On Friday morning Dan Szymborski released the long-awaited Cardinals 2026 ZiPS projections and gave us all a short break from refreshing MLB Trade Rumors to see the latest on Brendan Donovan. ZiPS is the gold standard for publicly available projection systems and has been continuously refined to improve accuracy since Szymborski originally developed it in the early 2000s. If you haven’t yet, make sure to check out the full set of projections.
The first sneak peek was originally tweeted out on Thursday.
At first glance this looks better than expected! It is important to note that the graphic above is based on the ZiPS projected rate stats, but the playing time allocation is based on the FanGraphs Depth Chart page, so the WAR totals in the graphic are not meant to line up with the ZiPS projection tables in the article. This also means that we cannot just add up the WAR totals to get a projected win total. The team projections will come out closer to the start of the season and are based on millions of simulations that account for much more variability and nuance than midpoint projections. With that lengthy caveat out of the way, I do think it is still worthwhile to see how the team’s projections stack up with the projections going into last year as well as the actual results in 2025.
Pitching
The Cardinals rotation was sneakily horrible last year thanks to the 250 innings given to Miles Mikolas and Erick Fedde, so even with the loss of Sonny Gray, the group as a whole won’t have to do much to improve. Despite lacking a true standout, ZiPS sees enough depth to piece together a reasonable staff. While it may be deep, the rotation is also lacking upside. Dustin May is the only starting pitcher expected to open in the rotation with a projected strikeout rate over 20%. The Cardinals bullpen performed exceptionally well in 2025, so there is a lot of regression baked into the 2026 outlook. Getting a few breakout performances and/or starters moving to the pen and seeing their stuff play up will be a huge factor in the team’s 2026 storyline. Overall, I didn’t see too many surprises in the projections, but a few that stood out to me were:
Hunter Dobbins is given a projection a little too close to Aaron Wilkerson for my liking. He will probably always be a pitch to contact guy, but he is going to need to strike out more than 15.8% of batters to make much of an impact.
Michael McGreevy projects as the staff ace as the only starting pitcher with an ERA+ greater than 100 and is given a 20% chance of putting up a 3+ WAR season.
JoJo Romero is projected for almost half the bullpen WAR at 0.9. Hopefully some general manager saw the ZiPS release and decided to increase the prospect value they are willing to offer…
Hitters
On the position player side of things, you can see the hole at first base left by the Willson Contreras departure. The rest of the infield projects slightly better than last year’s projections and results. One thing to note here is that the Depth Charts page is only giving Wetherholt 371 plate appearances, so there is some upside there if he performs in line with his ZiPS projections and earns a full season’s worth of plate appearances. The outfield was projected to be terrible going into last season and was able to meaningfully underperform even from that baseline. Nootbaar and Scott get solid projections in left and center field. Walker is projected for 518 plate appearances, which surely will not happen if he struggles as much as last year.
Looking a bit deeper at the individual player projections, Donovan, Nootbaar, Winn, and Burleson project about as expected. Winn’s offense backing up a bit in 2025 hurt his outlook, but that is made up for by his improved defensive projection. His 80th percentile outcome of a 4.5 WAR season seems a little light given that he was on track to eclipse that for most of last year before fading late while dealing with the knee injury.
While the pitching projections didn’t offer many surprises, there were a bunch of position player projections that jumped out to me.
JJ Wetherholt is projected for 2.9 WAR with a 100 OPS+ and above-average defense. While not flashy, this is an incredibly positive projection for a player with one full minor league season under his belt. ZiPS incorporates exit velocity data into the model, so it is good to see that Wetherholt was not knocked too much for his average performance on those metrics.
Ivan Herrera is projected for a 125 OPS+. Going into last season he was projected at 103, so it is good to see that the computer believes in his offensive breakout. The model does incorporate injury data, but I am assuming it is not aware of the saga around Herrera’s arm problems and his impassioned pursuit of the starting catcher role. If he is able to catch 80-100 games, I think he would easily surpass his 80th percentile WAR projection of 3.5.
Jordan Walker maybe shouldn’t be classified as a surprise, but you still hate to see a below replacement projection. The Cardinals still seem to believe in his upside and I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt as they try to sort through Walker’s issues.
Nolan Gorman projecting for 1.9 WAR and above-average defense was one of the biggest surprises for me. It will be interesting to see how much leeway he is given early in the year.
Jimmy Crooks is given a 2 WAR projection with an 89 OPS+. This was similar to the projection he received going into 2025. It is good to see that the computer still believes in him after a relatively lackluster AAA performance.
Nathan Church didn’t convince the computer that his 2025 breakout was for real, as he still projects below average offensively and defensively.
Bryan Torres has a steadily growing fan club and can now count ZiPS among his admirers with a 105 OPS+. His -8 defensive rating hurts his overall value projection and will be something to keep an eye on if he breaks camp with the Cardinals.
Finally, a few prospects that don’t project to open in St. Louis but that had encouraging projections were:
Joshua Baez getting a 94 OPS+ projection is super exciting. I was worried the computer would hold his high strikeout rate in the lower minors against him. He is projected for a 29% strikeout rate, so it is still a risky profile, but it also means there is more upside if he keeps the swing and miss in check as he moves up.
Deniel Ortiz was one of the breakout offensive prospects of the 2025 season. A projected OPS+ of 81 is incredibly solid for a player who has not yet reached Double-A. It is good to see ZiPS is not overly concerned with his high strikeout rate.
Leonardo Bernal continues to get love with a league average WAR projection. It is hard to see him getting much time this year, but he is still moving in the right direction.
All things considered, I am encouraged by where the projections landed. These aren’t the Cardinals from the last several decades that pump out 88+ win projections, but they still have the underlying attribute of depth that made those teams successful. Szymborski himself mentioned that this looks like a .500 team, which would surpass most fans’ expectations. I do think in all the talk of the rebuild, some fans are overlooking the importance of winning games in 2026. The Cardinals have a good farm system, but it is not the kind of system that can take a true-talent 70 win team and turn it into a World Series contender in a couple of years. If the 2026 team can meet or exceed the ZiPS expectations, the Cardinals will be primed for a competitive window moving forward.
