St. Louis Cardinals — A Franchise Reshaping Itself

As a die-hard baseball fan, I’m not sure there is anyone more objectively disappointed in what the St. Louis Cardinals failed to do during the Arenado-Goldschmidt than I am. I even picked the Cards to win the division a couple of times in that stretch. On paper, it was all there: hitting, defense, pitching…but it never came together. Now Goldschmidt is spending the last few seasons of his career in New York, and Arenado has returned West to the place where Goldschmidt’s career began. And the Cardinals are left with a whole new roster, shrouded in the disappointment of what the last half decade should’ve been..

Rotation & Offense — A Work in Progress

Bluntly put, the Cardinals weren’t particularly good at anything. Average to well below average in almost every statistical category on both sides of the ball. The rose-colored glasses of what I thought this team could be are off, and I don’t see St. Louis finishing anywhere but last place in this division in 2026.

Offseason Shakeup

Big names like Arenado, Willson Contraras, Miles Mikolas and Sonny Gray are out the door, and the rest button has been emphatically pressed. Chaim Bloom is focused on youth, I just don’t know how far it will get them in a division loaded with experience and stars. I don’t think any team lost as much production as the Cardinals this offseason. Arenado, Contraras, Mikolas, Gray and Brendan Donovan have all moved on. And the front office pushed all their chips into the middle of the table for pitching. The headlines are Dustin May and switch pitcher Jurrangelo Cijntje. In a sport that’s obsessed with WAR, St. Louis’s offseason has been a massive net negative, in my opinion.

Biggest Needs Entering 2026

• A top-flight bat
• Reliable rotation innings
• Penetrating offensive consistency

Have They Addressed It?

They’ve technically addressed their rotation by bringing in May and Cijntje (who isn’t even currently in the Majors) along with some others, but just from an innings perspective. No one they’ve added outside of May has proven much anything, and I think it will be hard for them to cover the production left behind by Mikolas and Gray.

In terms of a bat, they added nothing. They lost three guys who had been huge run producers for them for years and did nothing to replace them. I know they’re high on Masyn Winn, as they were on Jordan Walker once upon a time, but Winn is just one guy, and Walker has been a pretty major disappointment, posting a .211 average in the last two seasons. Lars Nootbaar and Nolan Gorman are good, but I look at this roster, and I just don’t know where the wins are going to come from.

Our Take

I don’t have high expectations for St. Louis in 2026. As I stated, I just don’t know where the wins are going to come from. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Cardinals lost 100 games this season. That might be a little aggressive, but after how much I believed in them over the last few years, they’re going to have to prove me wrong.

The good news? They have six Top 100 prospects, including Cijntje. They are a good mix of pitching and position players, and all but one of them are in AA or higher, and expected to make appearances at Busch sometime this season.

If Chaim Bloom really is committed to the youth-centered reset, he should trade Nootbaar, Burleson and Gorman, and pull in even more prospects. I could see all three guys being major contributors to playoff teams trying to get over the hump. Just for fun, looking into my crystal ball, I could see Nootbaar being a major upgrade over Ramon Laureno in left field for the Padres as they desperately chase the Dodgers. I could see Alec Burleson being a valuable DH bat for a contending team like the Mariners or Tigers. As for Nolan Gorman, he’s a second baseman by trade, and I could see the Giants or Guardians taking advantage of his production. Sorry, Cardinals fans, that was fun.

I think it’s going to be a long, hot summer in St. Louis, but if they’re this high on their young prospects, I hope it works out for them.