5 small moves the Cardinals made that are leading to their turnaround in 2025

#2 - Hiring Brant Brown

Speculation ran rampant as to whether the Cardinals would let go of former hitting coach Turner Ward for much of the 2024 season. In August, I wrote a piece about a coach who had been let go of his role earlier in the season who I believed could be a strong fit for the Cardinals, and his name was Brant Brown.

Lo and behold, the Cardinals let go of Ward and quickly hired Brown to replace him. He came highly recommended by former bench coach Skip Schumaker, who worked with Brown in Miami, as well as assistant coach Jon Jay, who was also on the staff. Brown also received praise from Cardinals legend Albert Pujols, who credited Brown with helping his final career resurgence after he rediscovered his swing with Brown while he was with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Much of the attention was on Brown's work with Jordan Walker and Nolan Gorman, hoping he could be part of the solution to restoring them as prominent young hitters. Well...that part hasn't quite worked out...yet? Who knows? Maybe we'll see them bounce back as the season goes along. But outside of their struggles, Brown's work with the Cardinals' offense has been exceptional so far this year.

First, let's start with the Cardinals' improvements as unit offensively.

The Cardinals went from a historically bad offense that ranked in the bottom three teams in all of baseball in most rate categories, both with or without runners in scoring position, to now a top 10 offense in almost every category, and actually even more productive with runners in scoring position.

That alone is worthy of praise for Brown, as he's instilled the "there's a time to slug and a time to get on base" mentality into the offense as a whole, but the development of other young bats on the roster has been huge as well.

While Walker and Gorman have not performed, other young bats have. Ivan Herrera, Brendan Donovan, Lars Nootbaar, Victor Scott II, and Masyn Winn all have taken a step forward at the plate this year. Herrera looks like a true middle-of-the-order bat, Nootbaar is one of the best leadoff hitters in baseball, Donovan is competing for a batting title, Winn is mixing on-base skills and slug for situational hitting, and Scott has gone from lost at the plate last year to a dynamic force that acts as a second leadoff man.

We'll see if all of this can continue, but so far, the Brant Brown experience has been a major success for the Cardinals.