6 biggest 'ifs' toward success for the St. Louis Cardinals in 2025

The Cardinals will be more successful next year IF Lars Nootbaar can stay healthy.

I'm not saying Lars Nootbaar needs to play 150 or more games. All I'm asking for is 130 games of a healthy Lars Nootbaar. That's 80% of the games next year. That will be sufficient.

Nootbaar has always been what's known as a "Statcast darling". His Baseball Savant page is dripping with red. Nootbaar is one of just five players in all of baseball who ranked in the 90th percentile or higher in hard-hit rate and chase rate. The only other players who fit that bill are Aaron Judge, Kyle Schwarber, Juan Soto, and Seiya Suzuki. For those keeping track at home, Nootbaar shares this statistic with two perennial MVP candidates and two fantastic offensive players.

Where Nootbaar has fallen short would be with his health. He has yet to play more than 117 games in a season, he's logged more than 500 plate appearances just once, and his injury list is longer than a grocery list for a family of four. Simply put, Lars Nootbaar must stay healthy next year if the Cardinals intend on surprising pundits by being successful.

Let's take Nootbaar's 2023 season as our template. He played 117 games that year with a .261/.367/.418 slash line, by far his most successful year all around of his young career. He accrued 3.0 fWAR, and he had a 118 wRC+ with 14 home runs and 11 stolen bases.

If he would have played 130 games that year, he would have been worth approximately 3.4 fWAR. Among qualified outfielders in 2023, Nootbaar would have finished tied for 16th in the league with Ian Happ of the Chicago Cubs. That's a legitimate player in the majors. He would have been a top-50 player in all of baseball with that figure (he already finished 62nd in fWAR in 2023 even without the boost in games).

Lars Nootbaar is an essential piece to the Cardinals' puzzle of success next year. He won't be able to carry the team by himself, but If he can stay healthy, he will help the Redbirds beat even their most optimistic projections.