Over the past week, the St. Louis Cardinals have been a shell of the team we had seen for the first 50 games. After surpassing all expectations and changing fan tune from necessary rebuild to playoff hopefuls, the stretch of NL Central games has exploited some holes on the St. Louis roster. While we knew there were spots on the roster in need of an upgrade, the great start to the year may have unfairly put some players under the microscope when their performances may have been ignored if the team were 10 games under .500.
What this season has given us so far has been some clarity at certain positions. Possibly with different levels of certainty, we can say that the Cardinals have major league capable hitters at first base, second base, right field, and depending on the day, catcher. Alec Burleson has put together another consistently solid campaign while JJ Wetherholt has surged to the top of the NL Rookie of the Year favorites despite going through a mini slump or two. Coming into the year, most fans would be surprised to see right field be locked down by MVP candidate Jordan Walker who, with each passing day is making us believe what we are seeing is real. And then catcher. The commonly debated position without a clear answer should have at least one future long-time big leaguer somewhere in the organization.
The Cardinals have obvious needs but a not-so-obvious timeline
I keep saying it, but the point of the 2026 St. Louis Cardinals season was to get some answers at key positions. After a couple years of promising runway and opportunity, those missions never came to fruition and the Cardinals were stuck in neutral rather than choosing a direction. Now that Chaim Bloom is in charge, the direction has been agreed upon, but the team has shown that they may be better than we anticipated. Whenever we hear rebuild, we assume that means 100 losses, as many among Cardinal social media predicted, but the Yungry Redbirds missed that memo. As the series against the Cubs concludes today (apologies, writing this Friday since I will be at Blogger Day Saturday and traveling home all day Sunday), the Cardinals are still in the postseason picture but the overall goal remains to figure out needs for the future.
In order to see the true holes in the Cardinals roster, I set FanGraphs leaderboards to the 2024 season through the season to this point in order to determine how long each position has been performing below league average. I sorted through fWAR but also used wRC+ as my measures because I personally do not care how good you are at catching the ball if you cannot provide any use with the bat. Since 2024, the Cardinals have been 15th or worse in each measure at third base (15th in both), right field (15th wRC+, 18th fWAR), center field (30th wRC+, 29th fWAR), and left field (21st in both). On the mound, the starters are 24th in fWAR and 25th in xERA while the bullpen sits 12th and 19th, respectively.
I assume like you, I was surprised at the catching set up not being listed above, but digging further, the four-man split from the past two seasons has Ivan Herrera accumulating a 6.0 fWAR to Pedro Pages’ 2.8 number, with Herrera’s offense doing the heavy lifting for the position to sit in fifth and sixth place in wRC+ and fWAR. Based on the numbers, the Cardinals have five position groups in the bottom half of the league, but for now, I will take away right field because Jordan Walker’s previous two seasons tanked that ranking. This year, right field ranks top three in both measures so we will cross that off for today.
Moving to the hot corner, Nolan Arenado and Nolan Gorman have combined to be basically league-average third basemen. With Arenado out in the desert, count me as one of the excited fans who was going to see Gorman get a true daily role, despite having 1500 inconsistent plate appearances coming into the year. Of the guys on the roster, Gorman may have the most to lose this year and has yet to take full control of his opportunity. The signing of Ramon Urias provided some insurance, but his injury has kept Gorm in the lineup most everyday, be it at third or as the DH. On the positive side, the slugger’s defense has improved massively, but the bat has been pretty much what we have seen for the past few seasons. While he has trimmed the strikeouts, the power has been lost along with the new approach and I would personally rather see a 30% K-rate if that meant 30 or more homers. For now, he has an 83 wRC+ and is on pace for around 15 homers. As much as it pains me personally, this offseason could be the time to find a long-term replacement for Gorman.
They may not need to wait until the winter to make a small move, however, One of my personal favorites Blaze Jordan has been teeing off in the minors while playing a decent third base and could get a call later in the year to replace Urias. Jordan may not be the long-term solution at third, but his bat bounced back after last year’s trade to St. Louis and he could provide the spark in the bottom-third of the St. Louis lineup. Outside of Blaze, third base is thin in the organization unless they decide to try JJ Wetherholt there next year. I would be against that seeing he is performing like a Gold Glover or better at the keystone.
While I am fine with giving Gorman another 100 games to truly come to a conclusion, center field is where I am more than ready for a change. As I mentioned earlier, catching the ball is great but it is impossible to win a game 0-0. I apologize to Victor Scott II again as I believe I end up calling him out every week, but I am officially marking the offseason swing changes down as hearsay. While he has hit a “scalding” .214 in May to raise his average to .194, there has been little inspiring about his offense. Out of his 156 plate appearances (through May 28), 16 of them have ended in a bunt attempt. Two of them have gone for hits and NINE have gone for sacrifices. To no surprise, that number leads all of baseball and VSII has bunted as much as 20 teams have all year. Beyond the poor plate appearances, he has struggled stealing bases and his defense has been just fine.
We saw Nathan Church cut into the playing time after his stellar play, but his injury put an end to that setup and I was hoping that Scott would use this next week to swing as hard as he can every at-bat to try and win back the job. Shoulder injuries are tough and I am sure Church is itching to come back, but returning too quickly could do more damage than if he were to wait. He also has never been viewed as a long-term option in outfield outside of a bench guy, so even if he does supplant VSII for the season, it may not mean much for the future. So in a preview to next week’s article (assuming no crazy changes), I would like to see Joshua Baez patrolling center at the major league level in the second half of the season.
In left field, I am waiting to plug the hole for the time being because I do believe that Lars Nootbaar coming back will be a slight boost to the team. While Church, along with Bryan Torres, did some to increase the left field performance this year, the team still sits in the lower half of the league in terms of production. Noot coming back as a league-average or slightly better player could help extend this lineup, bump guys like Masyn Winn and Gorman down a notch in the order, and potentially spark the offense. I do not think Noot will be here beyond the offseason, assuming return to health, so Baez is also an option to fill in here full-time in 2027 if there is a season.
The outfield prospect pool is a little light in the upper minors as well, so with the question marks surrounding next year, I would wait to enhance that position group until the Trade Deadline or in the draft if the Cardinals shift their focus from pitching.
The way the Cardinals have performed this season is what makes these conversations a little different than most teams in the first year of a rebuild. Normally, most fans would tell ownership to stay the course, maybe promote a top prospect or two, and deal away anyone over the age of 27. However, with the Cardinals hanging around the postseason picture, staying the course could mean a completely different thing in St. Louis before the season ends.
What do you think the Cardinals should do with their position players? Is it Baez time or just let Nootbaar and VSII have the rest of the year? Do you believe they should target offense on the trade market and in the draft? Sound off!
Thanks as always!
