The Cardinals were officially eliminated from the postseason yesterday. They were effectively eliminated before that, although there was always a chance. A one in a million chance, but a chance. They did not control their own destiny and needed help from other teams. A lot of help. If you include tomorrow’s games, they needed the flip of a coin that baseball games tend to be to go their way roughly 13 or 14 times out of 15 potential outcomes. They needed the Reds, Mets, and Diamondbacks to lose tomorrow –
and that was the easy part.
Having said all that, I still would have enjoyed the delusion a bit longer. I would have enjoyed the Cardinals forcing the issue instead of a loss ending things. They needed the Wednesday games to go their way – and they did. One small problem. The Cardinals lost. Kind of the most important part of the whole thing. The Cardinals did knock out the Giants in the process, which is not a small bright side for me. Again, the odds were extremely low the Cardinals would make the playoffs even if they won out.
I can’t think of many more appropriate ways for the Cardinals playoff chances to be dashed than how it was dashed last night. I don’t want to pick on the young man, but if you didn’t watch the game – and it did start late being a West Coast game – the Cardinals were tied 2-2 when an innocent enough looking fly ball fell out of Jordan Walker’s glove. That error led to a run directly. Later in the 9th, Pedro Pages started a rally with a single that instantly killed by a Walker double play ball when he chased a pitch not particularly close to being a strike. It was just rubbing salt on the wound when Jose Fermin attempted to bunt for a hit for the last out.
Truth be told, despite the narrative entering the season, the Cardinals had the potential to be a playoff team this year. They needed a few things to break their way and they mostly didn’t. 60 percent of the pitching staff was replacement level and there was little reason to think they would be that bad. Sonny Gray underperformed his peripherals by a lot for the second straight season. Father Time continued to grip tightly onto Nolan Arenado.
But really my impression of the season was that it depended on Walker and Gorman breaking out, so to speak. If they delivered on their potential, the outlook of the team would be vastly different. To say they didn’t break out would be an understatement despite there being parts of the season where it looked like Gorman turned a corner. But we have three games left and he’s below replacement. Walker was worse than that. The Cardinals should have been far away from the Wild Card, but the rest of the NL didn’t seem interested in making the playoffs either.
I do not agree with the fans who think the Cardinals should just move on from Jordan Walker however. The reason is quite simple: there is no cost but a 40 man spot to putting him in AAA for a season. He honestly needs to master AAA. He has not done so yet. He has been a below average hitter each season he’s spent some time in AAA. His defense might get a little bit better (which despite yesterday, his defense did improve) and I hope his offense gets a lot better. Maybe if he plays well enough, he’ll find himself back in the big leagues. If he is still a below average hitter in AAA despite playing there all year, well that’s a discussion for a year from now. Let’s focus on one thing at a time. The decision is simple: he’s in AAA for 2026. I don’t care how well he does in spring training, this needs to be the case.
I’m honestly not sure what to do with Gorman though. I’ve certainly gotten to the point where I don’t care if the Cardinals move on though. Gorman has two big flaws that I’m really just not sure how to turn into a good player, or at least a player worth worrying about losing. He simply doesn’t make contact enough. He has a career 33.8 K%. I’m not strikeout-phobic, but it’s very hard to be a good hitter when you strike out this much. He also isn’t a good defender and you really have to squint to think there’s an average defender in there.
I don’t necessarily mind trading Nolan Arenado and rolling with Gorman in 2026 at 3B though. Just because it doesn’t hurt to be sure. There’s no platooning him though. Gorman is in that weird space where him having no splits (career wRC+ against RHP: 100; against LHP: 100) is actually a negative, not a positive. It’d be so much easier if he was actually bad against LHP with the same career stats. Only play him against RHP, his performance will improve. Left-handed pitching does not seem to be his weakness, or at least it hasn’t in his career yet.
But really, the reason I’m now okay with moving on from Gorman is simply that I think the version of him who pans out will still look a lot like Tyler O’Neill. Maybe a great season here or there, a lot of underwhelming ones though. That tends to be what happens when you strike out this much. And Gorman doesn’t really have anything to fall back on if his offense fails him. Plus, even if they trade Arenado, which they should do if they can, there are other players who can play at 3B. The potential is not the same, but honestly even Jose Fermin has a better case for playing time than Gorman at this point.
