7 key stats from Cardinals Opening Day that could shape the 2025 season

While Thursday's forecast included gloomy weather as storms rolled through St. Louis, the Cardinals shone bright on Opening Day, beginning the 2025 season with an exciting 5-3 victory over the Minnesota Twins.

It's one game. There is a reason they play 161 more during the regular season. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Overreacting to nine innings of baseball can get you into a lot of trouble, both in terms of positive and negative reactions.

And yet, there were numbers, traditional and advanced metrics as well as statistics outside of the diamond, that could tell the story of how the 2025 season may go for this Cardinal team.

Rather than do a traditional game analysis, I have seven numbers I collected from Opening Day that I found to be very interesting. Some are positive, one is worrisome, but all seven of them are things that may become trends, for better or for worse. These are numbers that cannot be taken as gospel today, but they are the things we should be keeping an eye on in the early months of the season to see if they maintain, improve, or fall off, as each will impact the club's ability to have success in different ways.

Here are 7 numbers from Cardinals' Opening Day that could shape the 2025 season

1.750 - Lars Nootbaar’s OPS to start 2025

Who else is ready to jump on the Lars Nootbaar for MVP hype train?!?

I’m joking, but I have 100% been of the opinion that 2025 will be a big year for Nootbaar, and we may have gotten a taste of that upside today as he settled in as the Cardinals’ leadoff man.

In what is becoming a trend around the game, Nootbaar provides value not by being a speedy spray hitter like what you may have grown up expecting a leadoff man to be. Nootbaar is the modern leadoff hitter who works the count, gets on base at a high level, isn’t afraid to take a walk, and is also a power threat.

With Willson Contreras batting behind him, opposing pitchers really can’t mess around with Nootbaar. Nootbaar's blend of excellent on-base skills and above-average (and potentially well-above-average) power make him a dangerous hitter when he's on, and that's why that OPS is going to be so important to watch as the year goes on.

Since Nootbaar handles both right-handed and left-handed pitchers well, I expect Nootbaar to be the primary leadoff hitter throughout the 2025 season as long as he is producing or not needed in the middle of their order. Not only will Nootbaar have great protection behind him with Contreras, Brendan Donovan, and Nolan Arenado, but he also will have the opportunity to produce runs whenever Jordan Walker, Victor Scott II, or Masyn Winn gets on in front of him.

I really like how the Cardinals have structured their lineup, but this construction does require Nootbaar to perform to his capabilities. I believe this is the year we'll see him put it all together, and he got off to a fantastic start on Thursday with a 109.8 MPH single to lead off the game and a two-run bomb to right field in his second at-bat of the game. Nootbaar saw 20 pitches on Thursday as well, showing that he can keep working counts and strike the ball when the opportunity presents itself.

75.5 MPH - Arenado’s bat speed

It's been well documented at this point how dramatic of a drop Nolan Arenado has seen in his bat speed over the last few seasons. As a player who has relied heavily upon that for success in his career, that coupled with his decline in performance on the field was sounding alarms for talent evaluators over what he can be at the plate moving forward.

We saw this front and center all offseason. Not only were the Cardinals content with moving the future Hall of Famer off their roster, they were willing to eat money on his contract in order to do so. Some of that was because of their desire to shed payroll in any way they could as well as the chance to give opportunities to young talent, but it also had to do with the decline in performance they had witnessed.

Arenado also was open to a trade, but only to certain teams. Why? Well, at this stage in his career, Arenado wants to win, and he knows that his window to be a productive player is rapidly closing. He is much closer to the finish line than the beginning at this point in his career, so if he was going to move on from St. Louis, it needed to be to a true contender.

But here's the thing: A trade never did happen, because teams had the same concerns we had. Would Arenado be able to bounce back offensively? Who was he going to be in 2025 and beyond?

