If the St. Louis Cardinals are better in 2025, these three things have to happen
The theory of the case for a person trying to take an optimistic viewpoint toward the St. Louis Cardinals’ competitive prospects in 2025 is somewhat complicated.
A team that pledged patience and its willingness to step back from judging itself only by competitive success turned out to make very few short term changes to the roster, and is returning instead as more or less the same team which won a respectable but insufficient 83 games last season.
What, then, could possibly change?
If the Cardinals are going to take a leap forward rather than a leap back in the standings this season, it will seemingly require each of these things to come to pass.
A healthy rotation – with contributions from down below
Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn combined to make 53 starts for the Cardinals in 2024, and between them they covered 287 innings. Every other player who made a start for St. Louis last season is returning, and there are no new additions who started a game in the major leagues.
The one area in which space was ostensibly made was indeed in the rotation, though even that will largely be covered by increased workloads from Sonny Gray and Andre Pallante.
Neither Gray nor Pallante has looked strong thus far in spring, though it’s perpetually difficult to tell how much those results actually matter. If they build on last season’s results, if Erick Fedde is the pitcher he was for the White Sox, and if Miles Mikolas can avoid being one of the five or so least productive starters in the game, then the rotation could take a real step forward.
The inevitability of attrition will, at some point, take hold. Eleven pitchers started at least one game for the Cardinals last year, and was not a particularly egregious total; the World Champion Dodgers used 17 starters. But then, they had the horses.
Matthew Liberatore and Michael McGreevy have had strong springs. Quinn Mathews is coming fast. Each of them, plus another small handful of guys, will have to put up positive outings from time to time if the Cardinals are truly going to succeed at filling their gaps internally.
Breakouts from multiple hitters – without reservations
The Cardinals did not get enough offensive support from their corner infielders last season, but part of why the problem was so acute is that they got almost nothing at all from a trio of young hitters who were meant to be the valuable next wave of depth.
Jordan Walker spent most of the summer toiling away in the minors. Nolan Gorman ended the season there. Lars Nootbaar continued to produce impressive numbers on a rate basis, but he only managed a hair over 400 plate appearances. If Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt were meant to be the tentpoles of the offense last season, those three needed to be the main support, and each fell down in his own way.
It may not be realistic to expect all three to exceed expectations in 2025, but if the team is going to be good, at least two of them seemingly will have to clear that bar. Nootbaar seems the likeliest of the three, simply because so many of his injuries have been the result of freak contact plays which are unlikely to recur. Walker has perhaps a higher production floor than Gorman, but Gorman’s power ceiling (and proof of concept in terms of big league results) remain tempting enough that even a slow start to spring hasn’t deterred them from prioritizing his at bats.
If two of those three are reliable offensive contributors, perhaps 20% better than league average in full time duty, then an offense which struggled to find protection from its depth should be a much more significant threat, allowing a bigger jump up the standings than expected.
An invigorated clubhouse – without fear of the future
The widely accepted idea that teams tank in order to improve draft position and a franchise’s shot at being better in the future needs to come with a significant disclaimer. No players have ever been satisfied to lose games, barring the Black Sox. Front offices and ownership groups may not always put their backs into winning, but the players between the lines understand fully well the consequences of not moving forward.
That puts this year’s Cardinals in a difficult position. They understand the public position the organization has taken, and while some players will have lanes opened to them which might otherwise have remained closed, others are seeing a career with an end closer than a beginning and wondering about their ability to win a championship while they still have a shot at it.
Success for these Cardinals will require tuning that out, finding purpose in collective improvement, and being open to allowing that to grow. There may not be a more tired cliche in sports than a team which seeks to prove the doubters and haters wrong, but sometimes cliche can tell the story.
That’s the simplest version of success for the 2025 Cardinals. There is a broad national consensus that this is a team which will not be very good. To overperform will require convincing themselves that the consensus is flawed. The good news, for them, is that winning tends to be an incredibly potent curative. String a few together, and the ball can roll quickly down the hill.
