The finishing touches are being put on to the St. Louis Cardinals season and despite another season missing the playoffs, the overall year has to be seen as a success. With the season being a fact-finding mission for the roster, there are very few remaining questions on the big league squad while the minor league teams cap their seasons with championship runs.
With the experts setting preseason win totals around 68.5 coming into the year, fans were anticipating one of the most painfully long years
in recent St. Louis memory. However, the Cardinals steamrolled past that total and while recency bias has really showed how bad things could have been all season, the 2026 season found a way to capture my attention for the entirety of a lost year. As things now stand, there is more clarity and a feeling of optimism that has not surrounded Busch Stadium for a handful of years.
The Cardinals know their needs for 2027 and beyond
As we look back on yet another losing season, the feelings around the club were different. From JJ Wetherholt debuting, Tarps Off, Burly and Walker doing there thing and plenty of other things in between, this team kept me interested far longer than I anticipated. I was honored to be a guest on Meet Me at Musial with friend of the site Daniel Shoptaw (C70) and we agreed that the team got answers nearly everywhere on the diamond, even if some of those answers were not the ones they wanted. I wanted to take the time to ignore these past two weeks and talk about what went right during another rollercoaster season.
1. The lineup foundation
Pretty much from game one, we can look back and see that the Cardinals have some major answers at big spots in the lineup. JJ Wetherholt has spent all but five plate appearances sitting in the leadoff spot, and while the next three spots changed until finally setting on a setup, Ivan Herrera, Alec Burleson, and Jordan Walker can be written with ink into the 2-4 spots next season. On Musial, of these three I mentioned that Herrera’s long-term future is the most in question, but that is not a bridge they need to cross this offseason. I believe he is the starting DH on Opening Day next year and should even get the full season to prove his downturn was due to being run down behind the plate.
Between Burleson and Walker, I do not think it is out of pocket to say I have more confidence in Burly’s career year being a platform season to further greatness than Walker’s. The lefty put together a spectacular season from start to finish and did not have a month with an OPS below .729 while staying totally healthy and playing a very nice first base. Burly’s career-best season is near what I said at the beginning of the year that he is going to be that guy you forget about putting together a handful of 30 homer, 100 RBI seasons at the wrong time for Cardinals baseball.
For Walker, he has been able to sustain his newfound success for an entire season and seemed to always correct his plate discipline right before things went off the rails again. Even as he was breaking out, there was skepticism to how much we should believe in him as a 20% league-average player. Walker is going to end the season was the Cardinals’ team leader in homers, stolen bases, and slugging percentage while finishing right behind Burly in average, RBIs, and overall OPS. The strikeout “fix” is for real and we are just going to have to live with him going down on strikes 25% of the time and looking terrible doing it at times. Being just 24, Walker had the breakout season that could eventually leapfrog him past Burleson as the contract situation gets messier for the middle of the order hitters.
The rest of the order had some glimpses of future, but I am 100% in on Leo Bernal settling in near the top half and while less bullish on the long-term future of Joshua Baez, he will provide enough offensive protection for the first four hitters. Masyn Winn needs a fully healthy season to prove his consistency, but there is no need to rush him out of the lineup. If all goes to plan, Winn could be a highly effective eight or nine hitter but has been asked to do more than that in his career thus far. Nathan Church is the starting center fielder until he is pressed out of the role and that might not come in 2027. Third base is anyone’s to take and Thomas Saggese is doing his best to be at the top of the pecking order when Spring Training arrives.
Overall, the offense was not the problem in 2026 and while expecting the entire group to remain healthy and mirror their success from this year are high expectations, little needs to be done in the lineup heading into next year.
2. Team Health
For better or worse, the Cardinals had a stellar bill of health with the arms on their major league roster yet again. This year, thankfully, the health spread to guys like Kyle Leahy and Andre Pallante rather than Erick Fedde and Miles Mikolas and the current group took full advantage of a full season. The end of the season for Leahy has been a disappointing taper off in order to get him ready for 175+ innings next year, and Pallante used the extended leash to put up a career-best season and a short IL stay.
