These five Cardinals will outperform their projections for 2024 season

Around this time every year, fans and pundits alike begin to look at different projection systems for the St. Louis Cardinals and other teams around baseball. While there are a number of projection systems out there, FanGraph's ZiPS projections (developed by Dan Szymborski) seem to be the most highly regarded in the baseball community because of how it has captured future production in recent years.

This year in particular though, I have some doubts about the projections for a variety of players on the Cardinals roster. ZiPS uses growth and decline curves based on player types and then combines those trends with a player's past performance to make projections. Projections, at the end of the day, are just that. You can predict what a player is going to do during the next season based on a number of factors, but it's the play on the field that will ultimately determine the outcomes.

I broke down most of the Cardinals' position players' and pitchers' projections from ZiPS over on the Noot News Podcast this week, so you can check out an in-depth conversation on all of that over there or in the embedded video below.

And yet, there are five position players on the Cardinals roster that I look at their projections and scratch my head. Sure, players can have down years, regress, or plateau (just look at the 2023 season as the epitome of that), but ZiPS just seems to be far too low on each of these players for my liking.

Some of this has to do with circumstances that ZiPS cannot account for. Some of these players had injuries during the 2023 season that significantly impacted their performance or kept them off the field, while others had weird circumstances that I'm not sure a database can account for. But honestly, most of these guys I do not need to explain the context of their past seasons to make you think these projections are undervaluing them by a significant margin.

For each player, I am going to provide the 2024 ZiPS projections and their actual output for the last two seasons, and then explain why I believe each of these five position players will outperform their projections by a significant margin.

Nolan Arenado

2024 ZiPS projection: 139 G, .268/.328/.454, 21 HR, 87 RBI, 111 wRC+, 3.4 fWAR

2023 final stat line: 144 G, .266/.315/.459, 26 HR, 71 RBI, 107 wRC+, 2.6 fWAR

2022 final stat line: 148 G, .293/.358/.533, 30 HR, 103 RBI, 150 wRC+,7.2 fWAR

We all know the 2023 season was not what any of us expected from Nolan Arenado, and in all honesty, I'm at least a bit worried about the health of his back going forward.

If, and it's an if right now because we have to see him back on the field, but if Arenado's back is in a good place during the 2024 season, I have zero doubt that he'll smash the over on those offensive projections.

During the first half of the 2023 season, Arenado slashed .283/.332/.518, which was good for a .850 OPS and 126 wRC+, even after a dreadful March/April where he was 37% below league average offensively. Arenado carried a .900+ OPS during the months of May, June, and July, but saw his production nose-dive again in the second half. During those final 58 games, Arenado put up a .241/.290/.373 slash line and a 79 wRC+.

Arenado is not a guy who is going to make excuses, and he did everything in his power to play as often as possible, even with the back issue clearly having an impact on him. He's also a fiery competitor, so I have no doubt he played with a lot of frustration in the second half with the games being "meaningless" when it came to the standings.

Do I expect Arenado to be a 7+ WAR player and post a 150 wRC+ as he did during his top-3 finish in MVP voting in 2022? No, but I also have a hard time believing he's now just a guy who plays good defense and is a pretty good hitter. ZiPS has Arenado projected to be tied for the 105th-ranked hitter in wRC+ in 2024, and I just don't see how one bad season (with a lot of context around it) now has him viewed that poorly in these projections.

Expect Arenado to have a huge bounce back season in 2023, with an OPS north of .820 and wRC+ north of 120 as the floor for his production, as long as his back is not a major issue.

Brendan Donovan

2024 ZiPS projection: 121 G, .270/.362/.380, 8 HR, 49 RBI, 109 wRC+, 1.8 fWAR

2023 final stat line: 95 G, .284/.365/.422, 11 HR, 34 RBI, 118 wRC+. 2.1 fWAR

2022 final stat line: 126 G, .281/.394/.379, 5 HR, 45 RBI, 128 wRC+. 2.6 fWAR

Brendan Donovan's ZiPS projection is just silly to me. If you look at the kind of hitter he's been his first two years at the Major League level, and you take into account the improvements he made over the last 10 weeks of his season before being shut down, they should be projecting an improvement in his numbers, not a major regression.

I wrote about this for the site last week, but I asked Donovan at Winter Warm-Up what led to his major surge in production from late May until being shut down on July 29th, and he said that he got more aggressive earlier in counts, which led to a .314/.398/.485 slash line and 144 wRC+ during those ten weeks. You can check out a more in-depth look at his progression over in that story.

Donovan has posted a 118 and 128 wRC+ in his two big league seasons thus far, and with the way he was hitting last summer, that 118 would have finished a whole lot higher. I don't know how ZiPS can try to convince me that Donovan is going to regress significantly after already being a really good hitter who just unlocked himself even more.

