April 2, 2026: The offense, the catcher situation, ABS challenges, the Nootbaar void, and the rotation's strikeout problem

Let's talk about this 4-2 start and what it means moving forward

For the first time since, oh, the first six games of last season, the Cardinals are 4-2. This particular 4-2, however, feels a bit better because the roster is so much younger and more forward-looking. As well, this year’s start has come at the expense of the Rays and Mets, whereas last year’s came against the Twins and Angels. It’s comically premature to point out that the Cardinals are right now in playoff position in the NL, but here I am, pointing that out in defiance of good taste.

Now here’s what I’m thinking about one week into the season.

The offense

The performance thus far has been front-loaded, as Cardinal hitters plated 22 runs in three games against the Rays but just seven in three games against the Mets. Overall, there’s cause for encouragement. At this writing, the Cardinals rank just 21st among MLB’s 30 teams in wOBA this season. However, in xwOBA, which is far more predictive than wOBA – especially at this early juncture – they rank fifth in MLB. During the Mets series, when as noted they struggled to score runs, they had a .230 wOBA but a more respectable xwOBA of .288.

At an individual level, there are some things to like. Jordan Walker’s start to the season is particularly notable. Given his contact and chase issues of the recent past, let’s note he didn’t strike out until his third game of the season. The series against the Mets harmed his chase, whiff, and K% numbers, but they’re still much better than they were in the last two seasons. Best of all, the quality of contact – another of his leading issues – has been much better. Right now, Walker is applying his elite bat speed (even more elite in 2026) and capacity for hitting the ball hard in a much more optimal direction. His current ground-ball percentage is 35.7, and that’s versus an MLB average of 44.2% and Walker’s pre-2026 career mark of 47.9%. Also consider:

• Walker is right now in the 92nd percentile among MLB hitters in Barrel Rate, or the percentage of batted balls that leave the bat within the ideal ranges of exit velocity and launch angle.

• He’s in the 64th percentile league-wide in “launch angle sweet spot,” which means he’s hitting the ball at the proper angles for power production. Last season, he was in the fifth percentile in that same measure and was roughly at that level in 2024. Even in his strong rookie season of 2023, Walker was in the 42nd percentile in launch angle sweet spot.

• Walker’s attack angle this season is up to 8.0 degrees, which is a welcome increase over his prior levels and puts him in the desired band of 5-20 degrees that’s optimal for power production. He’s also had the ideal attack angle in 60.6% of his swings this season. Last season, he was in the ideal attack range just 47.7% of the time. This all suggests there’s a foundation at the level of the swing that’s leading to all this improved quality of contact.

The usual sample size caveats apply, but these are promising early indicators. We’ll see if he’s able to sustain them coming out of a Mets series in which he didn’t fare all that well. This isn’t even getting into his early spike in walk rate, which would be another welcome development.

Speaking of confidence in Walker, Oli Marmol on Wednesday tabbed him for his first pinch-hitting appearance since April 9 of last year. That was with Ramón Urías, José Fermín, Yohel Pozo – right-handed bats like Walker – all available on the bench.

Elsewhere in the lineup, Nolan Gorman relative to 2025 has reduced his whiff rate from 34.6% to 32.7% and his strikeout rate from 33.8% to 22.7%. That’s despite, seemingly, adding a half-tick of bat speed compared to 2025 levels. Gorman as widely noted needs to reduce his historical strikeout norms if he’s going to get to his immense power potential in game settings. He’s doing that, and in related matters he’s the only Cardinal with multiple home runs on the young season. You worry about a loss of forceful contact when a hitter is tasked with making contact more often, and there was indeed a bit of that last season with Gorman. So far in 2026, though, he’s hitting the ball with significantly increased regularity and hitting it better.

