Cardinals exit spring with more doubt than clarity. Here are some key questions
It’s difficult to describe the perfect spring training, in large part because vanishingly few teams achieve what seems like its theoretically perfect form.
A team which enters spring with questions to answer and exits with all of those answers in hand is a team which can be fairly said to be set up in great shape for the coming season, and the goal of team brass should always be to whittle down those open questions as specifically as possible.
This was not a spring which the St. Louis Cardinals answered with too many immediately pressing inquiries, but there were a few. Unfortunately, despite best efforts, some of the most important remain hanging with a week to go until opening day.
Perhaps the questions are less unanswered than they are answered in the negative, but even so, that will leave a team pushing to get to the answer it desires.
This is a sampling of those questions and a look at how the answers could impact this season and those to come.
Can Jordan Walker grow into the hitter his tools suggest he can be?
When Chen-Wei Lin, a 24-year-old who didn’t pitch particularly well at High-A last season, carved up Walker in a live batting practice session in the middle of February, it could be chalked up to the traditional time curve of pitchers being ahead of hitters.
When Dustin May did the same approximately ten days later, a few more eyebrows were raised, but May is on the comeback trail, and he should be given credit for his stuff.
When Walker is held out of games with ten days to go in camp so he can reset some of his processes inside the team’s new hitting lab, alarm bells should be sounding.
He returned to the lineup Tuesday after a weekend behind closed doors and went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, dipping his spring OPS down below .400.
He had more than twice as many strikeouts (13) as hits (6) in his first 36 spring plate appearances. All six of those hits were singles, and over that span, he chalked up just two walks.
The Cardinals have long said that they believe Walker doesn’t have enough space to grow at Triple-A. By their reckoning, a lack of command and control in the upper minors won’t allow him work through the down-and-away quadrant of the strike zone which has totally deflated his offensive profile.
They are committed to giving him playing time in the majors to rectify the situation, but that time is not infinite. Perhaps it will turn once the season begins. The evidence in favor of that outcome is beginning to be scant.
Can Iván Herrera hold up behind the plate?
Playing through a litany of soft tissue injuries last year, the Cardinals opted not to put Herrera back behind the plate after a hamstring strain on June 19. That, in conjunction with an April knee strain that cost him a month, left him as a productive designated hitter with rare outfield cameos, but the bat played, and the production quieted concerns.
With a commitment to give him a shot to display what good health could do (he had winter surgery to remove loose bodies from his throwing elbow), the Cardinals instead slow played Herrera into game action, and then pulled him back immediately when soreness crept into his knee.
They have said all the right things about allowing him every opportunity to catch, and it’s clear that his strong offensive profile absolutely jumps off the page as a catcher. There’s no doubt of the wisdom in trying to make it work.
Their actions, though, speak to something else. Pedro Pagés is the starting catcher. Yohel Pozo is the backup. Herrera is somewhere on the fringes, looking for the right time and the right place and the right level of comfort. Perhaps they were planning to give him a real shot and physical considerations simply intervened.
Perhaps the goal was to placate him and allow him to land softly in a different position. He will certainly catch in regular season games; whether it’s enough to genuinely describe him as a catcher is very much unknown.
Is a young and hungry clubhouse prepared to hold together?
There is a line of thinking which pushes back against the broad assumption that the Cardinals will struggle to post a respectable record in 2026. With Erick Fedde and Miles Mikolas out of the starting rotation and Sonny Gray turning in worse topline numbers than his skill level would imply, the argument is more or less that their replacements will have to be better, and thus the team could even improve from its 77 wins.
The Cardinals, though, had only one player reach even 20 homers last season, and Willson Contreras is now a Red Sock. Nolan Arenado (sixth, 12) and Brendan Donovan (eighth, 10) are also gone, and Lars Nootbaar (fifth, 13) is yet to be photographed wearing cleats or running at full speed while supporting his own weight.
Their replacements are all internal plus Nelson Velázquez, who will get every chance to add to the total, but would be tough to rely upon. A team which already hit for practically no power drained its power bats away, and getting internal improvements from every necessary player (see Walker above) is a tall order.
That mediocre starting pitching staff from last season also enjoyed literally unprecedented good health. It will not repeat in 2026; that’s simply how luck and distribution work.
There is certainly more depth at the upper levels of the organization than has existed in the last few years, and it will be tested. Is the future enough to sustain players fighting for their place in it when the months get long and the standings get daunting?
The Cardinals, refusing to concede pending losses, are willing to cross that bridge when it arrives. It is visible on the horizon.