There are a couple different ways one could give a high-level description of the Cardinals’ 2017. One is a story of a slow, grim march of decline: World Series in 2013, NLCS in 2014, NLDS in 2015, miss the playoffs by a game in 2016, now in 2017 they missed by several games. Another, slightly sunnier version would be that the Cardinals’ record undershot their fundamental performance for the second straight year and they were once again a better team than W-L reflects — frustrating, but more in need of a few upgrades than a total rethink.
The Cardinals’ five biggest developments of 2017
