2025 ZiPS Projections: St. Louis Cardinals

For the 21st consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot, and the penultimate team is the St. Louis Cardinals.

Batters

The 2024 St. Louis Cardinals experienced a bit of a bounce back from the team’s worst season in decades, but in a year where it took 89 wins to grab the final NL Wild Card spot, the Red Birds were still well short of being able to squeeze back into the playoffs. While things were sunnier than they were the year before, the Cardinals were outscored on the season, and neither of the stars in the lineup, Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado, returned to their 2023 form. It doesn’t appear as if the Cards feel like they’re on the precipice of an October return, as they’ve largely spent the offseason trying to trade Arenado.

Might Arenado actually be underrated at this point? While his offensive production has come down quite a bit from its peak, his 149 wRC+ in 2022 was likely always a late-era outlier, and a 102 wRC+ is hardly lousy for a third baseman. He’s no longer a star without a resurgence at the plate, but he was at least a good player in 2024, amassing 3.1 WAR thanks to very good defense at the hot corner. I think the perception of Arenado’s 2024 might be a lot worse than his season actually was. When I posted the depth chart graphic on social media, it led to a couple of conversations about ZiPS projecting a comeback season, even though the 2.9 WAR it forecasts is below his 2024 number!

With two glaring exceptions, ZiPS mostly thinks that the Cards are adequate to good around the diamond. Masyn Winn projects as the lineup’s second-best player, and though ZiPS isn’t crazy about Thomas Saggese, it likes Brendan Donovan enough to end up with a good second base WAR number, assuming the latter gets the plate appearances projected on our Depth Charts. The system projects that Willson Contreras will be good enough offensively that he could be a reasonable first baseman, and though it pulls back considerably on Iván Herrera’s rookie offense, the tandem of him and Pedro Pagés also looks solid.

Where ZiPS is unhappy is in the non-Lars Nootbaar portions of the outfield. In center field, Victor Scott II’s defense isn’t enough to completely cancel out a bleak offensive projection, and the computer doesn’t see Michael Siani as providing much of a shove. Scott’s a weird one to project in that he actually hit pretty decently in Double-A in 2023, but he was absolutely horrific in the minors last year, putting up a 59 wRC+. Note that that’s not the translation, but his actual number. Scott hit somewhat better in July after changing his stance, putting up a .711 OPS for the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds, but that hint of production disappeared in the majors and he earned a demotion in mid-September.

As for the other exception, Jordan Walker, ZiPS actually thinks he improved his defense somewhat in 2024, to the point that he’s not a pure designated hitter, just a fairly lousy right fielder who could play if he hits. But that’s kind of the problem. Walker now has about 500 PA of not hitting Triple-A pitchers. If Scott had a 93 wRC+ at Triple-A, it would be cause for optimism, but it’s completely inadequate for someone who is supposed to be valued entirely for his bat. Walker isn’t old, and you can squint and still kind of see his upside, but the odds are against him being a real contributor in 2025.

Pitchers

I’m not sure why ZiPS is suddenly reminded of a couple of knuckleballers, Phil Niekro and Tom Candiotti, when it looks at Sonny Gray, but removing them from the large cohort doesn’t change Gray’s projection, which makes him the favorite to represent the Cardinals at the All-Star Game this summer. It’s hard to tell how seriously the team really considered trading Gray, but he does have some pretty decent value with two years left on his contract. Of course, that assumes that his forearm tendinitis isn’t something darker, but really, you could say that about every pitcher who has ever existed.

He projects as having lower long-term upside than either Quinn Mathews or Tink Hence, but ZiPS is increasingly a fan of Michael McGreevy, who has good control and keeps the ball down, which has value in front of what ZiPS projects to be an above-average infield. Both Mathews and Hence project as legitimate starters right now, with ZiPS a little more confident about the former for 2025. ZiPS isn’t expecting quite as good a year from Erick Fedde, but it remains comfortable with the back of St. Louis’ rotation, both in terms of its non-horrendous quality and its reasonable depth.

It might be a stretch to say that ZiPS sees the Cardinals bullpen as “Ryan Helsley and some other guys,” but their hard-throwing closer is the only reliever who the computer can summon any excitement about. Helsley lost a couple of strikeouts per game coming back from his 2023 injuries, but ZiPS isn’t worried about that, as his velocity is intact and his contact rate is consistent with that of a whiffier pitcher. Ryan Fernandez, JoJo Romero, and John King all project as a bit above average, and the computer would put Matthew Liberatore in that group as well. ZiPS is rather meh on the low-leverage portion of the bullpen, and while the Cardinals could certainly add an arm or two there, this doesn’t appear to be a team that intends to make so much as a ripple in free agency.

Unlike most seasons, ZiPS does’t see the Cardinals as being in the same tier as the Brewers and Cubs. St. Louis has better projections than the Pirates and Reds, at least for now, but even then, only barely. It has been an incredibly quiet offseason in St. Louis outside of the constant Arenado rumors, with the team doing just about nothing, and we’re now only a few weeks from the opening of spring training. The team’s biggest signing this winter? Ryan Vilade. Even throwing in the towel would be more interesting, and probably more helpful than cosplaying as the heat death of the universe.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here. Size of player names is very roughly proportional to Depth Chart playing time. The final team projections may differ considerably from our Depth Chart playing time.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2025 due to injury, and players who were released in 2024. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Ukulele Dixieland Jazz band that only covers songs by The Smiths, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.11.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR. It is important to remember that ZiPS is agnostic about playing time, and has no information about, for example, how quickly a team will call up a prospect or what veteran has fallen into disfavor.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by misinformation, a non-pragmatic reality, or by the skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter or on BlueSky.