4 Cardinals players it is already fair to be worried about

One of the things that makes baseball so special is the marathon a team embarks on.

At the time of writing this, the St. Louis Cardinals are 20 games into their 2025 campaign, which marks just 12% of the games they'll play in the regular season. With 142 games left to play, it is far too early to draw full conclusions, but we are starting to have large enough sample sizes to at least have conversations now about where things are trending.

Today, I want to take a look at four Cardinals whom I think it is fair to at least be worried about at this point in the season. I'm not here to write any of them off, but it is time that we take a look at both their counting stats and the underlying metrics that tell a concerning story so far this year.

Here are four Cardinals who it is already fair to be concerned about

Ryan Fernandez

By the time this gets published, I wouldn't be shocked if Ryan Fernandez is already heading to Memphis to work through the funk he's in.

Things have gone about as poorly as they possibly could for Fernandez to start 2025. Making nine appearances thus far, he's allowed runs in five of those outings, with nine earned runs in total already this year. While he was a major reason why the Cardinals' bullpen was so good in 2024, it's clear that things have been trending downwards for Fernadez for a while now.

Last year, Fernandez posted a 2.08 ERA in 43.1 innings of work during the first half of the season. He joined Ryan Helsley, Andrew Kittredge, and JoJo Romero as a fearsome quartet holding things down for St. Louis at the back end of games, but the cracks showed in a major way during the second half. During those 23.1 innings, Fernadez allowed 16 earned runs, leading to a 6.17 ERA.

So far, Fernandez actually seems to be having more success with his fastball than he did last season, so this doesn't seem to be a matter of his arm being burned out, but Fernandez has to get his slider back on track if he's going to be successful again. In 2024, that pitch was a +5 run value for him, with hitters posting just a .182 batting average and .295 slugging percentage while his fastball was hittable. But in 2025, that slider is already a -3 run value for him, and opposing hitters are mashing it for a .438 average and .688 slug.

I'd love to see Fernandez head down to Memphis to work on that pitch in a lower-stakes environment, and hopefully return to the club as soon as possible. Right now, Fernandez is hurting the club with his performances, and while there aren't great options waiting in the wings, I'd much rather have him right the ship for himself than try to continue to scrape by. We'll see how much longer the Cardinals will be patient with him.