2025 St. Louis Cardinals New Year's Resolutions: Fan Edition

Resolution #2: Understand what the 2025 season means for the future

Usually, when teams go through a rebuild it is because they unload all young, future prospects for established veteran talent with eyes on short-term championship reigns. Once those windows are closed, those franchises then have to reload their minor league talent and go through that painful period of prospect development and losing at the big league level. The Cardinals, however, seemed to find a delicate balance of present and future values while still having winning seasons at all levels of the organization.

This management of assets is one that has to be applauded, even with only one World Series banner in the past decade-plus. As mentioned before, Cardinals fans are spoiled because of never having to really suffer through a rebuild like every other team in the same division has gone or is currently going through. Despite two seasons of underwhelming results, the Cardinals still finished in second place with 83 wins in 2024. While there was disappointment with the final standings, the 2024 team was mainly guided by the team's young talent with the struggling veterans either gone or on the way out.

The 2025 season is currently being billed as a season for the kids, meaning the Cardinals are expected to give multiple young pieces 600 plate appearances and 20 or more starts in the rotation. Again, when announcements like this are made in other organizations around the league, it brings a lot of unknowns or expectations of no-name players struggling against big-league talent. With the Cardinals, though, the projected lineup is built with many of the same players that eked out a winning season in 2024.

Six of the expected everyday offensive players are 27 years old or younger and all contributed positive fWAR to the Cardinals last season. Hopeful future star Masyn Winn led that group and is already projected to be a top 100 player in 2025. Other players like Jordan Walker, Lars Nootbaar, Nolan Gorman, and Ivan Herrera will be given every at-bat they can handle with the hopes of each of them proving what type of player they will be in the future. Catcher-turned-first-baseman Wilson Contreras will hopefully see action in 150+ games and his offensive production will be a major boost to an otherwise young lineup.

The pitching side is going to be the biggest question for 2025 and probably for briefly beyond that unless prospects show out big time next season. The current rotation features de facto ace Sonny Gray, budding arm Andre Pallante, trade chip Erick Fedde, and expensive inning eater Miles Mikolas. If things stayed as is, the fifth spot is a wide-open competition between players looking to prove themselves in the form of oft-injured veteran Steven Matz and youngsters Gordon Graceffo, Michael McGreevy, and potentially Tink Hence or Quinn Mathews. While this rotation does not provide a lot in terms of known commodities, FanGraphs currently projects Matz and Mathews as the two most likely to get innings out of the fifth spot.

Of course, the roster as it stands today is not the one that the team will be taking to Spring Training, with Nolan Arenado still likely to change teams before the exhibition season. Pitching questions remain and will continue to remain until the Cardinals decide what they want to do to fill innings. Closer Ryan Helsley, Fedde, and Matz have all been seen as trade pieces but the Cardinals are not willing to move on from any of them just yet.