The story of 2025 was, at least in my eyes, the story of Gorman and Walker. And both of them having the seasons they had makes it not a surprise they failed to make the playoffs.
But I don’t want to leave this post with just negative thoughts despite the initial inspiration for writing it. There were definitely positives to be gleaned from the 2025 season. It’s not like we learned nothing, which is something I’ve seen some people claim before. We learned we can count on two young starters for 2026, one of whom is completely unexpected. Matthew Liberatore wasn’t on anyone’s radar to start in 2025 and while his 2nd half was shaky, he’s one good start away from being a 2 win starter in 30 starts. Who wouldn’t have taken that prior to this season? Hopefully, we see more of the 1st half version next year and that him adjusting to the rigors of a long MLB season caused a little fatigue.
And of course Michael McGreevy, who looks like we got the 24-year-old version of Miles Mikolas and I do mean that as a compliment. I know there’s a lot of negative feelings about Mikolas, but a lot of it has to do with the fact that he is 37-years-old. He was a good innings-eater before that. If the Cardinals so choose, Liberatore, McGreevy, and Sonny Gray is really not a bad starting point for a rotation. A #2 starter would go a long way towards making it look like a pretty good rotation actually.
Offensively, there were also positives. Ivan Herrera is a bonfaide masher. He mashed last year too, but having another 450 PAs where he actually improves upon last season is huge. The underlying metrics supported it, but he had a .370 BABIP so I was a little skeptical he could maintain his performance. Well he improved it and his BABIP is .312. Also kind of a masher? Alec Burleson. He is working very hard on only swinging at pitches he can destroy, which is tricky because I’ve seen him destroy pitches well out of the strike zone. These two are not a bad starting point for a good lineup. Like the pitching staff, you need more, but there’s something to work with here.
Masyn Winn and Victor Scott providing capital E Elite defense were also things we learned. And I know there’s a lot of negative feelings about Scott’s offense and I understand why, but he made HUUUGE strides from last season with the bat. Last year, he was worse than Pete Kozma. This year, honestly with his speed and defense, his offense is enough. Hopefully he still improves. I can get into healthy debates about if Scott’s offense is enough, but no such debate needed for Winn. Hopefully, his offense will take a step forward, but even if it doesn’t, he’s a core piece.
Lastly, I want to point out the bullpen. Usually when you trade your three best relievers – and yeah I don’t actually know if they were the three best, but it works better for the story so go with me – the bullpen will get worse. And contrary to what you may think, it didn’t get better, but it barely took a step back. Matt Svanson, Riley O’Brien, and Kyle Leahy are, say it with me, not a bad starting place for a bullpen. Yes I know, Leahy might start, but it is a much safer assumption to think he’ll stick in the bullpen – I don’t even know if there’s a player like Leahy who converted back to starter at 29 whose last time starting was in AA, where he was bad.
My overall point is that the team is not poorly positioned. Each element of the team has good building blocks. Building blocks who will soon be joined by JJ Wetherholt, Quinn Mathews, Liam Doyle, and hopefully Joshua Baez. Those are the big names, there are smaller names too like Ixan Henderson, Brycen Mautz, Nathan Church, Jimmy Crooks, maybe even Blaze Jordan. We will see a good portion of this group next year, at some point, if not all of them. Assuming they aren’t traded of course, which I imagine if they are, we’re getting more MLB help.
It’s all about how you look at things. Did you think the Cardinals were going to make the playoffs before the season started? Probably not. The Cardinals win total ultimately ended up where we expected, in a different way than expected, as baseball tends to do. If you told me the Cardinals would win between 78-81 games, I wouldn’t have expected to enjoy this season as much as I actually did. Most of the season, the Cardinals were pretty fun to watch actually. The general pessimism of the team obscures that, but I mostly had a good time following the Cardinals. Like I probably feel better about having spent my time watching the Cardinals than, say, Tigers or Mets fans right now. It’s all about perspective.
I know we’re all worried about the draft pick, but we’re facing the Cubs this weekend, but I can’t help but to root for a sweep. Though realizing they are all day games makes me realize I probably watch my last Cardinal game already. If I’m lucky, I’ll catch the tail end of Friday and Sundays games and I’ll definitely watch whatever I can of Sunday’s game. Hopefully, the Cardinals will give me reason to want to tune in when I look at the boxscore. When you next read my words, the season will be over, and we will all be very surprised how quickly we miss watching Cardinals baseball everyday.
