Bernie’s Redbird Review: What Must Happen For The Cardinals’ Offense To Improve In 2025?

For the Cardinals to improve offensively in 2025, a lot of positive things must kick in to get the lineup rolling.

By now you’re familiar with the basic list of what we’d like to see in 2025:

– Jordan Walker and Nolan Gorman get substantially better and live up to the hope and the hype. That starts by matching, then exceeding, their 2023 stats. I’d like to see them get off to a fast start and have a good first half – then go even higher after the All-Star break. Gorman has to get on top of four-seam fastballs again; his performance against that pitch was strong in 2023 but collapsed in ‘24. Walker has to launch more line drives and fly balls and avoid lunging at those low and away pitches.

– The Cardinals will not soil their trousers when hitting with runners in scoring position. They were historically bad in these pressure-packed assignments last season. I refuse to believe they will be that bad again in 2024. Part of the problem last year was poor batted-ball luck in their RISP at-bats; their average on balls in play in RISP scenarios should normalize in 2025.

– Alec Burleson will build on the several good months he put up in 2014 and won’t stall out in September. Last season the big man hit .202 with a .298 slugging percentage during the final month. Here’s an issue for Burleson: he likes to swing the bat, and last season he was overly aggressive by swinging at a career-high 56 percent of the pitches served to him. Problem is, Burly connects with a lot of pitches out of the strike zone, and that’s detrimental to his offense. Last season Burleson batted .311 with a .521 slugging percentage and 47 percent hard-hit rate against pitches in the strike zone. But when he made fair-ball contact on pitches out of the strike zone, Burly batted .184 with a .209 slug and a hard-hit rate of 29%. One other thing: I’m not sure why so many folks seem to believe it’s a good idea to play Burleson every day. Though we’re talking about a small sample, this left-handed hitter has a .209/.244/.288 major-league slash line vs. lefties. That said, if the Cardinals were actually serious about this so-called “reset,” I’d go along with the idea of giving Burly more at-bats vs. LHP.

– Lars Nootbaar will stay out of the infirmary and remain healthy enough to play 140+ games and make the most of it. I would like to see more of the kind of numbers that he generated in 2022. Noot had a .340 onbase percentage and .448 slug that season. Among hitters age 24 or younger in 2022, Nootbaar posted the 10th best slug, 11th highest OBP, and had the second-best walk rate. Nootbaar was good in 2023, and above average in 2024, but his best showing came in ‘22. And it wasn’t a fluke. He just has to stay in the lineup. His Statcast data — sorry that I insist on being so modern! — continues to be a positive indicator. Last season Nootbaar’s 49.5 percent hard-hit rate was on the top 9% of all major-league hitters. And as for plate discipline, Noot’s walk-rate (13.8%) ranked among the top 2% of MLB hitters. But again … the positive metrics won’t matter all that much if he’s rehabbing injuries instead of swinging the bat. A final point: among the Cardinals that still remain on the roster, only Willson Contreras has a higher wRC+ than Nootbaar vs. lefty pitchers among Cardinals that have at least 200 plate appearances against LH since 2022. Even though Nootbaar swings from the left side, he has above-average numbers against lefthanders.

– Ivan Herrera will receive at least 550 at-bats this season. Looking back to 2024, it’s disheartening to realize the Cardinals parked Herrera at Triple A Memphis from July 4 through Aug. 23. Good grief. Last season Herrera ranked ninth in the majors among hitters age 24 or younger with a 127 wRC+, meaning that he was 27 percent above league average offensively.

– Willson Contretras – who turns 33 in May – stays ahead of the aging curve and inflicts extensive damage with the higher of number of at-bats he’ll receive after shifting to first base. He’s a very, very important presence in the STL lineup and has to land a lot of punches.  Among right-handed batters that have made at least 850 plate appearances over the past two seasons, Contreras ranks 6th in onbase percentage, is tied for 10th in wRC+ at 33 percent above league average offensively, ranks 11th in OPS and is 18th in slugging. Hopefully for Contreras and the Cardinals, he’ll have a lot more plate appearances than his 358 in his injury-torn 2024.

