Grading every Cardinals hitter 40 games into their Cinderella start to 2026 season

The St. Louis Cardinals are good. Or, at least, they have been good so far this season. You know the story by now. Projection systems were famously low on the Cardinals. They play in the best division in baseball. Even the POBO was clear in telling the fanbase that this year would be about the long-term success of the Cardinals. (Thank goodness someone finally said that directly to the camera!) The question then becomes, how did they get here?

Any discussion of the Cardinals' success must start with the offense. Though there are multiple phases of the game that contribute to winning, the offense has consistently contributed far more to this pace of success than the pitching staff has. At roughly 40 games into the season, let’s grade the Cardinals' offensive players on their first-quarter performance. 

We’ll dive into the tiers here, but before we do, over on the Redbird Rundown podcast we talked with Joe Roderick from STL Sports Central about grades for the overall facets of the team. It was a fun conversation and a good way to think and talk about the team from a holistic viewpoint. Check it out if you have time! Apple and Spotify!

Alright. Now let’s dish out some individual grades. I’m going to limit myself to simple letter grades here, no pluses or minuses, in order to streamline the report card.

Straight to the head of the class - A 

If you’ve watched any games at all, you have a good feeling for who goes in this tier. It’s as obvious as the nose on your face: Jordan Walker, Ivan Herrera, JJ Wetherholt, and Alec Burleson. Yep. That just so happens to be the top four batters in the order. That’s excellent lineup construction if you ask me. 

Look, what can we say about Jordan Walker? I mean, he literally resurrected his floundering career before the age of 24 and began to deliver on the promise that was prophesied about in prospect lists. He’s got one of the best wRC+ rates in the entire MLB, bashes lasers all over the place, and even pulled himself out of a tailspin after he went complete supernova. Was anyone else terrified during that 10-day stretch when Old Jordan Walker resurfaced? Walker has made the proverbial adjustments and come out the other side. Consider this: would you have bet more money on a COVID-19 resurgence or Jordan Walker being one of the best hitters in baseball before the season? You would’ve at least had to think about it, right? What a tremendous first quarter for this guy.

Walker got his own paragraph, but the other three on the list deserve praise, too. Wetherholt is a pitch count menace to the opposing staff, made Paul Skenes his son, and leads all rookies in runs because he is on base all the time. He’s got it, and he’s going to for a long time. Ivan Herrera has just turned into a premium hitter. He’s experienced a bit of a power outage compared to what we’ve seen in the past, but his on-base skills are elite. Having two OBP monsters at the top of your lineup certainly will lead to runs being scored. Alec Burleson is simply a professional hitter. His contact rates are elite, and he’s towards the top of the NL in RBIs. Wetherholt and Herrera are on base all the time, but Burly cashes them in. That shouldn’t be completely overlooked. It’s been a tremendous start for the top of the order.

Honor students - B

Masyn Winn and Nathan Church will never join the ranks of elite hitters in baseball, but they have both turned in solid performances to date. Winn started the year in an awful funk but has battled back to a 104 wRC+ at the time of this writing. That’s four percent above league average, but with clear promise to be able to push that higher. Nathan Church has that real feeling of Cardinals Devil Magic creeping back in. (Yes, Nathan Church and Cardinals Devil Magic are a bad fit, but the branding is already there, you know?) Church is running a 104 wRC+ with some pop in the lower part of the order and has taken advantage of his opportunity and earned additional playing time (more on that in a bit!).

Average Joes - C

Perhaps controversially, I have no one in this tier. Strictly speaking, if you go by wRC+, Winn and Church should probably both be in this tier, but I decided to reward the fact that both of them had stretches where they were far above average hitters. If there were 2-3 guys in this tier, the offense would be one of the very best in baseball.

Guys struggling to find their footing - D

Let’s start here with Nolan Gorman. He’s running an 87 wRC+ and striking out over 30% of the time. How long will he continue to be this player? His defensive improvements have been excellent, but Nolan Gorman is here to bash doubles and homers. If he were doing more of that, you could live with the 30% strikeout rate, but he’s mired in his swing-and-miss doldrums without enough of the lightning bolts to prop up his value. It’s only the first quarter, but if Gorman continues in this vein the whole season, I think this could be it for him in St. Louis.

The other regular that needs to be in this offensive category is Pedro Pages. His defensive value is clearly extremely important to the decision makers in the organization, but for his offense alone you can’t really justify any higher grade than this. He’s got a 73 wRC+. This is who he is as an offensive player, and he just doesn’t have the upside of someone like Gorman. Jimmy Crooks awaits.

Failing - F

It’s tough to write because he seems to be a genuinely interesting guy with a great personality, but Victor Scott II is flat-out failing on offense. Out of 179 hitters, Scott has the 175th highest wRC+. We can try to spin this any way we want with baserunning and defensive metrics, but his first quarter on offense challenged for one of the very worst hitters in baseball. It’s as simple as that. When Lars Nootbaar returns in late May, it wouldn’t be at all surprising to see Scott relegated to a secondary role in favor of Nathan Church.

So, how sustainable is all this? Well, to me, there are two key factors. Will the top of the order continue to produce at this level? The only player that gives me any pause there is Jordan Walker, and he erases more of those doubts each day with his play. And, can anyone else become a “C” hitter for this lineup? It’s very feast or famine at this point, and more consistency down in the lineup would do wonders for this team.

Either way, it’s been a surprisingly fun performance for the offense so far. Let me know what you think of the grades!

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