During spring training, reports indicated that Arenado's bat speed had rebounded from the dip we saw in recent years, and on Opening Day, Arenado slugged a home run to left field to put the Cardinals over the top, and that home run was produced with a 75.5 MPH swing, which is the second-fastest bat speed he's had on a home run since the beginning of 2024.

If Arenado's bat speed is truly rebounding, then the 33-year-old third baseman may look more like himself this year than he has over the last year and a half of his Cardinals tenure. Don't forget, Arenado was an All-Star in 2023, but in the second half his bat fell off significantly, and then he followed that up with a mediocre 2024, by his standards.

Arenado is clearly motivated to prove the doubters wrong in 2025, and that bat speed improvement, should it be sustained, would be an indicator that he's not just wishfully thinking, he's producing like himself again.

116.5 MPH - Jordan Walker had the hardest-hit ball in baseball on Opening Day

It's hard to believe Jordan Walker is just 22 years old, and that's probably because he just made his third consecutive Opening Day start for the Cardinals in right field, one of just eight players in MLB history to do that prior to turning 23.

And yet, fans have been concerned about whether he'd become the hitter we thought he would be when he was a top prospect in the system. While 2023 had some incredible signs of growth and he was ultimately a 116 wRC+ hitter as a rookie, 2024 was so bad that it really made you question whether he'd be another "bust" from the Cardinals' system.

Time will tell us what Walker's ultimate fate is, but as things currently stand, we just observe the results on the field and the changes he is making to his game and see whether they point toward a brighter future.

Opening Day did just that. In Walker's first at-bat of the game, he laced a 116.5 MPH line drive down the third base line for a single, and had it not been for an unlucky bounce off the left field wall, he would have likely been standing on second base with this first double of the season. Walker destroyed that baseball, and it ended up being the hardest-hit ball of any game on Opening Day.

Walker has always been a guy who boasts immense potential, someone the Cardinals dream of the kind of damage he can do at the plate. The tools are there. Even in 2024 when he was struggling, Walker ranked fifth in baseball in average bat speed (77.3 MPH) among all hitters with at least 200 competitive swings.

However, the problem is that Walker does not capitalize on that potential enough. Too often, his at-bats have ended with pummeling the ball straight into the ground for another groundout to second base, or swinging and missing at a low and away slider. This offseason, Walker seemed excited about the instruction he was getting from new hitting coach Brant Brown, and he has implemented those changes in order to make good on his promise as a hitter.

You can see in this clip how different his hand position, stance, load, and attack of the baseball are. He's a different-looking hitter now, and one who could do more damage with the baseball more consistently if this trend continues.

Again, it's only one game, so we need a much larger sample size before we can say he's back on track to being a top hitter in the game one day, but I want you to take notice of Walker's spray chart from Thursday. All three of his batted balls were pulled on Thursday, and then he worked a walk in his fourth at-bat. No flimsy strikeout where he went and chased breaking balls way outside the zone. No weak ground ball contact to the right side of the infield after being fooled by a low and away pitch. He spat on those pitches, drove the balls that he could, and took his base when he needed to.

I'm not trying to say Walker is a completely new man at the plate and those holes in his game are gone. But what I saw on Opening Day was a Walker who seemed more comfortable and confident, and if that translates into better swing decisions and contact profiles in 2025, then we may see major progression at the plate this season. So keep an eye on those exit velocities this season, but even more so on the kinds of pitches he swings at and spits on while he's at the plate.

91.3 MPH - Sonny Gray’s dip in velocity

Facing his former club on Thursday, Sonny Gray had a pretty good outing in terms of the box score, allowing just two runs in five innings of work while working around four hits and two walks, but the home run ball bit him once again, allowing both runs to come off the bat of Harrison Bader in the fifth inning.

Gray allowed eight home runs during spring training and is fresh off allowing 21 round-trippers in 2024, so I think every Cardinal fan was hoping for a clean game from him in that regard, and yet we did not get one. On top of that, Gray's velocity concerns were there once again, as he averaged just 91.3 MPH on his fastball while topping out at 92.2 MPH on the day.