– St. Louis hitters will collectively punish left-handed pitching after posting a drab. 678 OPS against them last season. The ‘24 Cards were 10 percent below league average offensively when encountering lefties. This could be a challenge; in 2024 Paul Goldschmidt hammered LHP for an .838 OPS in his final season with the Cardinals. He was their best guy vs, lefties. The Cardinals lost a bouncer who could muscle the lefties, and will look to Contreras and Masyn Winn (and others) to compensate for Goldy’s absence.

– Brant Brown will be lauded for his impact and become the best hitting coach for the Cardinals since Mark McGwire. Brown was endorsed for the job by Skip Schumaker and Albert Pujols. That was good enough for me — though what am I thinking to attach credibility to Pujols and Schumaker instead of signing off on the angry spittle of hopelessly uninformed internet cowboys?

– After having a good rookie year offensively in 2024, Masyn Winn will ratchet up his offensive numbers in ‘25 and move forward. I’m not nitpicking Winn here; he really impressed as a 22-year old rookie. But the Statcast data reveals that he was in the bottom 15 percent of all MLB hitters in hard-hit rate, barrel rate, average exit velocity, and chase rate. He must take more walks. And Winn batted only .183 with a .250 slug and 29 percent strikeout rate against offspeed pitches. There’s so much to love about this dude, and it’s exciting to think about him getting better and better. I don’t think manager Oli Marmol does Winn any favors by batting him leadoff. I’d like to see a couple of high  OBP guys take the first two spots in the lineup. Winn has real power potential. In 2024 season in which slugging percentage was way down across the majors, Winn slugged .423 before tailing off over the final month. Winn seemed a little tired in the final weeks, and that’s understandable considering his heavy load at shortstop combined with 637 plate appearances.

– Brendan Donovan will find the right balance between his onbase percentage skill and quest for more power. Fueled by a dandy 13 percent walk rate, Donovan had a .394 OBP as a rookie in 2022. But as his isolated power number increased in each of his last two seasons, his walk rate decreased. Donovan’s OBP dropped to .365 in 2023 and .342 in ‘24. And his OPS+ last year decreased to a career low 112, meaning that he was 12 percent above average. He’s been seeing fewer pitches. “Donny” found that balance late last season; in the final month he churned a terrific OBP (.420) and slug (.551.) That would be difficult to repeat but it showed that Donovan is capable of doing both things well: get on base at a high rate, and hit with more authority.

– Nolan Arenado: if he stays with the Cardinals, ‘Nado hopefully will reverse a negative trend that’s reduced his power. Compared to his career-best 2022 season, Arenado’s ground-ball rate increased 10 percent last year, and his fly-ball rate dropped 10 percent. To activate his pull-side power, Arenado has to get away from the ground game and get more lift in his swing. Yeah, it’s the simple.

– Center fielder Michael Siani will continue to hit balls out of the reach of the opposing-team fielders. In a 31-game stretch that began June 24 last season, the light-hitting Siani batted a robust .354, got on base 39 percent of the time, and inflated an .805 OPS. But was this real? Probably not. Siani had a preposterous .492 batting average on balls in play during his hot streak, and that isn’t sustainable. But a fella can hope, right?

— I’d like to see Victor Scott II get a meaningful opportunity in center field but I don’t know if that’s in the plans. Marmol is a Siani guy. And there’s also the chance of Nootbaar having more games in center field. But in a legitimate “reset” season, Scott would be in the mix for a helluva lot more at-bats than he’ll likely receive. And while manager Oli Marmol has said he wants to have a more aggressive running team that can steal more bases in 2025 … well … Victory Scott was tied for third among all MLB players last season in average sprint speed. And he had a superb track record of successfully stealing bases in the minors.

Thanks for reading …

–Bernie