged to take the final spot. The New York Mets have been floundering of late and owner Steve Cohen is deleting tweets about selling at the deadline. The Toronto Blue Jays are a couple bad series from Canadians vandalizing the Rogers Centre. And of course, the Houston Astros started the year as bad as anyone in MLB. But we’re leaning on track record here and taking a team no one would have picked to make the playoffs prior to the season in the Washington Nationals.

Their series against the Boston Red Sox illustrated all that’s still wrong with the Nationals, despite hovering around .500 most of the season. They drop routine fly balls that set up game-deciding bloop hits. They make multiple boneheaded outs on the basepaths per game. They have a manager who thinks it’s a good idea to intentionally walk a struggling hitter to get to Rafael Devers. And all the while, Nats fans are only united by one common gripe: the organization’s hesitation to call up top prospect James Wood.

This isn’t meant to be fully doom and gloom, because with Wood, Dylan Crews and plenty of other talented players in the pipeline, there’s a real chance the Nats can compete for a playoff spot in the coming seasons. They made out like bandits in the Juan Soto deal and they seem to have turned the corner on their rebuild in a shorter amount of time than anticipated.

But in spite of all that future positivity, this team is not anywhere near ready to contend for a Wild Card spot down the stretch in 2024.