Unfortunately, that's a full MPH drop in average fastball velocity from 2024 (92.2 MPH), which was almost a full MPH lower than what he averaged on his fastball in 2023 (92.9 MPH). Gray's fastball was noticeably more hittable in 2024 (-5 run value as opposed to a +6 run value in 2023), and if that trend continues, Gray is going to have a very difficult time navigating lineups all season long.

Regaining some velocity would certainly help him in that regard. Gray has stated that a delay in his offseason program due to the injection he received at the end of 2024 put him behind in his preparation for 2025, and an illness during camp may have impacted that as well. Only time will tell if he can overcome those setbacks or if this velocity dip is his new reality.

The good news for Gray is that when it comes to his breaking stuff, it's still highly effective. Gray produced 12 swings and misses on his pitches on Thursday, while Twins starter and fellow strikeout artist Pablo Lopez got just 11 Cardinal swings and misses on Opening Day. Gray's ability to strike batters out (six punchouts in those five innings of work) will help him get out of jams and still be a productive pitcher in 2025, but he has to get his fastball right again if he is going to limit home runs and pitch like a front-line starter.

30.2 ft/sec - Victor Scott II’s elite defense on display

All offseason, I was pretty cautious regarding the potential of Victor Scott II beginning the 2025 season as the Cardinals' starting center fielder. It was nothing against Scott — I am a huge fan of his, and he's come on my podcast three different times. He's a great dude and I think he can be a great center fielder in this league for a long time. But because of the confidence I have in him for his career, I did not want to see the organization rush him for short-term gain at his long-term expense.

Well, Scott came into camp and blew everyone's socks off at the plate, and the adjustments he's made since his first taste of big-league action seem to have propelled him and given him a much greater sense of comfort against big-league pitching. He's also cleaned up his game defensively, and while he's not Michael Siani in center field, he has the tools to be a stud out there himself.

While Scott did not make an impact offensively today, he did show off his value in the field. During the top of the sixth inning, the Twins were down two with two men on, and Ty France mashed a long fly ball in the right-center field gap. Had the ball dropped, it would have likely been a tie game, and instead, Scott tracked the ball down with his elite speed and made the play on a ball that had a 10% catch probability.

Prior to the game on Thursday, manager Oliver Marmol was quick to share how impressed he was with Scott, and that as far back as Winter Warm-Up this year, he could tell Scott was prepared for the opportunity in a different way. When asked about how Scott's presence in center field creates a squeeze for other players looking for opportunites (see Nolan Gorman), Marmol had this quote that should be music to Cardinals fans' ears.

“Sure, it takes at-bats away from somebody, but that’s the whole point of there not being a level above this one,” Marmol said. “This isn’t just free opportunity. It’s the damn big leagues. You earn it. You run with it, and if you never look back, good for you. It’s at somebody’s expense, but when they get an opportunity, they’ve got to run with it, too."

Scott may have floundered in St. Louis last year, but he's put in the work to be an impactful player in 2025. After a strong spring training, he's earned the opportunity to prove it's for real. If it's not, then other players will have the chance to usurp him. But for now, Scott is running with his starting gig, and the Cardinals are a better team if he's producing as their center fielder than whatever their Plan B would be.

1981 - Youngest Cardinals Opening Day Lineup in 44 years

The "youngry" Cardinals are a real thing in 2025, and while we knew they were taking more of a youth approach this year, I'm not sure any of us truly understood how historic of a shift this would be for the organization.

Admittedly, I have not been able to fully fact-check this, but in my research, I have found Tom Orf (@MU4124) on X to be correct — the Cardinals' Opening Day lineup on Thursday is the youngest Opening Day lineup the team has had since 1981.

Outside of Nolan Arenado (33) and Willson Contreras (32), the other seven starters the Cardinals had in their lineup on Thursday were 28 years old (Brendan Donovan) or younger.

