Note from Bernie: this column was written before the Cardinals opened three three-game weekend set against the Red Sox at Fenway Park. All stats used here were complete through Thursday, April 3. Thanks.
Maybe this is just a taste of a fluffy, spun-sugar confection – a sample pulled from the first six games of the new season.
But if the early days are an indication of what’s to come – and it’s too soon to know – then maybe the Cardinals will be taking an improved hitting approach to the batter’s box in 2025.
The extremely early trends are encouraging, but I don’t know if this will turn out to be a reality or an illusion. I’m definitely looking forward to finding out.
Many compliments have been dished out to new batting coach Brant Brown. There’s considerable buzz and happy talk about his impact. The players are clearly impressed by him.
Why?
“Most everybody in the major leagues can pitch and they have good arms, so you have to be selective,” Cards third baseman Nolan Arenado told reporters during the team’s 4–2 homestand. “And Brownie is trying to teach us to zone in on the pitches we want. You usually make better decisions when you [hit good pitches], and that’s really been his focus.”
It isn’t just pitch recognition. It’s about knowing what to do with each pitch. Every batter likes to have a consistent swing. But the one-swing-fits-all approach shouldn’t apply to every situation.
Cardinal hitters have picked up on Brown’s mantra: “There’s a time to slug and a time to hit.”
The boys seem to understand the message. And they’re implementing it – or trying very hard to do it, anyway. I researched the numbers to give you a look. There are a lot of items on this list, so let’s get after it. All of these stats were culled from Baseball Reference…
The Cardinals are making pitchers work harder, averaging 4.07 pitches per plate appearance. That ranks 5th overall and 3rd in the National League.
One reason for this? The Cardinals are extending at-bats by fouling off a lot of balls. Their foul-ball strike percentage (30%) is the best in MLB.
The Redbirds have the best contact rate in the majors at 78 percent.
They have the lowest swinging-strike rate in the majors.
What about swinging at the first pitch? Their percentage (22.6%) is second-lowest in the majors and the lowest among NL teams.
Their rate of chasing pitches out of the strike zone – 28.8% – is the second-lowest in the majors. (That’s from FanGraphs.)
That’s among the reasons why they’re No. 5 in the majors with an 11.3 percent walk rate. Last season, they were 22nd with a walk rate of 7.8%.
Their rate of swinging at strikes – 68.8% – is 13th-highest in the majors, and only five NL teams have jumped at strikes at a higher percentage.
The Cards have the eighth-lowest rate in MLB for the percentage of all pitches swung at. This is yet another indication of their more selective approach.
The Redbirds are above the overall MLB average in the percentage of swings that put the ball in play. So when they swing, they aren’t fooling around.
How about working the counts? No NL team has worked the count to 3–0 more than the Cards, and they rank 10th in the majors for most 2–0 counts.
Pitch recognition? Only six MLB teams and three NL teams have a lower percentage of called strikes than St. Louis. In 2024, only five MLB teams had a higher percentage of called strikes than St. Louis. Big improvement early.
When the Cardinals wait for the pitch – the strike they’re looking for – they hit with authority. When staying away from the shadow zone of the plate – the borderline strikes – and connecting on pitches in the heart of the strike zone, the Cardinals rank 8th overall with a 52.4 percent hard-hit rate and are 9th with a 14.6% barrel rate.
The Cardinals have an actual batting average of .308 and a slugging percentage of .538 on heart-of-the-plate pitches. But they deserve better than that; based on the quality of contact, the Cardinals should have a .315 average and a .603 slug through the first six games.
The meaningful numbers are impressive. The Cardinals went into Friday’s game ranked second in the majors in runs per game, tied for first in on-base percentage, tied for second in batting average, and third in slugging and OPS. They also had the fourth-best batting average (.294) with runners in scoring position.
All of this early-season data tells us a little something.
Cardinals hitters aren’t freelancing. Their minds aren’t wandering; they're zoned in. They go into each at-bat with a plan, a purpose. The approach is more specific – and smarter. Their hitters aren’t taking the lousy bait by swinging at pitches off the plate.
Another way to put it: in the first week, we saw a group of Cardinal hitters who didn’t make it easy on pitchers because they – the Cardinals – weren’t getting themselves out by swinging at garbage pitches.
Lars Nootbaar calls Brown a “hitting rat.” Manager Oli Marmol marvels at the way Brown can shape his message to each individual player depending on what that hitter needs to work on.
The three young hitters that have shown the most progress under Brown’s schooling are Jordan Walker, Victor Scott II, and Nolan Gorman.
I want to emphasize this once again – these are all particles of samples. And maybe this is all dust in the wind.
But I’d rather see early-season progress than watch more of the same from 2024. Walker, Scott, and Gorman are a good example.
Walker: Last season, a 34.8 percent rate of chasing pitches out of the zone. This season: 28.3% chase rate.
Scott: Last season, 32.3% chase rate. This season: 24.2% chase.
Gorman: Last year, 34.7% chase rate. This season: 18.2% chase. (Fixed typo from “seasonL” to “season:")
And all three guys are swinging at strikes with more frequency. Walker has improved in this area by 10 percent from last season, Scott is up by 12%, and Gorman’s swing-at-strikes habit has increased by 16.6%.
Welcome to the Cardinals, Mr. Brown.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a great weekend.
–Bernie