As for JJ Wetherholt, his rookie campaign has unfurled promisingly so far. He’s in the 58th percentile in xWOBA, and Statcast loves his early defensive work at second base (he’s in the 99th percentile in both Outs Above Average and Fielding Run Value). There’s a nationally sourced rumor going around that the Cardinals are discussing a long-term contract extension. While I’ll be more willing to take that seriously when a local writer reports it, I’ll state the obvious and say I’d wholly support signing Wetherholt to a long-term extension that buys out, ideally, multiple free agent years.

The catcher situation

Pozo will start Friday against the Tigers in Detroit, which will mark his first appearance of the season. (Aside: Fermín has been limited to a single pinch-running appearance so far, which means the Cardinals are in essence 4-2 while playing with a 24-player active roster.) This brings us to what is, for me, a continuing over-reliance on Pedro Pagés.

Yes, Pagés is a mostly skilled defender behind the plate with the notable exception of his poor track record at blocking pitches. As I’ve said before, though, he can’t hit. For his big-league career to date, he has a wOBA of .279 and an xwOBA of .269, and he’s struck out in 27.2% of his plate appearances. For comparison, the average MLB catcher over the span of Pagés’ career has a wOBA of .311, an xwOBA of .320, and a K% of 21.9. He’s just a pronounced offensive liability, even by positional standards.

This is in my craw at the moment because on Wednesday in the rubber match against Mets — an eventual Cardinal win — Marmol let Pagés bat to lead off the bottom of the 10th with the automatic runner in scoring position. After failing twice failing to lay down the sac bunt, Pagés whiffed on a Tobias Myers slider that was under the zone. Marmol had three bats on the bench, including the contact-oriented Pozo, who are all probably better hitters than Pagés. I don’t doubt there are factors that go beyond what I can perceive from afar that go into the Cardinals’ decision to see this oughta-be backup catcher as a lineup stalwart, but I have a hard time believing his defensive skills and human factors are such that they overcome these offensive concerns, especially when better options are readily available. At the very least, Pagés should be regularly pinch-hit for in leverage situations starting in the middle innings. In the unlikely event that Pagés’ replacement gets hurt later in the game, well, you have that third catcher on the roster, even if it means losing the DH for an inning or two by putting Herrera back there on his DH days.

Ideally, Herrera becomes more of a regular presence behind the plate, should his perhaps injury-prone lower half permit it. His surgically repaired throwing arm hasn’t really been tested yet, but his framing’s looked good so far. As well, the opposition this season has yet to score a run during his 17 innings behind the plate in 2026 (not that we’re going to read too much into a flawed stat like catcher’s ERA). Michael McGreevy shook off Herrera quite a bit during his start, but that’s not all that surprising given his seven-pitch repertoire. Andre Pallante during his scoreless outing mostly agreed with Herrera’s pitch selection. Herrera and his career .383 wOBA would be an All-Star as a primary catcher, so let’s see if he can gradually work up to that as he gets further removed from his spring case of knee inflammation.

As for Pozo, he deserves a larger share of the job while Herrera establishes whatever his future workload is behind the plate. We’re dealing with limited samples in Pozo’s case, but he profiles as a significantly better hitter than Pagés is and a comparable defender, perhaps especially now that Pozo has shed so much weight. May Friday’s start for Pozo herald a more sensible allotment of playing time at catcher.

Should Cardinal hitters be more aggressive with early-game ABS challenges?

There’s the general sense around the league that teams like to keep one of their two ABS challenges pocketed for the later innings, when leverage tends to increase. Still, let’s recognize that you lose those challenges only when the batter, catcher, or – in rare instances – the pitcher appeals unsuccessfully. As such, I’d like to see Cardinal hitters kicking it up to the robots earlier in the game. A strike converted to a ball flips the odds of the plate appearance toward the hitter, and one never knows how such a seemingly small thing can cascade and change the outlook of a game.

