4 MLB Teams Bound to Improve in the Second Half

St. Louis Cardinals

First-Half Record: 46-42
Run Differential: +89
numberFire Ranking: 5th

The St. Louis Cardinals dealt with a messy closer situation and one of the worst defenses in the league, but they still finished the first half with a run differential of plus-89. Can you imagine where they'd be if it weren't for those issues?

The Cardinals have been known for their pitching staff through the years, but their offense is currently second in the National League in wRC+, trailing just the Chicago Cubs. That'll take a big hit with Matt Carpenter out for potentially as long as a month, but with Matt Holliday putting together some impressive peripheral numbers, they may do enough to squeak by without the offensive force at the top of the order.

The other factor at play here is that the Cardinals' rotation is shaping up well of late. They are ninth in skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) for the season, but that jumps all the way up to second over the past 30 days. Adam Wainwright has shaken his early-season struggles, Michael Wacha is getting strikeouts again, and Carlos Martinez is killing worms with his 65.5% ground-ball rate. They'll need those trends to continue in order to push for the postseason.

Obviously, there's a big buzzkill here in that the Cardinals play in the same division as those pesky, aforementioned Cubs. Our algorithms have their division odds all the way down at 8.9% for that reason, and their playoff odds are at 43.0% as they'll likely have to duke it out for a wild card slot. Sitting only one game out of the playoffs, though, don't count out the Cardinals just yet, even with the Carpenter injury.