St Louis Cardinals 2025

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#1,226      
Se Il Illini
Se Il Illini said:
Somebody on another sight tried to tell me that Vince Coleman also started slowly. I looked up both players first year stats, and Scott's stats pale in comparison. Vince Coleman had over 600 at bats in his first year: with I believe 170 hits: and a batting average of around .270 in I believe 151 games. Those stats are from memory. Some could be slightly wrong. Scott batted around .215 in 2025 with far fewer games, at bats, and hits. I did look up who had the most hits for the Cardinals this year, and it was Alex Burleson with 144.
The latter stat in my view reflects the anemic offense that the Cardinals put on the field in 2025.
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Just checked. Coleman's batting average was.267. His career batting average was .264. And he had 636 plate appearances in 151 games.
 
#1,227      
Illwinsagain
Se Il Illini said:
Somebody on another sight tried to tell me that Vince Coleman also started slowly. I looked up both players first year stats, and Scott's stats pale in comparison. Vince Coleman had over 600 at bats in his first year: with I believe 170 hits: and a batting average of around .270 in I believe 151 games. Those stats are from memory. Some could be slightly wrong. Scott batted around .215 in 2025 with far fewer games, at bats, and hits. I did look up who had the most hits for the Cardinals this year, and it was Alex Burleson with 144.
The latter stat in my view reflects the anemic offense that the Cardinals put on the field in 2025.
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It was also a different era. A lot more .300 hitters back then throughout baseball.
 
#1,228      
the juiceman cometh
Illwinsagain said:
It was also a different era. A lot more .300 hitters back then throughout baseball.
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Also, batting average is a bad stat and not a good indicator of anything. OBP is a much better stat, particularly for a lead off guy who is going to not typically be a power guy anyway. A walk is every bit as good as a single.

Coleman's OBP with this rookie season was .320 (which was about league average for the time) and dipped down to .301 his second season (way below league average). You can argue that it still made sense to lead off with Coleman over, say, Tom Herr (OBP .379 in 1985) or Ozzie Smith (OBP .355 in 1985), because of the Coleman's insane # of steals (110!). But I also think people's perceptions of what contributed to winning baseball was just very different back then. For example Coleman made two All-Star games. One in 1988 when he had a bWAR of 0.8, then the following year when he had a bWAR of 1.7. Back then speed was considerations no. 1, 2 and 3 for a leadoff hitter. Nowadays you can have a guy like Kyle Schwarber have more career ABs in the leadoff spot than anywhere else in the order.

To get back to Scott his last season was .305. League average in 2025 was .315. So Scott was below average in getting on base, and he had a worse OBP than Herrera (.373), Donovan (.353), Contreras (.344), Burleson (.343), Nootbaar (.325), and Winn (.310).

I get that he's young and we're not really in it to win anything in 2026 anyway, so the idea is to give him a shot and see if he develops there. But at the same time batting leadoff can also pile on pressure that he's not having at the bottom of the order.
 
#1,229      
MikeTisdale
the juiceman cometh said:
Also, batting average is a bad stat and not a good indicator of anything. OBP is a much better stat, particularly for a lead off guy who is going to not typically be a power guy anyway. A walk is every bit as good as a single.

Coleman's OBP with this rookie season was .320 (which was about league average for the time) and dipped down to .301 his second season (way below league average). You can argue that it still made sense to lead off with Coleman over, say, Tom Herr (OBP .379 in 1985) or Ozzie Smith (OBP .355 in 1985), because of the Coleman's insane # of steals (110!). But I also think people's perceptions of what contributed to winning baseball was just very different back then. For example Coleman made two All-Star games. One in 1988 when he had a bWAR of 0.8, then the following year when he had a bWAR of 1.7. Back then speed was considerations no. 1, 2 and 3 for a leadoff hitter. Nowadays you can have a guy like Kyle Schwarber have more career ABs in the leadoff spot than anywhere else in the order.

To get back to Scott his last season was .305. League average in 2025 was .315. So Scott was below average in getting on base, and he had a worse OBP than Herrera (.373), Donovan (.353), Contreras (.344), Burleson (.343), Nootbaar (.325), and Winn (.310).

I get that he's young and we're not really in it to win anything in 2026 anyway, so the idea is to give him a shot and see if he develops there. But at the same time batting leadoff can also pile on pressure that he's not having at the bottom of the order.
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Yea Victor Scott isn't really a guy you want to put a lot of pressure on offensively. Just stick him 7-9 in the order and give him 500 PAs to develop since the team likely won't be any good. His defense is enough to carry him even if his offense was as poor as it was last year. Same thing they're likely going to do for Walker again this year since they're not trying to compete (and there's been some swing change narrative for him this offseason - I'll believe it when I see it).

I'm assuming they're trading Contreras and Donovan, so just throw your best hitters at the front of the lineup in whatever order because those are the guys you want to get the most PAs and maybe you get lucky and win enough games to be interesting.

The order is probably Noot - Herrera - Burleson - Gorman - Winn and then the rest (man, that's a bad lineup and is going to get destroyed by LH pitchers). Maybe you get lucky and Saggese makes a leap and Wetherholt is as good as advertised from day 1.
 
