The 54-game mark is a good point to see where they’re at versus where they expected to be
This is a two-part article. It didn’t start out that way, but when I got to 4,000 words, I decided that was too much (by quite a bit) for one article. I can be wordy!
So, Part 1 here looks at what has happened. Part 2 will look down the road a bit and anticipate how what has happened unfolds in the remaining 2/3rd of the season.
Front offices are constantly assessing and re-assessing players and talent up and down their organization. The day-to-day activities are often very tactical, such as game planning of one sort or another. Reviewing matchups, tendencies, etc.
More periodically, the front office types try to take a step back and make sense of the overall performance of the team and individual players and compare back to expectations set in over the winter and finalized at the end of spring training with the Opening Day roster. People like us, looking in from the outside, do the same.
Baseball had traditionally done this activity at around the 60-game mark, although some teams undertake it a bit sooner. Injuries to key players or multiple injuries can occasionally force a team to re-assess outside this timeline, but otherwise Flag Day is around the target. This isn’t random. 60 games tend to represent the mark where enough performance data has been collected to move out of Small Sample Size theater and into results that are normalizing. This number of games isn’t true for all players in all circumstances (see Gorman, Nolan), but that is the logic for assessing team level performance. In the military parlance, plans work great til the first shot is fired. Now is the time to re-assess the plans and adjust.
Note: All stats I cite are from the 54 game mark, which was at the conclusion of the Memorial Day game at Baltimore. I like the precision of taking exactly 1⁄3 of the season. By the time this publishes, it’ll be closer to 60 games in, though.
At the high level, teams take the first 1/3 of completed games and assess “are we who we thought we’d be and are we where we expected”. Often the answer is somewhat mixed, and now it’s time to consider roster adjustments. Typically, the first round of roster adjustments involve movement within the minor leagues (up and down) and between the minors and the major league team. The old “internal options” strategy. I’m expecting the promotions/demotions throughout the system to occur soon, if they haven’t happened by the time this article publishes.
Indeed, as publication date approaches, the Cardinals have started to drip out their minor league re-assignments. Honeyman to High-A, Baez to AA. Other guys I am curious about if they move or not…Savacool. Roby. Wetherholt. Church. How they manage the AAA roster the next 30 days will provide hints about future organizational direction.
Soon it will be time to start considering seeking help from the outside, if that is what they decide to do. That market won’t develop for a few more weeks, but it’s time to start planning.
At the highest level
Are they where they expected to be? Perhaps, but probably not how they expected to arrive here. The team expectations were described here. An 85-win team is what it looked like, assuming decent health. They are tracking for that or a bit better. But that track is supported by a random 9-game win streak, one not likely to repeat. But you never know.
The pleasant surprises
It’s hard to rank these in any particular order, but these situations likely represent “best case” outcomes. So far in 2025, a lot of things have gone right. This list isn’t all of what has gone right, but more the things that have either gone quite a bit better than expected, or they’ve gone right when there really wasn’t reason to expect them to.
Liberatore emerges as an effective starter – This was well described by Jake a few days back <link>. I doubt they are fully surprised because they did put him in the rotation ahead of seemingly qualified options (McGreevy, Matz). They saw something. I doubt they really expected what might be called dominance, or something close to it, though.
Matz is healthy and effective – Health is a big part of this equation and always difficult to predict. His embrace of a somewhat unusual role (and related success) has to be considered a pleasant surprise. Although without the gaudy stats, he might actually be in the running for the first 1/3 season MVP, if such an award were given. From a pitching standpoint, he has become a glue guy that allows a lot of other things to work out.
Contreras and first base are a good match – Although he slumped early, his offense has been typical. His 1b defense has been very solid, likely better than expected. This move improved two positions – 1b and C. Prior to a recent slump, Contreras had already accumulated as much WAR as his predecessor did in all of 2024.
Jordan Walker can play the outfield – In 2023, he was -14 OAA in just under 1,000 innings, which could best be described as horrid. In 2024, he was -4 OAA in 367 innings, a slight improvement, but still in the horrid end of the spectrum. In 2024, he is 0 OAA. How does one go from horrid to average? Amazing. He rendered Siani and his late-inning defensives substitution role totally moot, freeing up an entire roster spot.
Victor Scott II can play – The wRC+ of 40 in 2024 didn’t inspire confidence. Here in 2025, they look up and see a wRC+ of 106 and an OAA of +7 (already twice what it was in 2024) at a key position. Throw in a BsR of 2.6 that is 11th in all of baseball, and you have a dynamic two-way player. He is one of those guys that is in scoring position when he gets on first base.
Pitching health has been excellent – Multiple teams just in the NL Central have had to resort to the bargain basement bin of pitching arms just to fill out their rotation. Meanwhile, the major league pitchers on the Cardinals have been a bastion of health, with only a hip irritation for Fernandez among the notable health developments among pitchers. Hard to say if the 6-man rotation and April IP limits had a hand in this, but one can wonder.
