Brendan Donovan is the perfect bridge for Cardinals' rebuild

Not all rebuilds are created equal, and in the case of the St. Louis Cardinals, Chaim Bloom needs to tread lightly when considering truly tearing things down to the studs.

For every Houston Astros or Chicago Cubs situation, where the years of losing and faceless baseball in the name of building toward the future led to World Series championships, there are clubs like the Colorado Rockies, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Chicago White Sox that just seem to get stuck in an endless cycle of losing baseball. Heck, there are even situations like what the Baltimore Orioles find themselves in, where their exciting young core now sits with an uncertain future after failing to take the next step.

The Cardinals need to take the long view with this rebuild, no doubt about it. This offseason should include plenty of trades, both of veteran players who no longer fit the timeline and young players who are either redundancies or not part of their plans moving forward.

But when it comes to Brendan Donovan, he represents a unique situation that the Cardinals would be wise to keep around for the long haul.

Brendan Donovan's value to the Cardinals during their rebuild is being undervalued by many fans

I had this in my queue to write back on September 24th, but with a busy work schedule, it took until Saturday evening to dive into this on the site. But I did put out the following thread on the topic that day over on X:

Lynn Worthy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch put out the same take over on their site, but I still wanted to put my own stamp on why Donovan should remain a part of the Cardinals through this rebuild.

I'll get this out of the way - no, Donovan isn't "untouchable". There are very few players in baseball that teams should never consider offers on. If a team wants to get the Cardinals an offer they can't refuse, then they have to strongly consider it. But as I'll detail below, I kind of doubt that will be the case.

Assuming Donovan isn't used in an emergency situation in today's season finale against the Chicago Cubs, he'll finish the 2025 season slashing .287/.353/.422 with 10 home runs and 50 RBI in 118 games, good for a 118 wRC+ and 2.8 fWAR. He'll finish 18th in all of baseball in average, 33rd in on-base percentage, and 54th in wRC+. He was also one of the best defensive second basemen in baseball and was able to play anywhere the Cardinals asked him to this year.

Important context to this as well, Donovan played through turf toe for 46 games of his season, tanking his numbers to an 84 wRC+ over that stretch. For reference, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow may miss the rest of the NFL season with turf toe, and Donovan was playing through the injury every day. In the 64 games prior to suffering that injury, Donovan had a .819 OPS and 132 wRC+ on the year.

For Donovan's career now, he's a .282/.361/.411 hitter with a 119 wRC+. Since debuting in 2022, Donovan ranks 58th in wRC+ among the 304 qualified hitters, and he'd rank much higher if he didn't play through that turf toe this summer or didn't have the second half of his 2023 campaign shut down for elbow surgery. Again, those things happened, so they are a part of the story, but I think a lot of people undervalue how good Donovan is when he's on the field and healthy.

No, Donovan is not a superstar, but I would argue he's in a unique class of player that is far too good to be called a complementary piece either. His bat alone is an extremely valuable tool for any club, and when you pair that with the defensive value and versatility he provides, Donovan is someone you want on your team.

On top of that, Donovan represents everything you want in a ballplayer and a leader for a team. Sure, teams can bring in veterans on cheap deals to provide voices to the clubhouse, but there is a different weight and impact when that voice is one of your top players and a homegrown talent.

I know we typically think of rebuilds in the sense of maximizing player value. If someone won't for sure be in their prime when the rebuild is "complete", well, then you ship them away for the best package you can. The Cardinals should for sure explore that with Lars Nootbaar and possibly a sell-high candidate like Alec Burleson. But when it comes to Donovan, I think people are overstating how much the Cardinals would get in return for him while simultaneously underrating how good he can still be in a few years and how impactful his leadership can be during the lean years.

I've seen people argue that the Cardinals need to shop him to acquire a future foundational piece to their organization, and yet those same people claim Donovan isn't enough of a star to keep at this stage in his career. I don't think both things can be true at the same time. I don't think Donovan will bring the Cardinals back the kind of package that makes a trade worthwhile unless he is truly that star-level player that people claim he isn't.

When it comes to his leadership, some people will say things like "What is he even leading in a rebuild?", and they are completely missing the point. When JJ Wetherholt, Liam Doyle, Quinn Mathews, Tekoah Roby, Leonardo Bernal, Joshua Baez, Rainiel Rodriguez, and other young players make their way up to the big league club, their trajectory as players and the clubhouse culture they develop in can be shaped by the presence of Donovan in that clubhouse. Someone who works harder than anyone, someone with a team-first mentality, a player who isn't afraid to push his teammates and wants to post every single day. That presence matters in the clubhouse.

Donovan is up for that challenge as well. When asked about the direction the Cardinals are heading in, he shot straight with reporters. “I’ve never been afraid of building something,” Donovan said. “So it’s an individually based team game. For me, how I try to combat that is I just try to play every night to win, try to let the situation dictate what I want to try and do. I’m up to being here and helping us build something.”

Building something. That's the point of a rebuild, right? You're trying to "rebuild" this organization into the kind of contender that Cardinals fans got used to seeing in the 2000s and early 2010s. Rebuild doesn't mean you have to scrap everything and start from ground zero - especially when one of those pieces, i.e., Brendan Donovan, is built to lead this club into the future.

Will he be the Cardinals' best player when they are a World Series contender? Probably not. Will he even be at the peak of his powers anymore? Who knows? But imagine the kind of message it would send to both the clubhouse and this fanbase if Chaim Bloom rewards Donovan with a long-term extension this winter in the midst of the organizational overhaul he will be performing. Don't be mistaken, Bloom is going to be making a lot of changes to the Cardinals' roster this winter. The Cardinals' payroll will be dropping once again. While 2025 was the runway season, 2026 will truly be a youth movement.

And that's exactly why you want Donovan around. How often do young teams get stuck in mediocrity or bottom-feeder status because their organization continues to move off players who can lead that next generation? Look at the Cincinnati Reds, for example. Every single offseason,the media pumps them up as the team that everyone needs to look out for because of their young talent, but they missed the playoffs each of the last four years and 10 of their last 11 campaigns. They have a chance to finally sneak into the playoffs this year because of the New York Mets' collapse, and even if they do, they'll only do so with an 83-win season and barely surpassing the Cardinals, who this fanbase would not have given respect to if they had been the team to sneak in.

Why not foster the development of this organization with someone like Donovan leading the charge? Pair that mentality with Willson Contreras, who also stated his desire to remain with the Cardinals during the rebuild because he "likes a challenge", and you've got two eager veterans eager to lead the charge. How many players of Donovan and Contreras' caliber do you find that want to lead a team through a rebuild?

While the Cardinals could get good value in return for Donovan, I have a hard time believing it will surpass both the on-field and off-the-field impact that Donovan could have on this club moving forward.