I’m thinking of a couple of specific instances from Sunday. There’s this third-pitch “strike” to Masyn Winn on Sunday:

Winn wound up singling, yes, but that wasn’t known at the time of that missed call. In the bottom of the sixth, pitch No. 5 may have indeed been strike three to Walker for his first strikeout of the season, but considering the Cardinals had both challenges available at the time, I would’ve liked to have seen Walker test it (also note that these GameDay zones do not perfectly align with the ABS zones):

I’m not emphatically stating that this is a problem based on 1.5 examples, but it’s more of a question: Should earlier challenges be embraced? In all six of their games this season, the Cardinals have left at least one challenge on the board, and that shouldn’t happen as often as that.

Missing Noot?

Outfield Lars Nootbaar is still recovering from offseason bilateral heel surgery, and just prior to Opening Day the Cardinals cleared 40-player space for Wetherholt by putting Nootbaar on the 60-day injured list. That means no possible return until late May.

On the matter of left field, Noot’s position, Cardinal left fielders this season – Nathan Church and Thomas Saggese – have combined to “hit” .174/.208/.174 with a 37.5 K% and an xWOBA of .187. Obviously, the sample size is the most important thing here, but I’m in general a skeptic when it comes to Church’s and Saggese’s long-term offensive capabilities. I see the possibility that getting adequate production from a bat-first position like left is a problem until Nootbaar returns for extended run.

I of course remain quite bullish on prospect Joshua Báez, but let’s acknowledge he’s off to a bit of slow start in Memphis, albeit while still showing signs of having tamed his strikeout issues. Even if he were punishing Triple-A pitching, though, I don’t think a call-up would be imminent. If the Church/Saggese semi-platoon (quasi-platoon?) continues to struggle, then maybe Fermín merits some time out there. I suspect, though, that Nootbaar’s absence, even in light of his (probably injury-driven) struggles in 2025, will be keenly felt.

The rotation’s strikeout problem

Coming into the season, we knew the rotation would probably have strikeout issues, and indeed they have. Right now, Cardinals starting pitchers have struck out just 11.9% of opposing batters. That’s not just the worst such figure in MLB, it’s the worst by a huge margin – the A’s rotation is 29th with a K% of 16.4. This is in large measure why the Cards rotation right now has a quality ERA of 3.48 but an expected ERA of 5.69. They have to miss more bats because as a unit they’re just not going to continue running a BABIP of just .276 and allowing home runs on just 4.9% of their fly balls.

Although I do think the strikeout deficits will be a concern until more young upside trickles into the rotation, I do see a couple of causes for hope. One, multiple pitchers are still working on new offerings that, once fully refined, may have swing-and-miss potential or can be used as set-ups for other swing-and-miss pitches. Second, Dustin May, finally healthy again, may find a higher tier on the mound than was evident in his rough first start of 2026. Also, Kyle Leahy once he gets stretched out could be a bat-misser thanks to his good velocity and overstuffed repertoire.

In his first true start since he was a minor-leaguer, Leahy on Monday against the Mets didn’t enjoy good top-line results, as he allowed four runs in five innings and struck out only one against a pair of walks. (I probably would not have let him come out for the top of the sixth, when two of his four runs came home after he’d exited.) However, at the stuff level, Leahy impressed. Have a look at this chart from the very excellent TJStats:

As ever, Leahy’s velo plays up because he gets excellent plate-ward extension off the mound (he had an effective fastball velocity of 95.8 mph in this start because he gets more than seven feet of extension), and note how many of his pitches graded out as average or better according to this Stuff+ model. It’s one start, yes, but those pitch traits bode well, and his sweeper looks particularly promising. That’s a lot of ways to attack hitters of both sides and also provide fresh looks during subsequent trips through the opposing order. Let’s keep our eyes on Leahy moving forward.

I’m also a bit high on McGreevy moving forward, as he was able to strike out five of the first nine Rays batters he faced on Saturday despite dealing with early-season depressed fastball velocity. With his reworked changeup – one of his, again, seven pitches – he was able to induce a 42.9% chase rate.

The rotation’s strikeout trends will be something to closely monitor in the weeks to come and play a leading role in whether or not this team is able to defy expectations in 2026.

OK, that’s all for this episode. Thanks for your time, and back soon with more.