The defense is really, really good – The Cardinals are an amazing +25 OAA. I’m not sure we could reasonably have expected +25 for a whole year, much less 1⁄3 of a season (OAA is a counting stat). If the Cardinals are exceeding your expectations, defense is a big part of why. I won’t belabor this. Gabe had a thorough write up on this last week here, as did Jeff Passan. Scooter registered on this earlier this week, too. I can’t improve on their work. If you wonder how crucial defense is to the winning equation for the Cardinals at Busch Stadium, harken back to this article.
The pleasant non-surprises
These are the things that have gone well, and were kind of expected to, although perhaps not quite this well. Really, these are things that it would be an upsetting surprise if they weren’t ok, at least.
Herrera affirms the bat is real – Both his presence as well as his absence while he was hurt tell us that his bat is both real and impactful, as in perhaps the best bat on the team. Maybe tied for first. Last year’s .800 OPS was no fluke.
Masyn Winn is the real deal – Better than last year, already an OAA of 6, surpassing all of 2024. wRC+ 118, also surpassing 2024. His sophomore slump lasted about 3 weeks. Zips/Steamers 2.6 WAR projection for 2025 looks to be low.
Nootbaar and Donovan are what they expected with health – Nootbaar arrives via a circuitous route to his rightful home atop the order (what took them so long to figure this out, I wonder), where his elite 13.5% walk rate fuels a .354 OBP that is 28th in all of baseball. He also brings enough power to keep pitchers from just pouring in strikes to avoid the walks. Donovan exceeds Nootbaar in almost every advanced stat, and that .844 OPS in the 3-hole looks better than anyone else they’ve had there in some time. These first year-arb guys are hitting their prime years right on schedule. Throw in an OAA of +2 at second base and one begins to wonder if they really need Nolan Gorman to emerge, or if Donovan in front of him and Wetherholt behind him have made Gorman … expendable.
The starting pitching has been as solid – 2024 focused more on absorbing innings that the 2023 rotation couldn’t cover. 2025 began with an expectation of a transition to youth, and Gibson and Lynn moved on. Pallante would start the year in the rotation. McGreevy was expected to appear quickly. Liberatore popped up out of seemingly nowhere to seize a rotation spot. All added up, this has been a stable rotation, although how they got there may be different than how they imagined it this winter. The group has pitched well enough, even without any true topflight TOR types. Gray is the closest, but some age-related decline renders him a cut below. His FB velo is down a tick and he has become HR prone, continuing a trend from last year. Still good, just not among the league’s best. Outside of one very poor start, Mikolas has exceeded expectations by a fair bit (A 3.68 FIP vs. projected 4.25, which itself was low by most local estimates). We already looked at Liberatore and Matz and will at Pallante in a minute. Fedde has been mostly reliable, if unspectacular.
The unpleasant surprises
Every year, something goes sideways. Often, it is an area a team neglects because they come out of the prior season perceiving that area as a strength. And too often, they discover they were wrong. Baseball can be harsh that way.
Nolan Arenado is a struggling hitter…but still a really, really good fielder – I expect by now the Cardinals realize that the power hitter they acquired from Colorado is gone and not coming back. His output has fallen below that of an average hitter (wRC+ of 90), with fleeting power. But his defense has been really good (OAA of 5) and on pace for his best defensive season since 2019. The change to move him down the order a bit to reflect his current hitter profile was sound.
It appears that Andre Pallante’s 2nd half 2024 may have been more quirky than break-out – A 2025 FIP of 4.75 and a K-BB ratio of well less that 2:1 suggest regression to an earlier mean. His declining performance against LH hitters has to be causing some disquiet in the organization. His SLG against LH hitter is up 150 points. With McGreevy waiting on-deck, I wonder how long he gets.
The bullpen has been unsteady – Where did Ryan Fernandez’ slider go? He is searching all over Memphis for it. Helsley seems different. Command not quite there. Velo down a tick. Results in a lower K rate (25%) and a high walk rate (10%). When dominance is expected, just good seems pedestrian. Romero, King and a few others seem to be having poor luck, where last year they had good luck. Such is the volatility of relievers. Leahy has been a godsend. Who saw that coming? Maton has been steady, if unspectacular (except on those rare days his curveball is sharp). Roycroft was expected to take a step forward, and so far, has not.
Overall, the bullpen projected to a 4 WAR season (not great by itself) but is tracking well below that pace 1/3 of the way into the season (net is 1.2). The total is suppressed by Helsley’s .1 WAR. Two things here. One, reliever WAR values are notoriously volatile, so one can’t read too much into them. Something about small samples. FIP values are trending OK compared to the league (8th overall), and optimism can exist if you expect Helsley to be better. Two, the worst offenders were quickly dispatched to Memphis already. Adjustments in this area happen lightning fast. No waiting for Flag Day on relievers, otherwise you might be waving a white flag.