#1,230      
IlliniFaninHoosierLand
Dan Caesar reporting that Cardinals broadcasts next season will look similarly to what FanDuel Sports Network has done with Blues games. This means less Jim Hayes and more Alexa Datt. Home games will have a host, analyst, reporter setup with road games having a single host/reporter with an analyst. This means Hayes will work only home games as a reporter with Alexa Datt working road games in the host/reporter role. Alexa Datt and Scott Warmann will alternate as hosts for home games.
 
#1,233      
Dee_4_Three_83
Ryllini said:
Without knowing the terms, I like this signing
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Me too! Upside guy to take a flier on. If it works out, great. We have a guy who we can flip to a contender for prospects. Worst case is that he gets injured again and gives us nothing, but even this isn't terrible because we have no aspirations for playoffs anyway. The middle of the road result is that he is just okay and provides us enough innings to get through the year.

The next rotation need is a veteran starter in late January that is durable but not great, but a guy other starters can look to for guidance.

I'm excited to see what trades are coming in the next couple weeks.
 
#1,236      
Dee_4_Three_83
https://redbirdrants.com/cardinals-recent-failures-magnified-by-presence-on-star-s-no-trade-list

I'm not a rocket scientist, but are we really upset about how free agents feel about us right now when we are focused on getting younger and building our team the right way? We aren't contenders, of course, top free agents don't want to be a part of the rebuild! Especially when they are close to the downturn of their career. When we can contend again, we will attract free agents to fill out the roster.
 
#1,237      
Se Il Illini
Dee_4_Three_83 said:
https://redbirdrants.com/cardinals-recent-failures-magnified-by-presence-on-star-s-no-trade-list

I'm not a rocket scientist, but are we really upset about how free agents feel about us right now when we are focused on getting younger and building our team the right way? We aren't contenders, of course, top free agents don't want to be a part of the rebuild! Especially when they are close to the downturn of their career. When we can contend again, we will attract free agents to fill out the roster.
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I admire your optimism when it comes to free agents in the future.
 
#1,238      
pruman91
I hope they acquire enough SP's to keep Pallante @ Memphis.......I really really do
 
#1,239      
IlliniFaninHoosierLand
The official details of the May signing was $12 million in 2026 with a mutual option for 2027 worth $20 million. The mutual option has a $500k buyout, meaning his total in guaranteed money is $12.5 million.
 
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#1,243      
Ryllini
Dobbins could compete for a spot. A money clearing deal. Burly now has a defined role. Interestingly enough, they staff could be better without Miles and Fedde in it. 🤣 I kid, kind of...
 
#1,247      
the juiceman cometh
Se Il Illini said:
I totally agree. Both pitching and the everyday line-up was a mess. Maybe the pitching is going to be improved, but the hitting is still a big questionm mark in my opinion. The rebuild will take some time.
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Yeah, and I'm not actually sure it will be. Essentially we lost Gray and Mikolas this offseason, and in exchange got Dustin May who had negative bWAR last season but obviously has a tantalizing history, some young guys who have been ok in limited innings (Fitts has pitched 65 innings over 2 seasons with mixed results; Dobbins was ok in 61 innings last season) and we're probably promoting one of our best bullpen guys to the rotation (which will help the rotation but obviously will make the bullpen weaker).

I think for our pitching to be markedly better we'd have to rely on May going back to the old May, but even if that happens, what's the point? This lineup is so bad that even a top-10 rotation (which this definitely won't be) doesn't make a difference, and if May shows out, he's gone the next offseason.

This is so very obviously a tear-everything-down-to-the-studs rebuild, and I get why they're doing it but as a fan it's very hard to get excited about. You're right that it will take time. The big question is how much.
 
#1,249      
DReq
the juiceman cometh said:
Yeah, and I'm not actually sure it will be. Essentially we lost Gray and Mikolas this offseason, and in exchange got Dustin May who had negative bWAR last season but obviously has a tantalizing history, some young guys who have been ok in limited innings (Fitts has pitched 65 innings over 2 seasons with mixed results; Dobbins was ok in 61 innings last season) and we're probably promoting one of our best bullpen guys to the rotation (which will help the rotation but obviously will make the bullpen weaker).

I think for our pitching to be markedly better we'd have to rely on May going back to the old May, but even if that happens, what's the point? This lineup is so bad that even a top-10 rotation (which this definitely won't be) doesn't make a difference, and if May shows out, he's gone the next offseason.

This is so very obviously a tear-everything-down-to-the-studs rebuild, and I get why they're doing it but as a fan it's very hard to get excited about. You're right that it will take time. The big question is how much.
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The upside is that tickets will be cheap and readily available again this year.
 
#1,250      
the juiceman cometh
DReq said:
The upside is that tickets will be cheap and readily available again this year.
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When I was a kid, back in like '93-'95, they used to give away tickets all over the place. I got to go to a bunch of games for free because I got tickets through my library's summer reading program. Guess we're going back to those days. At least those teams had guys like Ray Lankford, Brian Jordan, and (old) Ozzie Smith!
 
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