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Interesting that JJ looks up to Scott II as a fellow former U. of West Virginia player because Scott II won the “Mr. Mountaineer” award (given to the top athlete in all sports) 3 years in a row. Only Mountaineer athlete to ever do that. He thinks Scott II will work hard for hitting excellence to go with his defense and speed. Which leads to the question of who will show the most improvement at the plate this season. We pretty much know that Burly, Herrera, Donovan, and JJ will hit. But to have a decent season, we need for several of Winn, Scott II, Walker, and Gorman to up their offensive game. Who do you think? My money is on Winn and Scott II.
I’ll take Pages to up his offensive game. When Pedro had a hot 2nd half month last season, I watched some swings to see which pitches he was picking on. Surprisingly, he was lacing high and tight to RF. Caught my eye. Is there more?
I take Winn and Scott. They both just need to change their approach to achieve better productivity. Walker and Gorman are a little more complicated.
I have Donovan, Pages, and Walker being the biggest offensive improvers from last season. JJ hit the reasons why with Pages. Walker almost has to improve quite a bit because he was so awful and he is far better than he showed. That still may not be enough for him to keep his full-time job though. Winn probably sees some improvement too, but not quite as much as these top 3. Nootbaar should see a small bump as well, but I really don’t know how his surgery will affect him. I don’t have much faith in Scott or Gorman improving much. Just hope. Burleson & Herrera probably maxed out last season so I’m thinking they hold steady or drop just a touch.
If I have to pick one, I’ll go with Donovan (if he’s still around). I’m betting on a nearly 100 point improvement in his OPS from last season. Walker shouldn’t be far behind that. But to be a starter, he needs to have a 150 point improvement.
I would imagine that Walker will have the biggest OPS improvement on the team. Like others have said, it almost has to happen since his 2025 was so bad. I think he’ll have at least one good year during his pre-arb/arb years. This would be a good one for him to do it, for his sake. But even if he gets back to average with the bat, that’s a big jump. Otherwise I’ll say that Nootbaar has a modest jump in OPS (say 50 points) and Scott is in the similar range. Pages and Winn may be a little better (20ish points). I think Burleson and Herrera are due to regress just a little (20ish), and Gorman, Donovan, Saggese, and Church are not meaningfully better or worse than last year. Unfortunately, removing Contreras and to some degree Arenado (for the defense) means the hitting will be about the same as last year and the defense a notch worse. Add in a pitching staff that is a meaningful downgrade (due to Gray and the impending trade of Romero along with likey regression amongst some of the better performers) and it’s a little bleak for this year. But hopefully we see bigger improvements than I project.
I just hope we get more production from the four corners, whomever it is. We need to also hope that none of them get worse. That can happen even with young players. We have seen it often enough.
I guess I look at the best overall athletes as far as potential to improve. As well as the flexibility to implement corrections to the swing – regarding judgement, pitch reading, and pitch selection. That’s my logic FWIW in choosing
Winn and Scott II as the most likely to improve. Gorman is a sucker for the high 4 seam and Walker is caught in-between a
power swing and a contact swing.Herrera, Nootbaar and Gorman. If only. If wee get 3-4 guys to have over-achieving seasons and a stater or two to step up large….. what are we talking…. third place? If the division regresses… second place?
It’s interesting to look at the ML career WHIPs of the starters who are vying for a rotation spot.
McGreevy – 1.163
May – 1.201
Dobbins – 1.279
Fitts – 1.294
Liberatore – 1.371
Pallante – 1.417Average is about 1.23. That’s basically 3 of the 6. One is above average. 2 are below. One of those is quite a bit below. What’s interesting there BCran? Looks very average to just slightly below maybe which is pretty much the expectation from what we have.
Baseball Reference has the WHIP average for all major league pitchers at 1.29. The top four guys I listed fall at or under that. I think the 5th starter’s spot is up for grabs between Liberatore, Pallante, Leahy, and Mathews.
Ok. I see. I look at the rotation as very average so the whip numbers aren’t surprising at all to me. I do realize some others think we are terrible now because we lost Gray. But Gray had a 4.28 ERA last season and a 1.23 WHIP. The guys we have are likely to be able to replace that production fine and improve upon Mikolas and Fedde.
In the interest of genuine simplicity, the only improvement that really counts is the ability to hang more than 78 W’s up on the board. And in the interest of optimism, I’d say 79 W’s would be a tremendous improvement.
I think the pitching is going to be fine. But the offense needs that RH hitting outfielder. Unless they plan to move Herrera to LF.
I think Scott will show marked improvement on offense. I also think Donovan will have his career year, but now that will be in the Pacific Northwest. I have always liked the Mariners so I hope he goes crazy for them and they get their first pennant.
The question now becomes, who will assume the leadership role on our club? Winn maybe?
Nootbaar would be my choice for the most improvement although that is more bouncing back as he had a bad year last year and if he can play like he did in 22, 23 he is probably one of the better hitters on the team.
For a non-bounceback and just more improving, I will go with Winn but more with that improvement being him getting to about a 110 wRC+
Nootbaar is a good candidate. He should be better than he has shown, but a big issue is health. He has trouble staying close to 100% over the course of a season.
He is a good one to assume our leadership role as well, but again he has to be on the active roster and not spend weeks on end on the IL.
Nootbaar has 2000 MLB plate appearances. At this point, don’t you think he is what he is going to be?
Nootbaar has 2000 MLB plate appearances. At this point, don’t you think he is what he is going to be?
Gorman has only 300 fewer PAs than Nootbaar, but there are plenty who think he can improve.
So, two wrongs make a right? 😉
Seriously though, Nootbaar’s OPS+ has dropped over each of the last three years to the point he was below MLB average in 2025, which was also his most healthy season yet. There is nothing I can see in his trends that suggest significant improvement is just ahead. But, I am open to the opposite case – as long as there is more behind it than hope.
There is no reason the think Gorman, Walker, Scott and Nootbar will improve as hitters. They are all four busts, it only remains for the Cardinals front office to admit it and start trading or DFAing them. Scott is exceptional on defense and Nootbar is adequate but none of them can hit a lick. There are two hitters who can produce. That leaves seven who are substandard to bad. Third place? I’m laughing head off.
Noot crashed vs lefties last season and usually doesn’t. Vs righties he lost .030 pts off his career ops avg. Bad combo.
His previous seasons he put up 3.5bwar every 601 PA’s. Down year in 25′ but disagree with “trend”.
I discount Noot because of his health issues. Plus the fact that he really wasn’t a highly rated prospect coming through the system.
That Nootbaar wasn’t a highly rated prospect is true. But that is certainly not a reason to expect him to improve. One could easily argue he has already over-exceeded expectations.
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