If things go sour for the Cardinals in 2025, it’ll be because of these three things
As opposed to the small and dwindling group of optimists, there is no shortage of pessimism in the air around the rapidly approaching 2025 season for the St. Louis Cardinals.
A team which significantly overachieved its run differential last season and made practically no impactful additions over the winter is not a team which generates a great deal of organic support, and for many folks, the only thing more fun than being right is being right and being able to brag about it later.
Still, a losing season is arguably not evidence of things going wrong. Indeed, running back practically the same roster as an overachieving team and instead landing closer to the mark is evidence of things working exactly as they should.
One of the hardest things to accept about baseball is that most of the difference between a team that wins 77 games and a team that wins 83 comes down to pure coin flips. For things to truly turn south this season, there would need to be more dramatic missteps.
Like these:
None of the young hitters progress – none ends the year with a clear future
If new hitting coach Brant Brown is scrutinized less than his young charges in 2025, it will likely only be because he’s new and enjoying a semblance of a honeymoon period.
The Cardinals are willing to accept the status quo with their pitching prospects, especially with starters like Quinn Mathews and Michael McGreevy asserting their spots on the development curve. That is not and cannot be true of the hitters.
It’s probably unreasonable to expect all of Nolan Gorman, Lars Nootbaar and Jordan Walker to meet and exceed projections this coming season. If all three assert themselves to the levels the Cardinals believe they can attain, then they might well jump up to being one of the top offenses in the National League.
It’s equally unlikely that none of the three will produce, though that was fairly close to reality in 2024.
Another season in which Nootbaar struggles to stay on the field and Gorman and Walker can’t locate the production which made them top prospects will push the Cardinals to make difficult decisions about the path ahead; in some cases, those decisions may be practically out of their hands.
Injuries take hold – help doesn’t come from below
Every team, even the Dodgers, is a few crucial injuries away from a season which spirals out of control. The Cardinals have been fortunate on that front as spring training proceeds through its last week.
Zack Thompson’s lat strain will likely keep him away from game action into late April or early May, but otherwise, only some bumps and bruises to Walker and Masyn Winn have shown up as physical concerns of note.
The Cardinals would be vulnerable at shortstop, and if necessary, would turn to Thomas Saggese for an extended run should Winn be unavailable. They don’t have a clear productive option to fill in as a third catcher, at least in the short term. Contreras’s bat was greatly missed last season, and would be again.
Often, those coin flips which determine where teams fall in the win range come down to health. Lucky teams are healthy teams, and vice versa. Every organization deals with injuries, and fans of those teams tend to think they’re uniquely affected, perhaps in large part because they’re not tracking other teams as closely. This makes health arguably the most frustrating of all the potential variables, because there’s almost nothing that can be done which can mitigate the potential fallout.
Fortune can change fast and without warning. If it does for the Cardinals, that could portend a long summer.
Off-field upheaval spills over – a transition goes bad
There should be, in theory, no way to tell from watching the Cardinals on the field that they are undergoing significant changes in the front office. The business side can stay outside the lines if teams are diligent about making sure that happens, but for that to happen, it helps to have harmony. The Cardinals don’t precisely lack for that unity, but there are some natural fissures.
John Mozeliak’s last season will fade as Chaim Bloom’s first begins to loom ever closer. Thus far, the twin centers of power in the front office have done an outstanding job of acting as a unit and messaging the same way. This is a team which thinks in eras, rather than in seasons, and the expectation is that all involved will uphold that tradition.
That’s not always a guarantee, and humanity can sometimes bleed in. People who achieve high status in the world of professional sports have no lack of ego; if they did, they wouldn’t rise as far as they do. If the season starts slow, or if there are signs that the worm may have again turned badly, it will require discipline and intentionality for Mozeliak and Bloom to stay on the same page. Mozeliak doesn’t want to go out a loser; Bloom doesn’t want to inherit a mess.
It would be extremely out of character for either man to allow for anything other than a smooth changeover. But then, much of the last three years have been out of character for the Cardinals, who are in some ways less predictable by the day.
