THE REDBIRD REVIEW
The Cardinals made an unofficial ruling on the powerfully impressive Grapefruit League performance by Nelson Velazquez by assigning him to Triple A Memphis. And in doing so, the verdict was clear: spring training is absolutely meaningless.
There was probably a second finding in there that I would best describe as this: there never was a competition for an outfield roster spot, so Velazquez never really had a chance.
The decision had already been made to keep Jose Fermin over Velazquez because Fermin is out of minor-league options. Velazquez is not out of minor-league options, so he can shuttle between St. Louis all season if necessary. Was this supposed to be clever or something?
(Gosh forbid the Cardinals lose Fermin to a waiver claim; it’s damn near impossible to replace a player who has a career MLB batting average of .220 with an OPS of .600.)
Pardon my sarcasm. Fermin was a good hitter in 2025 and has a strong walk rate with minimal strikeouts. I’m pretty sure he’ll be a prominent piece in a new offensive approach envisioned by Bloom and manager Oli Marmol. The same goes for outfielder Nathan Church. I’ll write about this soon.
And this, my friends, is how president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom made Velazquez – and his gaudy set of statistics – disappear. Hey, he might be called up. We’ll see what develops. But did it have to be like this?
Velazquez led Cardinals’ regulars this spring in batting average, slugging percentage, total bases, home runs, RBIs, OPS, strikeout-walk rate, home-run ratio and the most times reaching base? And he was tied for most extra-base hits.
Yes. He did all of that.
See ya!
Enjoy Memphis!
We’ll text you if we need anything.
Good for Memphis. There, Velazquez will team with rising-star prospect Joshua Baez to give the Triple A minor-league team a better outfield (offensively) than the major-league outfield in St. Louis.
This mister Bloom, he works in mysterious ways. Bloom signed Velazquez to a minor-league contract two months ago because he saw the raw power, and a sharpening of plate discipline, gauged the considerable upside and took a no-risk chance.
Bloom with the win! Brilliant move! But there would be no victory lap. The POBO put Velazquez on a downbound train to Memphis. And the Cardinals – with their chucklesome lack of power – have even less of it today.
In 600 MLB plate appearances, Velazquez slugged .433 and popped a homer every 17.8 at-bats. The damaging swing-and-miss flaw got to him, and caused his career to swerve back to the minors. But Velazquez got to work on the problem and reduced his strikeout rate by a healthy percentage.
Do I think Velazquez could have helped the St. Louis outfield – so emaciated offensively – build some muscle? Well, I’ll give you a couple of numbers here, and you can make a judgment.
The tentative starting outfield for the Cardinals is Church, Victor Scott and Jordan Walker. And there’s Fermin and Saggese – both have infielder backgrounds – in place to help put.
– In his MLB career, Velazquez has a +0.6 WAR. That ain’t much. But wait. Church, Scott, Walker, Fermin and Saggese – five guys – have produced 1.0 WAR. Which averages out to +0.33 career WAR per man.
– In the big leagues Velazquez has 31 career homers in 552 at-bats. Which, as I noted works out to a home run every 17.8 at bats.
– In their careers Walker, Scott, Church, Fermin and Saggese have 39 home runs (combined) in 2,052 at-bats. That computes to a homer every 52.6 at-bats.
– Yes. Velazquez has only eight fewer MLB career home runs than the five St. Louis outfielders – despite the fact that Velazquez has nearly 1,500 fewer at-bats than they do.
And yet … there’s no room for Velazquez?
OK, here’s another clump of info for you.
Last season the Cards ranked 14th among the 15 National League teams with 148 home runs.
That was bad; now consider this: the 13 position players who will open the season on the STL roster combined for 101 home runs last season.
That’s an average of 7.76 homers per batter. The 13 hitters have combined for 285 career homers in the bigs. That’s a career average of 21.9 big ones per man.
Are you picking up a 1980s vibe here?
From 1982 through 1992, the St. Louis Cardinals averaged 76.6 home runs per season. As a team. Remember when Mark McGwire hit 70 all by himself in 1998?
