The St Louis Cardinals 2025 outfield produced more WAR than only 4 other teams. That is a glaring weakness.
When your outfield is only better than the Rockies, Royals, Pirates, …and Guardians? outfields, you know there’s a problem that needs to be solved. I cannot say that I was excited by our outfield in couple years before 2025 either. While our outfield was somehow worth 2.5 fWAR more than the Royals, that just means I need to tell you that the 2025 Royals outfield was -1.1 fWAR.
If you look at offensive rate stats like weighted runs created +adj, the Cardinals are only better than 2 teams! We had the lightest hitting outfield in the NL, and the two teams we were better than were the aforementioned Royals and Guardians outfields, who hit 73 and 77 wRC+. At least we cracked 80! Barely.
The Cardinals outfield didn’t get on base much, but the main problem was that they finished last in SLG% in MLB. They were second to last in isolated power (ISO). Bottom five in home runs. They were pretty good at stealing bases, but barely stole more than 50 making them closer to a middling threat to steal a base. While their BABIP was suppressive, it’s not like they should have done too much better than they did. Maybe they could have peaked close to .300 and been a lot more lucky, but it’s also something I would not count on too much.
Lars Nootbaar, and especially Alec Burleson and Jordan Walker were the biggest liabilities on defense. The one shining example was of course Victor Scott II in center field, but he was in a effect an elite defensive replacement, or should have been. Scott’s 75 wRC+ was better than his 2024, but he still needs to improve quite a bit. 90 is where I’d like to see him at with that defense… that’s a pretty good player. If he could somehow hit at league average, he would be the envy of a lot of teams.
So if you are looking for value from the outfield, Victor Scott II should probably be a 4th outfielder, Nootbaar should be traded or made into a bench player, Walker is a huge question mark at this point and I don’t know what more to say about him other than I wouldn’t count on him too much, Donovan only played 18 games out there this year and hit worse than he did anywhere else, and guys like Garrett Hampson and whoever that guy was that we signed last offseason to maybe play some CF are not the answers we want to hear.
So how do you quickly fix the outfield?
- do not play anyone but Victor Scott II or Nathan Church in the outfield. maybe those two work as a platoon? CF problem solved for now, because at least there’s some fly defense at that position.
- play Ivan Herrera and Jose Fermin in the outfield. try it out! they can hit!
There, no promotions needed. But what about the free agent outfield class?
You better be ready to overpay for Kyle Tucker! Or another Cardinals reunion aging veteran could be your poison: Lane Thomas, Randal Grichuk or Harrison Bader will probably be available. Cody Bellinger is out there if you are looking for an ex-Cub/Yank. He is still only 30. But in my opinion, him and Kyle Tucker would be boring options for the money. And that is of rare quality these days. The average age of a free agent MLB outfielder is over 32 years old. And it would be higher if it weren’t for Bellinger and Tucker and a couple other 30 year olds.
We are past the idea I think of signing an aging outfielder as a player/mentor type. That was always sort of a novel idea anyway. Can you imagine signing Jason Heyward, or Tommy Pham? They’re out there at 37 and 38, but more as depth pieces not as starting free agents. There are plenty of other free agent outfielders to talk about, but let me save you that and just say that free agency is not going to be the answer for the Cardinals 2026 outfield. What do you think they should do about such a poor outfield performance?