During that 10-week stretch, Donovan hit 8 home runs and slugged 11 in the 95 games he played. Now they think he's going to only hit 8 home runs in 120+ games played?

Player performance is not always linear, so just because a guy is young, doesn't mean they will for sure get better. But I don't think it makes sense to say Donovan will regress significantly. I can see an arguement for him plateauing as a 120-125 wRC+ guy who's elite as an on-base threat with sneaky power, or potentially getting even better.

Donovan is a hard-working leader who continues to make strides as a player each year, and I would not expect anything less than that from him. I anticipate big things from Brendan Donovan in 2024, so this is an easy decision for me to say he'll outperform his projections.

Lars Nootbaar

2024 ZiPS projection: 136 G, .242/.344/.441, 19 HR, 60 RBI, 114 wRC+, 2.4 fWAR

2023 final stat line: 117 G, .261/.367/.418, 14 HR, 46 RBI, 118 wRC+, 3.2 fWAR

2022 final stat line: 108 G, .228/.340/.448, 14 HR, 40 RBI, 123 wRC+, 2.6 fWAR

Much like Brendan Donovan, Lars Nootbaar has been on an upward trajectory in terms of production and development since the 2022 season. During the second half that year, Nootbaar exploded offensively, posting a 138 wRC+ and putting together his blend of power and on-base skills to become a real threat at the plate.

We saw a lot of that again in 2023, but the problem for Nootbaar was being able to stay on the field. He experienced multiple fluke injuries that kept him out for prolonged stretches and struggled to get into a groove. Once he would, another injury would occur, and he'd be sidelined once again. And yet, Nootbaar still managed to post a 118 wRC+ in the 117 games he played in 2023.

Nootbaar will be the starting left fielder on Opening Day and should play almost every day for St. Louis. Yes, he needs to prove he can stay on the field this year, but there's zero reason to think he won't be extremely productive at the plate if he's healthy.

And yet, ZiPS, as it did with Donovan, sees Nootbaar posting a career-low wRC+ and regressing from an on-base standpoint. It does have him regaining that power from 2022, but for some reason, believes Nootbaar's higher average and on-base percentage from 2023 will come back down to earth.

Once again, I really doubt the projections here. Nootbaar should be an integral part of the Cardinals' everyday lineup, and his continued progression from a plate discipline standpoint and being able to drive the ball consistently should lead to more success in 2024. Take the over on Nootbaar and you will not regret it.

Nolan Gorman

2024 ZiPS projection: 132 G, .240/.317/.467, 28 HR, 80 RBI, 112 wRC+, 2.2 fWAR

2023 final stat line: 119 G, .236/.328/.478, 27 HR, 76 RBI, 118 wRC+, 2.5 fWAR

2022 final stat line: 89 G, .226/.300/.420, 14 HR, 35 RBI, 105 wRC+, 0.5 fWAR

Counting stats are counting stats, I care much more about rate projections than I home run total or runs batted in total projections, but come on, how do they have Nolan Gorman hitting just one more home run in 2024 while playing in 13 more games?

If you followed much of my writing this offseason, you've probably seen me reference the insane dip in production Gorman had during the month of June. Gorman was so bad in June that he posted a .439 OPS and 22 wRC+ in 76 plate appearances. He was basically unplayable that entire month and it sunk his case to be an All-Star in his sophomore season.

You know what's even crazier? If you take out of the month of June from Gorman's season, he posted a .880 OPS and 137 wRC+ in the other 338 plate appearances. That's an incredible production that has gone under the radar nationally because of how bad that single month was.

Gorman is a streaky hitter, so the Cardinals will have to live with some of the bad to get all of the good. It's likely that Gorman will have a month or two where his production just is not where you want it to be, but overall, he'll still be a fearsome hitter at the plate. And come on, do we really expect him to be that bad at the plate for an entire month again? Gorman still finished with an .806 OPS and 118 wRC+ on the season even with that terrible stretch, so even just a less drastic dip in production would have made him an .820 OPS and 125 wRC+ guy on the year.

So why on earth does ZiPS see Gorman regressing down to a .784 OPS and 112 wRC+ guy in 2024? I have no idea how to explain that reasoning. Gorman slightly improved his strikeout rate in 2023 and took a big step forward in walk rate, while also having a very similar BABIP as he did during his rookie season. His xwOBA actually jumped by 17 points as well, so the newfound production seemed to be expected.

This awesome thread from @TJStats on X (formerly known as Twitter) demonstrates the incredible tools that Gorman has, and why there are a lot of people around baseball who expect him to pop in a big way next season. The whole thread is worth checking out, but this specific tweet shows how Gorman's mix of Barrel% and Z-Swing% puts him among the most elite hitters in baseball.

If Gorman is playing in 130+ games in 2024, book a 30+ home run season, and his OPS and wRC+ should be much higher than what ZiPS is projecting.