Nine more days until Opening Day in St. Louis. This unofficial STL holiday is a special event on the sports calendar each year – yes, even during a Redbird Rebuild.
But with only nine days to work with before the real baseball takes over and the spring-training stats are null and void, the Cardinals don’t have much time to settle their unresolved springtime business.
In this writing habitat on Monday, I cited the five most positive developments at Camp Jupiter. You can read it here on our site, but my five thumbs-up areas were the starting-pitching talent and depth, the power hitting of Nelson Velazquez, the effective polishing of Nolan Gorman’s strike-zone discipline, the rookie showing of outfield prospect Josh Baez, and all things JJ Wetherholt.
Today, let’s go in the opposite direction of Happy Talk. There are concerns. All teams have them – not just the squads going through a reconstruction zone.
SPRING TRAINING, 2026
PROGRESS REPORT
PART TWO: WORRISOME THANGS
1. The hazy, blurry, outfield picture. I did a video on this earlier today and you can watch it if you'd like. But since I am an author and a yapper, I must address the outfield puzzle via the written word. The short version: concerns, questions, wishing, hoping, maybes. And not much substance offensively.
Since the start of 2023, here’s where St. Louis outfielders rank (collectively) in the meaningful offensive categories covering three seasons:
– 26th among 30 teams in batting avg
– 29th overall and last in the NL in slugging percentage.
– 27th overall and last in the NL in OPS
– 28th in homers
– 27th overall and last in the NL in RBIs
– 25th overall and 13th in the NL in wRC+.
Yikes. We know the reasons. Poor offense from Jordan Walker and Victor Scott. Lars Nootbaar’s frequent injury disruptions. There’s the reliance on defense-first center fielders who don’t hit much. Over the past three seasons, STL centerfielders have combined for a pathetic slash line of .221/.295/.318 with a .613 OPS.
In 2024-2025 the Cardinals invested nearly 2,000 combined plate appearances in Walker and Scott. Well, 123 MLB outfielders had at least 500 plate appearances over the past two years. Based on wRC+, on that list of 123, Walker was No. 120, and Scott was No. 121. (More on Walker later.)
The Cardinals hope to get some bang from Velazquez in left field. (Now that his strikeout tendencies have decreased, and his walk rate has increased, he could be a nice surprise; we’ll see.)
Nathan Church is a three-position rover with a good bat and on-base skills. And Joshua Baez, who will open the season at Triple A, could be here by midseason (or perhaps sooner.) One way or another, Nootbaar’s health and physical liability will be an important factor in the 2026 proceedings.
All in all, the outfield picture is fuzzy.
2. Jordan Walker, still lost at the plate. I had to make this a separate entry. Because the repercussions of his collapse on offense transcends the impact on the outfield. This is more about Walker’s impact on the entire franchise because of the confidence the Cardinals had in his potential to become their next big star on offense. Over the past two regular seasons Walker’s wRC+ was 32 percent below league average offensively and put him in the 2nd percentile among 291 hitters with at least 550 plate appearances. Which means 98 percent of MLB hitters have outperformed Walker since the start of 2024.
The most disturbing part of this? Walker’s feel for the strike zone is still a ginormous flaw. If anything it’s gotten worse. This spring, despite Walker’s busy offseason dedicated to starting anew with a more refined hitting approach, he entered Tuesday’s exhibition game with a 34.4 percent strikeout rate. Not only that, but he’d chased pitches out of the strike zone at a self-defeating rate of 40%. In a regular-season setting that 40% O-swing rate would put Walker in the bottom 5 percent among all big-league hitters.
Through Monday, Walker had swung at 28 pitches out of the strike zone, and put only five batted balls in play. When swinging at the out of zone offerings, Walker was 0 for 11 with six strikeouts. I don’t care if it’s “only” spring training; Walker is the epitome of a non-competitive hitter.
I take no joy in saying this. I feel bad for the guy. And Walker does have tools. Elite bat speed. A violent exit velocity. He just has no radar for the strike zone. And unless he can change that, the defect will be extremely difficult to overcome.
Update: in Tuesday’s 1-0 loss to the Nationals, Walker left the hitting lab and returned to the Cardinals lineup … and promptly went 0 for 4 with two strikeouts. In 36 plate appearances this spring, Walker has a .176 average, .398 OPS and his strikeout rate is up to 36 percent.
3. The curious case of Ivan Herrera. Because of knee inflammation caused by catching, the sweet-hitting Herrera has only 7 plate appearances this spring, and has caught seven innings. The value of having an elite hitter at the catcher position is negated by his injury-related inactivity, which is nothing new in his case. If the Cardinals want to maximize Herrera’s value, the way to do that is putting him in the lineup as much as possible to take advantage of his outstanding bat. But that can’t happen if, because of catching, he’s unavailable too often. And as I’ve pointed out a few times, the injury-related absences have limited Herrera to an average of 355 plate appearances per season over the last two years.
The Cardinals are squandering the most valuable part of Herrera’s talent … his abundant offense. Last season Herrera caught only 14 games, and though he put up huge numbers when he was in the lineup at catcher, that misses the point.
