Are the Surging Cardinals the Worst World Series Bet Right Now?

• The St. Louis Cardinals are one of the hottest teams in baseball and suddenly in the thick of the NL playoff race. 
• Their 2018 World Series odds have improved dramatically thanks to a .750 winning-percentage over the last 20 games. 
• Should bettors bank on Matt Carpenter and a baby-faced starting rotation or fade the Cardinals down the stretch?

Left for dead at the end of July, the St. Louis Cardinals are riding the scorching-hot Matt Carpenter and one of the youngest rotations in baseball back to postseason relevance.

Post-All Star break, Carpenter has a .417 OBP, 1.107 OPS, and 14 home runs. Meanwhile, the pitching staff is first in the NL in ERA after the break (3.30), despite the fact that Michael Wacha and Adam Wainwright have combined for zero innings pitched.

In early August, the Red Birds’ odds to win the 2018 World Series were +6300, on average, at online sportsbooks, and that was generous. They were barely over .500, they were 4.5 games back of the second Wild Card, and they were a distant 7.5 games behind the Cubs in the NL Central.

However, after posting a 15-5 record in their last 20 games and moving within half a game of the first NL Wild Card spot, their odds are now +2700, on average, with best payout on offer being +3000.

Jumping from +6300 to +2700 is a huge leap, and it puts the Cardinals narrowly behind the Braves (+1700), Phillies (+1700), Rockies (+2100), and Brewers (+2200) in the NL.

The Cards are now the last team that sportsbooks see as having a realistic shot to win the Fall Classic, as the next two teams in the odds-list — the Nationals (+4300) and Mariners (+4800) — are nearly twice as long.

Top-15 World Series Favorites (as of Aug. 21)

Are the Cardinals For Real?

Recent surge notwithstanding, it’s hard to recommend betting on St. Louis.

As it stands, the starting rotation is extremely young, over-performing compared to career numbers, and likely to regress.

Rookie Austin Gomber has a 2.89 ERA in 37.1 innings despite a 1.29 WHIP, while 22-year-old Jack Flaherty has bettered his ERA from 6.33 in five starts last year to 3.05 in 20 starts this year.

The progression from Miles Mikolas is somehow more pronounced; he’s decreased his 2017 ERA from 6.44 to just 2.88 in 2018.

Even journeyman Tyson Ross has been phenomenal since joining the team, posting a 1.47 ERA in his first 12 innings in St. Louis, despite bringing a 4.45 ERA with him from San Diego.

Unsurprisingly, ZiPS projects all four to take a step back down the stretch.

*Since being traded from San Diego to St. Louis. 

It would be easier to look past the question marks surrounding the starters if the Cardinals were built like, say, the Athletics. Oakland is also getting much better returns from its unheralded starters than anyone predicted. But they’ve paired their likely-to-regress starting staff with one of the best bullpens in the bigs.

The St. Louis pen, on the other hand, is 20th in the MLB in ERA (4.21) and a brutal 25th in xFIP (4.41), which measures pitching performance independent of fielding. (Hopefully Cardinals fans find some black humor in the fact that the defense, which leads the league in errors, is actually picking up the bullpen’s performance.)

If and when the starters come back to earth, the relievers aren’t likely to save the day.

Taking a more gestalt look at the team, the outlook is equally grim. Baseball Prospectus gives the Cards just a 39.6% chance to make the playoffs and a 2.5% chance to win the World Series. FanGraphs is more pessimistic, putting St. Louis’ playoff chances at 37.0% and World Series chances at 0.9%.

Even without knowing the proprietary formulae those sites use to make their calculations, it’s not hard to figure out why they are what they are, broadly speaking. The Cardinals have received better-than-expected production from basically the entire starting rotation and are getting a career year from Carpenter, yet they’re still narrowly on the outside looking in when it comes to the playoff picture.

All hot streaks eventually come to an end, and given how many teams are in the hunt in the National League, the smart money is on the Cards’ current push falling short.