Jordan Walker (22), Masyn Winn (23), Victor Scott II (24), and Ivan Herrera (24) all are extremely young players, and Donovan, Lars Nootbaar, and Alec Burleson are still just a few years into their big league careers. It's a young, fun, and dynamic group and one that may actually get even younger as the year goes on.

Their bench consists of Nolan Gorman (24), Michael Siani (25), Pedro Pages (26), and Luken Baker (28), just one year after having guys like Paul Goldschmidt, Matt Carpenter, and Brandon Crawford on the roster. Thomas Saggese (23), Jimmy Crooks (23), Jose Fermin (26), Jose Barrero (27), and Matt Koperniak (27) will likely factor in at some point as well.

On the pitching side of things, only Mathew Liberatore (25) and Andre Pallante (26) are sub-30 in their rotation, but their bullpen is half-constructed by 20-year-olds as well. Soon enough, Quinn Mathews (24), Michael McGreevy (24), Gordon Graceffo (25), and perhaps even Tink Hence (22) and Tekoah Roby (23) will become factors as well.

As the Cardinals look to "surprise" people in 2025, veterans will play a role in that, but the young talent can act as either an accelerant or repellent for success this year. Almost all of these players I named have ceilings that they have not reached yet that could benefit this club big-time, and they also are fully capable of hitting floors that hurt the club's track toward on-field success.

That's part of the fun of this year, though, and why I think fans may fall in love with this team, or at least be draw in by them, in a way that the past two seasons of Cardinals baseball have not been able to do.

47,395 - Cardinals fans pack Busch Stadium for Opening Day

Cardinals fans are rightfully frustrated by a number of things. The team hasn’t won a playoff series since 2019 or a game in the postseason since 2020. They had one of their worst seasons in franchise history in 2023 and were mediocre in 2024. And rather than cleaning house this offseason, they implemented a transition plan and then did almost nothing with the Major League roster this winter.

This is just scratching the surface of the issues fans have. There were real questions about whether fans would show up to the ballpark this year, even on Opening Day. When Thursday rolled around, terrible weather delayed the first pitch by well over an hour, and yet, in spite of all of that and the issues that have compounded, 47,395 fans packed Busch Stadium to usher in the 2025 season.

I do not expect that kind of attendance to be maintained during the month of April, obviously. Opening Day is a special experience and is going to draw fans. Monday night against the Los Angeles Angels with Miles Mikolas on the mound won’t have the same draw. But, if I’m being honest, I didn’t expect this kind of turnout on Opening Day,

I will never tell fans how to spend their money. No one *has* to go watch this team play. But please don’t be the person who tells other fans they *shouldn’t* go to the ballpark either. If you don’t want to watch the team, that’s okay. But so many Cardinals fans bleed red and find so much enjoyment in going to Busch Stadium, and if this team gets off to a hot start, we could see fans pouring into the seats more and more as the season goes on.

Being at the ballpark on Thursday, there was a different energy in the air. The team seemed far looser and far more aggressive, and they were having more fun than they had in recent years. The crowd felt like that of a family at their relative's little league baseball game — cheering on the "kids" and hoping to see them develop before their very eyes.

St. Louis hasn't had a team like this in some time, a team that they can watch truly grow as an entire unit. A team that in some ways has nothing to lose and yet everything to gain. A club marked by opportunity and chips on their shoulders rather than a fear of disappointing those around them.

If the team is losing, I'm not sure that will be enough to draw fans to the ballpark. But if the club is competitive, let alone potentially good, I think the frustration that has filled the discourse of Cardinals fans for some time now may be put to the side in order to cheer on the future of Cardinals baseball. That's the product this organization is selling in 2025. Not the promise of the playoffs or World Series contention. Not the nostalgia of your favorite players growing up who are in the twilight of their careers. The team is selling hope, selling a glimpse of the future, and if the cards stack their way, the fruit may start showing up as soon as this year.

That's an exciting product that I think fans will come to the ballpark for. Only time will tell if they can thread that needle and fill Busch Stadium in 2025.