Michael McGreevy has done exactly what is expected from him from a stuff perspective and the trio seems to be an easy lock into the 2027 rotation. The top and bottom slots in those five are up for debate and will probably not get an answer any time soon, but we did find out who is not that solution. Matthew Liberatore got another full season as a starter, so the team is not allowed to point to Libby needing a healthy season to prove his value. It may be possible that he is penciled into the rotation on a matter of seniority, but Quinn Mathews and Cooper Hjerpe will be pushing him from day one.
Because of the overall pitching health, the Cardinals know what they have with may of their guys. While it was disappointing to see Richard Fitts and Hunter Dobbins go down with injuries alongside Ixan Henderson, there is enough talent stocked at the top of the minors that stayed healthy and can figure into their remaining plans. That spot may end up being the bullpen that Chaim Bloom was unwilling to supplement, so if any of the high-octane prospects miss out of the starting rotation, they can still figure into the big league club and help to update one of the worst reliever corps in the entire league.
To no surprise, the guys who played everyday got a little more nicked up than the starters, but none of them were long-term, career-altering stays on the IL. Masyn Winn does need to find a way to keep himself healthy for 140+ games so he and JJ Weterholt can truly be the middle infield duo of the future. Wetherholt had his own mismanaged wrist injury as a rookie, but that was attributed to playing more baseball than he has in his life so no need to look too far into that yet. The overall health was still there, which allowed us to see that Nolan Gorman and Victor Scott II are not the future at third and center.
Whether it is through prescribed methods from Chris Conroy and Co. or just luck, the Cardinals bill of health has been solid at the big league level. The injuries to the pitching staff had mounted up among the prospect group, which led me to wonder if the newfound focus on stuff and velocity is the culprit since the major league group is still led by more traditional pitch-to-contact arms.
3. Prospect Debuts
There were definitely more positives beyond these three, so feel free to share yours in the comments to keep the conversation going. Honorable mentions for me before finishing the list were The Trade Deadline and Upper Minors Success
In a way to combine those two ideas, I decided to go with the debuts of the Cardinals well-regarded prospects as my final choice for the list. What Bloom was able to do at the deadline set the team up for guys to get their chances in the bigs, but what we saw from these prospects is also a major shout to the player development staff.
Joshua Baez obviously had one of the great debuts in major league history, but his overall progression to get here was also impressive. He will probably be the starting left fielder and five-hole hitter on the 2027 Cardinals and he will get as much run as possible there. The Cardinals had to be a little cautious with his usage this year, which saw him platoon a tad before going down with an oblique injury, but those restrictions will not be in place next season. The power is there, but how much the swing-and-miss interrupts his potential will be the biggest story for him next year.
JJ Wetherholt and Leo Bernal have been comfortable and consistent in their debut seasons and there is no reason to see them outside of their spots next year. Wetherholt was the best defensive second baseman in the game while showing as a perfect lead off hitter for the boppers behind him. He should see a great second year jump after what was a successful rookie year. In Bernal’s case, he may be playing his way into a top-five favorite for 2027 Rookie of the Year. The switch-hitter has not been overmatched at the plate and while he has a few errors already, he won two minor league awards for his catching so I have faith he will be okay back there. His progression makes the catching situation one to monitor again. Jimmy Crooks and Pedro Pages will likely be dangled on the market, while Rainiel Rodriguez will probably add a glove or two to his practice bag.
On the pitching side, Quinn Mathews and Cooper Hjerpe have both shown high-quality major league stuff. They have also shown the issues they will have to iron out going into their first full seasons in the bigs. Both can be seen as rotation candidates to slot in among the right-handers, but they will have plenty to compete with in the spring. Mathews has been trusted to work deeper into games as the year progressed while Hjerpe is coming back from injury, so the former may have the inside track on a spot. What happens with Liberatore will also give some look into the future, because Hjerpe has long been projected to settle in as a reliever with some starting potential.
Even as the Cardinals close out another season under .500, the 2026 season was a step forward from the previous two seasons. The vibes are different in the clubhouse and the front office has the foundation for which to build the next contender. The team’s overall success this year allows Bloom to allocate resources to a couple spots, rather than having to seek answers at a handful of positions. Outside of CBA negotiations, the 2026 offseason would be one of the most interesting for me to see if Bloom opens the pocketbook or gets aggressive on the trade market.
Thanks as always!
