Fifty questions that will define the Cardinals’ 2026 season

We’re just asking questions over here (and previewing the upcoming season in the process)

Feb 19, 2026

All hail the interrogative! The 2026 season is in the offing, and that means it’s time to start pondering what will befall the Cardinals over the next, oh, seven months or so. We’ll do this via something like the Socratic method, albeit without “leading the witness” quite so much. That’s to say, these are all genuine, non-rhetorical questions to which I don’t know the answers. What I do know is that these questions are all vital to the Cardinals’ present and long-term future, which is why I’m bothering you with them in the first place.

Now let’s get to asking, in no particular order …

Will the Cardinals finish in last place in the NL Central for the second time in the last four years?
Coming off an 84-loss effort in 2025, will the Cardinals endure consecutive losing campaigns in seasons not shortened by labor stoppage for the first time since 1958-59? Framed another way, the Cardinals have never logged losing records in back-to-back 162-game seasons.
Will the Cardinals finish with a negative run differential for the fourth straight year? That hasn’t happened since way back yonder in 1917-1920. Perish the thought.
Will manager Oli Marmol be offered a contract extension in this, the final year of his current pact?
Will top prospect JJ Wetherholt, assuming he claims an active roster spot to start the season, thrive as a rookie and MLB debutante? Maybe even to the extent that he earns the Cardinals a high PPI draft pick?
Jordan Walker needs to cut down on his strikeouts and do a better job of elevating the ball. After an offseason devoted to swing and approach changes, can he manage both of those things so as to take full advantage of his capacity for hard contact and elite bat speed?
In order to fully tap into his excellent raw power, Nolan Gorman probably needs to push his K% and his whiff rate south of 30%. Will he do that in his age-26 season and after more than 1,500 plate appearances in the majors?
Will the vastly expanded staff devoted to player development make it more likely that Walker and Gorman clear their respective bars in 2026?
After disappointing 2025 seasons, how much additional “runway” – to invoke that increasingly tiresome term – do Walker and Gorman have this season? Will Marmol and the front office stick with them if they’re still suffering from the same afflictions after two months? At the break? By August? Walker by virtue of being significantly younger and having less time in the majors probably has more latitude than Gorman does
What will Walker’s back-and-forth defense in right field look like?
Will Lars Nootbaar produce at the plate coming off surgery on both heels?
If Noot does enjoy a hot start at the plate upon his return, how soon thereafter will he be traded?
Speaking of trades, will lefty pen man JoJo Romero be dealt late in spring after injuries start taking hold across the league, or is he more of a deadline play?
Will Thomas Saggese adapt well to the outfield? Will he emerge as a potential option in center field?
Speaking of center field, will Victor Scott II’s swing changes lead to improved on-base skills? For Scott and his tremendous speed, it all flows from those first 90 feet. His walk rate last season was fine, particularly for someone who isn’t a power threat. However, Scott needs to significantly improve his ability to reach base via batted ball.
Will any Cardinal top 25 home runs this season? Thirty? Not since Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado in 2022 has a Cardinal hit 30 homers in a season.
Will Iván Herrera, coming off elbow surgery, be deployed at catcher this season, or will his defense be found lacking, which would probably mean some combination of DH, left field, and first base for the team’s best pure hitter?
If Herrera does get time at catcher in 2026, that will mean the club will have five catchers on the 40-player roster. How soon will a trade of a catcher take place in order to relieve that bottleneck?
If, again, Herrera isn’t part of the catcher group, will Yohel Pozo get more consistent playing time than he did last season? His bat is potentially quite valuable at a position from which it’s hard to find offense. Pozo’s on a split contract, so there’s no guarantee he’s even in St. Louis to start the season.
How much did Masyn Winn’s knee injury harm his production at the plate last season? Now that he’s had his meniscus surgically repaired, will he have his best season yet with the bat in 2026?
Will José Fermín’s bat-to-ball skills and positional flexibility make him a heavily used bench presence on the active roster?
Is it possible that Fermín, who soon turns 27, supplants Gorman at third base at some point during the 2026 season if the latter fails to take the next step at the plate?
Who will be the Cardinals (presumably) lone All-Star in 2026? Riley O’Brien is the premature guess here, while keeping one eye on his spring calf issue.
Will the closer’s role be a match-up-based committee, or will O’Brien emerge as the saves-getter? Or will it be Romero in an effort to perhaps enhance his trade value? Someone else?
