6 Cardinals who have stolen the show so far in Spring Training

The St. Louis Cardinals are 6-7 to begin their Spring Training schedule, and while the past few weeks have been filled with frustrating storylines regarding injuries and their veteran starting pitching additions, there are still a bunch of bright spots to keep an eye on.

At the end of the day, it's Spring Training. I don't take much stock in stats during camp.

Let me repeat. I take very little stock in Spring Training stats.

What I am paying attention to throughout camp and Spring Training contests is storylines, feel, and tangible progress from players. Stats tell a small part of that story, but there are a lot of other things that point to success this time of year.

You'll notice that I left players off this list who had better stats, and that was because I did not necessarily view their output so far as indicative of things to come.

Regular season results are what will tell the real story, but until then, I've got six players who have really stood out to me so far in camp.

Nolan Gorman

Throughout the 2023 season, Nolan Gorman was one of the best hitters on the Cardinals' roster, and with Lars Nootbaar likely missing the beginning of the season, it's even more important that he comes out of the gates swinging.

Posting an .891 OPS in his 19 at-bats so far, Gorman looks to be seeing the ball (and mashing the ball) well. But what I'm really intrigued by is the steps Gorman continues to take defensively.

Gorman saw a massive improvement in his OAA (-12 to -2) and RAA (-9 to -2) from 2022 to 2023, and it looks like he's continued to put in the work on that end going into 2024. Now, I don't expect Gorman to be a plus defender by any means, but average defense at second base with his bat is massive.