St. Louis Cardinals 2025 preview
The St. Louis Cardinals appear to be at a crossroads as the 2025 season gets underway. The organization has only experienced two losing seasons since the Y2K scare, but last season should have been a third. The Cardinals went 83-79, but they were one of the league’s biggest overachievers in the Pythagorean Win-Loss department thanks to a -47 run differential.
Pyth W-L had the Cardinals down for 76-86 and BaseRuns, a context-neutral standings metric derived from expected runs scored and runs allowed, had them at 81-81. Clay Davenport’s 3rd Order Win%, a standings metric based on run differential and adjusted for quality of opponent, had them down for closer to 79-83. This is an organization that has long churned out capable Major Leaguers through its minor league system and made the necessary big-league transactions to remain a factor.
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But, this year’s team, while mostly comprised of league-average or slightly better players, is missing star power. The rotation looks pedestrian and the bullpen looks average. Residing in the NL Central may help, as none of the other teams look capable of running away and hiding in the division, but the Cardinals are lacking potential top-end talent in the minors beyond JJ Wetherholt and don’t have any at the MLB level.
I have long said about any professional league that the worst place to be is in the middle. This is a proud organization with plenty of accolades and accomplishments, but they are in a tough spot. Sustained contention is plausible with the current direction, but the Cardinals have won one playoff series since 2014, which resulted in a sweep in the NLCS. The 2013 World Series appearance gets farther away by the day and a return to the Fall Classic does, too.
St. Louis has been a team with a high floor, but with 91 losses in 2023 and an expected win-loss record of 76-86 in 2024, the floor and the ceiling both appear to be falling.
2025 St. Louis Cardinals Odds
(odds from DraftKings as of Feb. 20)
World Series: +12000
NL Pennant: +5500
NL Central: +600
Win Total: 77.5 (-115/-105)
Make Playoffs: Yes +360 / No -475
St. Louis Cardinals Preview: Offense
The MLB Futures database at Sports Odds History goes back to 1985. You have to go back to 1991 to find the last time per their historical odds that the Cardinals were close to this much of a long shot to win the World Series. Most of what I was seeing in terms of long odds was around +3000 prior to that. Therefore, we can reasonably assume this is the first time in a remarkably long time that they’ve had a win total line under .500.
Edit: The fine folks at Sports Odds History reached out to me with a note that this is the lowest win total for the Cardinals since 2008 when they were lined at 76.
This was a pretty average team last season by the stats. They finished with a 98 wRC+, but were 16th in wOBA, slashing .248/.312/.394. They were 11th in batting average, 14th in OBP, and 19th in SLG. For a team that finished 23rd in home runs and 22nd in runs scored, the Cardinals still had eight full-time hitters who were league average or better by wRC+.
Paul Goldschmidt was exactly league-average. He led the team with 22 HR. Goldschmidt is gone now and the Cardinals have tried to send Nolan Arenado out the door with him, but have yet to find any takers. It will be up to guys like Willson Contreras, who would have led the team in homers if he wasn’t limited to 84 games, Brendan Donovan, Lars Nootbaar, Alec Burleson, and Masyn Winn to take a leap and create a new core of star players for the Redbirds.
Winn has the chance to be a special player. He posted a 103 wRC+ with 15 homers and 11 steals, but he stole 32 bases in the minors in 2021 and 43 bases in 2022. I think the Cardinals will get a little more aggressive on the bases going forward and try to generate more runs with their athleticism, given some of the losses and aging players. He plays a high-value defensive position and accumulated 3.6 fWAR in his first full MLB season with 14 Defensive Runs Saved at SS.
The rest of that above group are reliable offensive players with good bat-to-ball skills and varying walk rates. Nootbaar and Contreras draw the walks, though Contreras will swing and miss more than others. Donovan and Burleson are pretty projectable bats. But, where does the ceiling come from? Who are the game-changers? What is the offensive philosophy?
The Cardinals were 28th in Pull%, so they’re not going to generate a whole lot of power that way. They were 21st in Hard Hit% and Goldschmidt was second on the team at 48.1%. It sure would help if Arenado could regain some of his power production after posting a career-worst 31.2% Hard Hit% and 3.2% Barrel%.
This is just an unexciting group on the whole and an average or below offensive performance is the expectation.
