Encouraging update on Lars Nootbaar means reinforcements are coming for Cardinals

While the St. Louis Cardinals are off to a nice start to the 2026 season, everyone can agree that the roster could use some reinforcements. It sounds like at least one impactful player is on his way.

In a chat over on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Goold confirmed that the Cardinals' plan is to activate Nootbaar from the 60-day injured list on May 24th, the first day he is eligible to return.

Nootbaar was placed on the 60-day injured list to begin the year due to his recovery from double heel surgery he had during the offseason, a procedure that is meant to fix issues that had been hindering Nootbaar on the field for several seasons now.

This means that we are likely only a few weeks away from Nootbaar beginning a rehab assignment, and once he returns, we may see a shakeup to the Cardinals' current outfield mix.

When Lars Nootbaar returns, Nathan Church may push Victor Scott II out of the CF job

When Nootbaar returns from the injured list, he should slot in as the Cardinals' everyday left fielder. For his career, Nootbaar is a 110 wRC+ hitter, and outside of a down year in 2026, Nootbaar has posted offensive numbers that are 14%-23% above league average in each of his other full-time big league seasons.

Even if Nootbaar just produces to that career norm rather than the higher outputs he's had when he's fully healthy, he would be a substantial upgrade over one of the spots in their lineup, and the Cardinals could actually look to replace their worst hitter this season with that valuable production.

Victor Scott II, who's played in 26 games so far this year, has posted a 30 wRC+ entering Monday, meaning he's 70% worse than a league-average hitter at the plate right now. To put that into perspective, among the 239 hitters who have at least 70 plate appearances this year, Scott ranks 234th. He's just not cutting it offensively right now, and it is a real problem.

Nathan Church, on the other hand, has been on a heater since he really struggled out of the gate to begin the year, posting a 125 wRC+ on the season thus far and being worth almost a full win above replacement over Scott according to FanGraphs. His defense is his calling card as well, so if he slid over to center field full-time in place of Scott, the Cardinals wouldn't be taking much of a step back there.

Now, I don't expect Church to be a 25% above-league-average hitter the rest of the year, but even if he's just an average or slightly above-average hitter, that's far better than what Scott is producing right now, and frankly, since he's become a big leaguer. For his career, Scott is a 62 wRC+ hitter, which is the third-worst in baseball since he debuted among players with as many plate appearances as him.

For a Cardinals lineup that has been better than expected thus far, adding Nootbaar to the mix to replace the lineup spot of one of the worst hitters in baseball will be a substantial upgrade for this unit and help them to lengthen their lineup even further.

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