Will Gordon Graceffo’s tweaked pitch mix help make him a multi-inning weapon in the bullpen?
On the matter of tweaked pitch mixes, will the kick change offerings being cultivated by Andre Pallante and Kyle Leahy help their cause in the rotation?
Will Leahy win that final spot in the rotation, or will someone like Hunter Dobbins, Richard Fitts, or even Quinn Mathews claim it?
Will Mathews be added to the 40-player roster and make his MLB debut at some point in 2026 after a disappointing and injury-compromised 2025?
Will the Cardinals trot out a six-man rotation for the early weeks of the season, when they as an organization believe pitchers are most vulnerable to injury?
Will they perhaps, given the youth of the rotation, go with a six-man corps the whole season?
Will Dustin May, the highest-paid Cardinal (!), enjoy a first-half renaissance and position himself as a viable trade candidate leading up to the Aug. 3 trade deadline?
Matthew Liberatore may be the rotation’s No. 1 by default, but can he be a genuine ace of the staff? Maintaining fastball velocity in the later innings and from start to start will be the challenge for the 26-year-old lefty.
A good test for the new pitching braintrust that’s in place will be “coaching” more strikeouts out of Michael McGreevy. Across 19 starts and two relief appearances in the majors, he’s struck out just 15.6% of opposing batters. It’s hard to survive in the majors at those depths.
Will 2025 breakout moundsman Brycen Mautz make his way to St. Louis this season? He was added to the 40 over the winter.
Does catcher Pedro Pagés, a skilled defender outside of blocking pitches, have a higher gear at the plate at age 27? His on-base skills are lacking, but he’s managed 18 home runs in 563 at-bats at the highest level. That’s a consequence of his solid ability to pull the ball in the air. Is there more in-game power to be found?
Will Silver Slugger Alec Burleson continue his upward trajectory at the plate? Better luck against fastballs could be a factor. Last season, Burleson slugged .448 against hard stuff, but he had an expected slug of .503 against those pitch types. Rising to meet his batted-ball quality against fastballs could take him into All-Star territory.
Will Nelson Velázquez and his power potential crack the roster as a spring NRI and be the right-handed outfield bat they need for the upcoming season? He’s 27 and has 31 career homers in 552 at-bats in the bigs. He’s at least interesting moving forward, particularly for a roster that shed a lot of homers from a 2025 club that ranked 29th in MLB in home runs.
Will righty reliever Matt Pushard, the club’s Rule 5 pick, stick on the active roster and thus become a long-term part of the organization? Given his age and stuff and the Cardinals’ current roster situation, he seems a good bet to do so.
Can Nathan Church hit major-league pitching?
The Cardinals see an opportunity to level up right-handed reliever George Soriano, which is why they traded Andre Granillo for him. On paper, it’s a bit of a puzzling deal given Granillo’s swing-and-miss performance in the minors, but how Soriano fares will determine in large measure how the trade looks in retrospect. Will Soriano show skills growth this season?
Will Ryan Stanek and his big fastball be a veteran fixture and bullpen philosopher-king all season long, or might the Cardinals look to flip him to a contender at the deadline?
Early spring returns on Chris Roycroft have been encouraging. Is he poised to make the leap and provide consistent bullpen innings this year?
Will outfield prospect Joshua Baez, who leveled up in a big way in 2025, sustain those gains at Triple-A and reach St. Louis this season?
Whom will the Cardinals take with the No. 13 overall pick in the July draft after falling five spots in the lottery draw? “Best player available” is the only sensible approach to the draft in a sport like baseball.
Will the Cardinals use some of the slot money from those two competitive-balance picks acquired as part of the Brendan Donovan trade to go above slot for a higher-ceiling talent on day one who might be a difficult sign?
With a new front office in place and a youth movement in full effect, will attendance at Busch Stadium enjoy any kind of a rebound?
How much of a revenue hit will the Cardinals endure now that they’re under the MLB umbrella for in-market streaming?
Will Chaim Bloom hire a GM at any point during the season? I’d personally like to see him pluck someone from the Brewers’ front office. Assistant GM Matt Kleine, maybe?
Will Bloom sign a young player to a long-term extension that buys out one or more free agent years? Winn seems like a candidate.
Will there be additional signs that the transition from Bill DeWitt Jr. to Bill DeWitt III at the top of the hierarchy is taking place?

So what did I forget? Contribute your own defining queries below in the comments section if you like.

Obviously, not all of the above questions are going to be answered in a way that aligns with our hopes as a fan base, but maybe a comfortable majority of them will. I’ll circle back to these after the season’s over as a way of appraising how the rebuild is going one year into Bloom’s tenure atop baseball operations.