St. Louis Cardinals Preview: Pitching
The Cardinals will run it back with a lot of the same faces on the pitching side as well. The inaction from the front office this offseason has been rather interesting, given that this is a team that could’ve had a much different projection with a few additions, but they’ll go into the season relying on four 30+ starters and a converted reliever to start things off.
Tink Hence, Quinn Mathews, and Tekoah Roby are coming and they were all top-100 prospects per FanGraphs going into the 2024 season, but they still need some extra time. Sonny Gray, if healthy, is a capable frontline starter who finished last season with a 3.84 ERA, 3.67 xERA, and a 3.12 FIP. But, after a dominant first half, Gray allowed 13 HR in 66.2 innings and a .475 SLG en route to a 4.59 ERA following the All-Star Break, including some time missed late in the year.
Miles Mikolas had a 5.35 ERA with a 4.65 xERA and a 4.24 FIP, so there is a case to be made for a bounce back, but he’s a guy with a capped ceiling in my opinion. He just pitches to too much contact and he’s now had two years in a row like that and really four of the last five. Trade Deadline acquisition Erick Fedde had a 3.72 ERA with a 4.05 FIP in 10 starts and should be a reliable innings-eater, a needed trait with more than 280 innings from Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn to replace.
Like the offense, the rotation is passable, but underwhelming. The same can be said of the bullpen beyond closer Ryan Helsley, who was second on the team in fWAR. The Cardinals were +15 in Outs Above Average, so the defense certainly helped out the pitching staff, which is important with a lot of pitch-to-contact arms, especially Andre Pallante, who had a 62% GB%.
Gray was a big-time strikeout arm last season, posting a 30% K% for just the second time in his career and the first time in a non-COVID-shortened season. His 13.4% SwStr% was also a career high and his 84.8% Z-Contact% was a career-best, aside from 2020. He also had a Chase Rate over 30% for the first time. While I wouldn’t call it a “career year” for Gray, he set some new career-bests in his age-34 season. Projection systems are regressing his K% back, but also regressing his ERA closer to his FIP.
The reason I dive deep on Gray is because he’s far and away the highest-upside arm in this rotation and he needs to be really good. The league average ERA and FIP last season were 4.15. Gray had an ERA+ of 109. Fedde had an ERA+ of 113. Pallante was at 111. So that’s basically a pitching version of wRC+, but using ERA relative to the league average. If the Cardinals can stack guys that are 10% better than league-average in this rotation, and then have a few good relievers alongside one elite guy in Helsley, they can overperform relative to expectation.
St. Louis Cardinals Player to Watch
OF Jordan Walker
It would be unfair to call this a make-or-break year for the 23-year-old Walker, who posted a strong .276/.342/.445 slash with a 116 wRC+ in his first MLB season at just 21. Last season was a different story. Back in December, GM John Mozeliak said that the Cardinals were committed to giving Walker an extended look this season. I talked about a lack of power production and contact authority. Well, Walker could give you one or both.
Power is usually the last tool to arrive for a hitter. Walker has the build at 6-foot-6 and 250 pounds to hit for it. He hasn’t hit more than 20 homers in a season, but I think we could see first-year hitting coach Brant Brown get Walker to stop wasting his power from hitting so many balls on the ground.
St. Louis Cardinals Season Win Total Odds & Prediction
Your view of the Cardinals may be less about what they have in-house and more about what you think of their division brethren. The more balanced schedule means that the Cardinals play just 52 out of 162 games against the Brewers, Cubs, Pirates, and Reds, but that is still about one-third of the schedule. I still think this is a solid team with no gaping holes, but also not nearly as much of a ceiling as past versions have had.
Hence and Mathews should debut this season and the minor league profile of Michael McGreevy, who threw 23 MLB innings last season, seems to fit what St. Louis likes in a pitcher. I am cautiously optimistic that the Cardinals will be around a .500 team. But, that doesn’t give me a high enough range to make this bet with a win total of 77.5.
What worries me, though, is what this roster looks like after the Trade Deadline. Mikolas, Matz, Fedde, and Helsley are all impending free agents and I can’t imagine the Cardinals will come to terms with any of them. They’ve also been trying to trade Arenado for months and maybe that comes to a head with a contender in July. As a result, I’d take a more pessimistic view of the Redbirds this season than an optimistic one.
Stronger Lean: Under 77.5