The power famine didn’t prevent the Runnin’ Redbirds from winning three NL pennants and the 1982 World Series. Those entertaining teams had other ways to compensate for their home-run deficits. Over the 11 seasons the Cards were out-homered 1,170 to 843.
So they led the majors in stolen bases over the 11 seasons, averaging a turf-scorching 225 swiped bags per year. No other MLB team averaged more than 177 steals over that time.
From 1982-1992 the Cardinals were the highest-rated team in the majors in defense and baserunning.
In addition to the steals, the Runnin’ Redbirds had the most infield hits in the majors, zoomed for the most triples, and were third for most bunt singles. The blazin’ St. Louis team speed beat relay throws with enough frequency to hit into the second fewest ground-ball double plays in MLB.
Those Cardinal hitters were effective at drawing walks, ranked second in the NL for best batting average, and had the NL’s highest onbase percentage.
Cardinal pitchers ranked fourth best in ERA over the 11 seasons and yielded the second fewest home runs by an NL staff. Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee and other Cardinals played exquisite defense that infuriated opponents who were victims of defensive larceny and stolen runs.
Of course, it helped to have the creative, innovative mastermind Whitey Herzog in the dugout for 1,553 regular-season games and 51 postseason contests.
Herzog could make jokes about his teams’ puny home-run total because he knew how to drive opponents wacko in other ways. Just playing and sweating in the “old” and spacious Busch Stadium just filled visiting teams with dread. That explains why the Redbirds had a .613 home winning percentage across their pennant-winning seasons of 1982, 1985 and 1987.
That was then.
And this definitely now.
How in the heck do the 2026 Cardinals plan to overcome their unplugged-power problem?
In comments to Derrick Goold, Cards hitting coach Brant Brown referred to a “death by a thousand paper cuts” strategy.
Marmol, speaking with Goold, put it this way: “We need to be one that’s pretty relentless in how we compete — exhausting when you are across the way from us. That’s the type of lineup we need to be. You’re going to have to really grind out each at-bat against us.”
Marmol also used the word “exhausting.” He wants his team to mentally wear down opponents with competitive intensity.
A summary of other talking points about this “new” Cardinals offense would include:
– Extended at-bats.
– Avoid three up, three down, innings. Keep the pitcher working during longer innings.
– Aggressive base running.
– Control the strike zone. Avoid chasing garbage off the plate. High, sustainable contact rates are mandatory.
– Lower strikeout rates. Higher walk rates.
– The Cardinals offense can’t afford to rank 24th in the majors in walk rate – as was the case across the last two seasons.
– The Cards had a decent onbase percentage over the past two seasons – 13th overall, 9th in – but that’s got to be higher.
– Productive outs. Moving runners over.
– Put pressure on the defense to make plays.
– A raised awareness on situational hitting. Have a smart plan. Execute the plan.
– If the Cardinals stink when hitting with runners in scoring position this season – forget about it.
Other than the three NL pennants won by those 1980s Cardinals, we don’t see many examples of others winning a pennant or World Series with a low home-run total. The Royals pulled it off three times (1985, 2014, 2015.) Others who ranked 20th or worse in home runs but won a pennant or World Series were the 1988 Dodgers, 2002 Angels, 2003 Marlins and 2010 Giants.
The 2015 Cardinals are a reference point. They didn’t win a pennant or World Series. But they did win 100 regular-season games despite ranking 23rd in slugging, 24th in runs and 25th in homers. How? Because St. Louis pitchers had the No. 1 ERA (2.94) in the majors and kept opponents to an average of 3.2 runs per game.
To bring this home …
Perhaps the 2026 Cardinals will thunder for a surprisingly large number of home runs – but they’ll need substantial increase in big-fly power from the likes of Nolan Gorman, Jordan Walker, Ivan Herrera, Alec Burleson, JJ Wetherholt, Masyn Winn, Nathan Church, Victor Scott, Thomas Saggese and Pedro Pages.
If the 2026 Cardinals can’t pump out enough homers to win a good amount of games on pure power, does this seem like the kind of team that can check off many items on the list I presented earlier? That’s a lot to ask. Maybe Nelson Velazquez and Josh Baez can come to the rescue.
Pardon my typos …
And 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 STLSportsCentral, 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.