Injuries (and injury concerns) limited him to 54 plate appearances as a catcher in 2025. But in keeping him away from catching – which is akin to keeping him healthy – Herrera made 88 percent of his plate appearances at DH (mostly) or left field. Overall in the season he posted a wRC+ that elevated him to 37 percent above average offensively. As I’ve told you a few times in recent months, that wRC+ made Herrera the seventh-best right-handed batter in the big leagues among those RHB who had at least 450 plate appearances.
I do understand why the Cardinals would try to accommodate Herrera’s request to return to catching – but only to a point. The Cards already have more good catchers in the organization than I’ve seen over the last 40+ years of writing baseball in St. Louis. FanGraphs had four Cards catching prospects rated among the org’s top 29 prospects: Rainiel Rodriguez (No. 3), Jimmy Crooks (No. 5), Leonardo Bernal (No. 9) and 18-year old Juan Rujano (No. 29.)
This is what FanGraphs wrote about Rujano:
“In a system already thick with big, physical catching prospects, Rujano arguably looks the part as well as any of them. The $750,000 bonus he received last January was the biggest outlay for any Panamanian prospect in the 2025 class, and since his max exit velocity was clocked at 113.7 mph this past year and he flashed above-average arm strength, it’s not all projection, as Rujano hit .279/.405/.418 in his DSL debut … Rujano’s swing, while fairly polished for a 17-year-old, features enough length and whiffs for a slow-boil development. But even if Rujano chases off the outer edge a fair amount, there’s a precocious feel for the zone along with truly exciting physical tools here.”
So, just to do a population check: the Cardinals have those four catching prospects, plus Pedro Pages, plus Yohel Pozo, plus Ivan Herrera. That’s seven catchers, except one of them probably shouldn’t be catching, and yeah I’m talking about Herrera.
Well, at least Cards president Chaim Bloom will have opportunities to trade from the catching surplus to fill roster voids.
Seven catchers? Interesting. What does this tell us about Yadier Molina’s valuable career? He’s been retired since the end of the 2022 season, and the Cardinals are still hoarding catchers, hoping to eventually install Yadi’s spiritual successor.
4. Who will bat leadoff? I’m not sure, but if manager Oli Marmol wants to go with Masyn Winn again – despite Winn’s abysmal .280 career OBP at leadoff – then JJ is providing an opening. After another quiet day at the plate in Tuesday’s loss to the Nationals, Wetherholt is 3 for 20 (.150) in March. In eight games this month, his on-base rate is .292. Though JJ has walked three times (and has a homer), pitchers have struck him out five times. Just a phase, yes. But even though the rookie’s batting average is down to .214 in Grapefruit League competition, let’s not overlook his .405 on-base percentage and .429 slug.
Marmol continues to praise the quality of Winn’s at-bats, and it’s fair to acknowledge that. But the starting shortstop and emerging team leader is batting .125 (3 for 24) this spring with a .276 OBP and .401 OPS. As a leadoff man, Winn is 1 for 12 (.083) with a .267 onbase rate.
It’s still spring training. That’s good! There’s still a little time to make something happen. But this “competition” for the leadoff spot isn’t exactly scintillating at the moment.
5. Setting the five-man rotation: I agree with those who see it as Matthew Liberatore, Dustin May, Michael McGreevy, Andre Pallante and Kyle Leahy. Richard Fitts has lively stuff and sizzling velocity, but it’s probably a good idea to have him pitching at Memphis and sharpening up to be fully ready when the Cards plug in a sixth starter. I don’t have it in me to go off and have a tantrum related to Andre Pallante. He’s done fine this spring. He’s trying to enlarge his pitch arsenal (change, and a reshaped curve.) If Pallante is in the early-season rotation … I’m sorry, but Pallante or Fitts ain’t exactly like choosing between Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright. Pallante doesn’t have any minor-league options left and that’s another reason to give him the nod over Fitts for now.
I’m going to leave the “Concern List” at these five items. There is no point in overdosing on anxiety about the final bullpen selections for the opening-day roster. The Cardinals will be cycling through so many relievers this season, I see no reason to concoct a drama where none exists.
I’ll leave you with this: Dustin May! Impressive display of pitching on Tuesday – five innings, four hits, one earned run, a walk and three strikeouts. In three starts covering 11 and ⅔ innings, May has a 1.54 ERA and an impressive WHIP of 0.94.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015. Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach. Bernie has covered several Baseball Hall of Fame managers during his media career including Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and (as an interim) Red Schoendienst. In his career as a beatwriter and columnist, Bernie covered Pro Football Hall of Fame coaches Joe Gibbs, Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson and Dick Vermeil on a daily basis.
Bernie has covered and written about many great St. Louis sports team athletes including Albert Pujols, Kurt Warner, Brett Hull, Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, Jim Edmonds, Marshall Faulk, Scott Rolen, Mark McGwire, Orlando Pace, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Al MacInnis, Brian Sutter, Bernie Federko, Chris Pronger, Dan Dierdorf, Jackie Smith and Aeneas Williams. Bernie covered every baseball Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues, Saint Louis U, and Mizzou football and basketball. Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STL Sports Central, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows. And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.