With the unfortunate news of the Cardinals pretty much getting a worst case scenario lottery draw in the draft at 13th overall pick, I will sidestep that news for now and let someone else handle that topic. My take is that you never know, just reminds me of how Pujols was picked in the 13th round and overall it’s a bit cloudy knowing whether or not our 13th pick in 2026 will be any good. We missed out on the cream of the cream of the crop, but I’m still super stoked about Wetherholt and Doyle. Ho-hum.
So my idea this week was to pore over which hitters really made the pitchers work in 2025. I am looking to find which hitters were the most pesky and annoying, day after day, grinding down and frustrating pitchers everywhere. First I will take a look at Cardinals hitters, then compare them to the best.
This data is from baseball savant.
Lars Nootbaar might surprise you as the Cardinal hitter who saw the most pitches from pitchers in 2025. This just illustrates his approach to hitting, considering he lost playing time. Lars saw 2,359 pitches in 2025. He fouled off 338 pitches, while seeing 936 balls and 1,423 strikes. I’m not sure how many of the foul balls would be considered either a strike or a ball, but you get an idea of what he does. And if Lars did one thing right on offense in 2025, he made the pitchers work with his plate discipline. He hit foul balls on about 1 in 7 pitches. Lastly, so we can compare other players, about 60% of the pitches Lars saw were strikes. I might add, Noot is still only 27.
Another Cardinal that was good in this respect was Masyn Winn, and this does not surprise me because I could’ve sworn he really worked the count a lot. Nootbaar was the sleeper, but Winn was obvious to me, in that he was a pesky hitter last season. Winn saw 2,256 pitches in 2025, 1,454 of which were strikes and 802 were balls. 64% of pitches to Winn were strikes, so he got challenged a little bit more, which makes sense. 422 of these pitches were fouled off by Winn! He hit a foul ball every 5.35 pitches.
Willson Contreras of course is not an easy out for pitchers. Contreras saw 2,160 total pitches, 1,385 of which were strikes, with 775 total balls, while hitting 392 foul balls. 64% were strikes, so he did get challenged more than one might think. He fouled off the pitch once every 5.5 pitches.
And guess who’s next? Yup, it’s Brendan Donovan, another annoying hitter for pitchers to deal with! Donovan saw 1,923 pitches, 1,218 of which were strikes, and 705 total balls. 63% of that total were strikes, while 323 were fouled off, meaning that he hit a foul ball 1 in 6 times.
Rounding out our top 5 is arguably the Cardinals best hitter: Ivan Herrera. Herrera saw 1,809 pitches in 2025, 1,123 of which were strikes, 686 were balls, while fouling off 316 pitches; 62% were strikes. One in 5.73 pitches were fouled off.
Honorable mention goes out to Victor Scott II who saw 1,703 pitches, 1,058 of which were strikes, 645 were balls. 62% were strikes. Victor fouled off 280 pitches, about 1 in every 6 pitches. Maybe there’s something to this guy after all, hitting-wise. He will need to improve a lot, but I’m hoping he will still be a starting player.
So the purpose of this is just to look at hitters a little differently, showing an aspect of the game that usually gets overlooked because of more important aspects of the game. Winn might be a little hacktastic but he’s fun to watch bat at least. Hopefully his hitting will improve too.
How do the Cardinals stack up? 65 MLB players saw more pitches than the Cardinals best at this, Lars Nootbaar. Matt Olson was tops in making pitchers work and in day to day hitting. He saw 3,166 pitches! 1,243 more than Brendan Donovan. The next closest to Olson was Devers, who saw over 100 less pitches.
Matt Olson saw 60.4% strikes. He fouled off a pitch one in 5.2 pitches. So Masyn Winn was the closest to the best in MLB in this particular area.
I have run out of time but I h0pe this was at least somewhat interesting to look at and I am eager to hear your input on this. Thanks for reading!