The march of the young arms has been interrupted by injury – The Cardinals have some interesting minor league arms (Mathews, Hjerpe and Hence) that have spent most of the season on the shelf with ailments. Tekoah Roby seems ready to emerge into a force at AA and has been a model of health compared to others. Lin, Z. Thompson, Robberse, Rom, Hjerpe and others have all had injury setbacks and are in some form of rehab/recovery. This was the depth that was to fuel the transition to youth. Not that anyone cares, but the AAA rotation has been so decimated, they have had to resort to bullpen games and position players pitching just to cover innings. A position player actually got a win (and was promptly demoted)! This is not a good sign.
Jordan Walker continues to regress offensively – Walker was better, offensively, in 2023 than he was in 2024. He was better in 2024 than he has been in 2025, ranking among the lowest in the league in almost every category except perhaps bat speed. Perhaps the only saving grace is – he is only 22 and we’ve seen this young man go from horrid to pretty darn good on the defensive side, so it won’t be shocking if we see that again on the offensive side.
Two general concerns remain – Even with the regular infusion of Scott in the line-up, overall team speed and baserunning lags the league, with the team 24th in MLB in BsR with a -1.8 overall rating. This is more than one standard deviation below average, reflecting a poor base running team overall. Some will take heart that several of the teams down at the bottom are also playoff caliber teams so a bad BsR is not determinative of team success. On the flip side, most of the top tier teams are NL teams, their closest competition, and several of those are NL Central teams. This is a long-term fix area for the Cardinals, and BsR is more crucial for a team that is more OBP-based than ISO (power).
Likewise, one of the key contributors to recent years offensive decline has been the decline in power in the lineup. As discussed earlier, over the last 2+ seasons we have witnessed a team that is singles and walks oriented, and thus dependent on good sequencing to score runs. A deeper line-up has helped with that, because more hits translates into more runs.
That said, SLG measures total bases and incorporates the impact of singles. In SLG, the Cardinals are 10th in the NL, not bad. ISO on the other hand, measures power in the form of extra bases (doubles, triples, homeruns). Here, the Cardinals rank 20th in the NL, not so good. Playing in Busch, they will likely rarely be top 5, but they need a bit more than they are getting in the XBH category. This is where Gorman and Walker, and their ability to provide power, become key to sustained success.
More concerning, the combination of below average baserunning and below average ISO suggests an offensive regression could come, possibly a significant one.
The Small Sample Size Arena
This analysis addresses parts of the team where the SSS makes it too hard to draw any real conclusions either way.
Pozo has done quite well for a 3rd catcher – As you watch him, you begin to wonder why other organizations let him go and wonder if he will turn into a pumpkin one of these days. He seems decent (or better) defensively. Check out his catcher ERA. He does swing at everything but also makes contact and doesn’t K much. A lot of teams do worse for the backup catcher. If Oli wants a pinch-hitter who can make contact, Pozo is his man.
Gordon Graceffo could be a closer-in-waiting – All the sudden, he’s come out guns blazing. All SSS, but peeps like what they see and want to see more. He seems to be a bit of a good luck charm. They bring him up and the starters start going deeper into games.
McGreevy is still on deck – He has pitched in all of 1 MLB game this year. It was a 5.1 IP outstanding relief gem after a rain delay where he closed out his own win, pitching through the 9th inning. Impressive. Not dissimilar to what we saw last year, which likewise was SSS. Do two SSS make a large enough sample? We want to see more.
Jose Barrero oozes skill and athleticism – A heck of an interesting player for an MiLB free agent. His glove may match Winn’s at short, his arm strength might too, but his accuracy does not. He is so gifted, he plays a decent outfield with very little experience. If he could just hit…He does have some pop, however.
What becomes of Nolan Gorman – One of those guys that was supposed to get “runway” in the form of ~500 PAs this year, he only managed to cross 100 PAs at game 54 due to an Arenado injury. With those 101 PAs, he has put together a wRC+ of 61 with no power (ISO .094). Disappointing.
Some other observations
Attendance is WAY down – Attendance is a key on the business side of things, and this is a business at the end of the day. Paid attendance has fallen off sharply and actual fans-in-the-stands attendance seems even worse. The Cardinal’s looked for a good early start to set the tenor for improving attendance in the back part of the schedule. An interesting and developing brand of baseball has emerged to support that. How will that go? Undetermined.
When does the transition take hold? – The major transition of outgoing POBO Mozeliak to in-coming POBO Bloom looms closer and closer. The door to this transition will swing fully closed about 4 months from now. Fans are curious what that will look like. So far, not much indicating any substantive changes in direction have materialized. I’m sure we will parse the draft choices for such signs.
The summary
Overall, the first 1/3 of the season has been relatively successful. Fun, even. Expect a bit more uneven action as the season rolls out, as injuries set in and regression to the mean takes its toll. This is still a young team. While 9-game winning streaks don’t grow on trees, there are still some players that could ascend that could offset injuries and regression from early season performance. As always when doing financial planning (or assessing baseball talent), it pays to remember that past performance is not indicative of future results. Underneath the hood, this still looks like an 85-win team that will be prone to both highs and lows.
Next time, we’ll look at some emerging questions, and re-work the season projection.