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

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.