This entire season has been a rollercoaster of emotions to say the least. I've said it before, but I remain optimistic at the beginning of every season regardless of circumstances. There are so many "what ifs" that I find it nearly impossible to be anything but optimistic. However, in classic Missouri sports fashion, the St. Louis Cardinals continually gave me slivers of hope only to shortly crush them afterwards. Regardless of the battles within the NL Central, the rise of young stars within the Cardinals farm system and an entire cultural shift thanks to Mike Shildt, the Cardinals have missed the postseason again and that's all that matters.

I think it's important to analyze the aspects where the team had fallen short. Throughout the entire year, one of the largest complaints coming out of the fanbase has been the inconsistent hitting and the steep run variations on a game-by-game basis. What may come as a surprise to some, but the Cardinals ranked 11th in the entire MLB in total runs during the 2018 regular season (759) but ranked 17th in team batting average (.249). For context, however, Boston lead the league with a .268. In fact, the Cardinals did not rank in the top ten for any hitting category except RBIs, ranking ninth with 725.

Furthermore, the Cardinals rank dead last in fielding statistics, in fielding statistics, committing a league-leading 133 fielding errors. When looking at the number of errors committed on an individual player basis, there were a lot of errors committed by people who I thought were a lot more defensively solid.

The top 5 error-committers on the Cardinals were Yairo Munoz (18), Matt Carpenter (16), Jedd Gyorko (16), Paul DeJong (12) and Kolten Wong (9). A good majority of those players have been playing in the MLB for at least 6 years which I think discredits a particular theory people had about ex-Manager Mike Matheny's management style.

Many people thought that Matheny was not holding his players accountable for committing errors. That makes sense when considering inexperienced, young players. However, as I mentioned earlier, many of the players committing these errors were veterans. Furthermore, let's look at the Cardinals' fielding ranking each of the years Mike Matheny was the manager. From 2013 to 2017, the Cardinals ranked 15th, on average, in fielding statistics.

So what do the Cardinals need to make it into the postseason? Anyone familiar with the Cardinals would tell you the team thrives off of young talent, which was definitely the case this year. The resurgence of players like Miles Mikolas, Tyler O'Neill, Jack Flaherty and Harrison Bader are prime examples of that. However, a team that relies on young talent alone cannot expect to make a deep run into the playoffs.

But there are a lot of aging veterans on the team who might not have the same explosive athletic ability yet they have an incredible wealth of baseball knowledge that is invaluable to rookies. But a team of aging players won't get anywhere either. What the team needs in a player or two who can bridge the gap between young talent and veterans. The current free agency pool could be pretty slim depending on where players with expiring contracts have their eyes set.

However, I can't say I'm entirely disappointed with how the season ended. When looking at the end of the regular season, the NL Central was by and large one of the most competitive divisions in all of baseball, and that's pretty much what I expected. With a week left on the season, the Cardinals and Brewers both had spots in the Wild Card while the Cubs had a ticket to the playoffs as the leaders of the NL Central. If that remained the case, 50 percent of the playoff teams in the National League would have been from the NL Central.

All in all, I was disappointed with how the season ended, especially with how amazing the team looked after the All-Star break. All we can hope for now is an acquisition or two and for the continued development of our young talent. Hopefully, we can see the Cardinals play in some October baseball next year, but knowing the Cubs lost in the NL Wild Card game eases my pain a little bit.