Ranking the 10 most valuable Cardinals who will define their future

#6 - 1B Alec Burleson

Previous Rankings: Sept. '25 - #6, May '25 - HM

This probably looks insanely disrespectful toward Alec Burleson, but I assure you, I believe he is a very, very good player, and if he were just a bit younger or had a bit more club control remaining, he'd bump up a spot or two on this list. But hey, this should give you a glimpse as to how strong this young core looks right now, specifically when it comes to position players.

Let's briefly talk about why I have other players higher than Burleson before we jump into why he is still so valuable. The Cardinals' first baseman will turn 28 in November and has just two years of club control remaining following this season. That means he's going to get expensive in arbitration starting this offseason, and he's going to be looking at a really nice payday in free agency soon, right when he turns 30. Not a bad thing at all, but it does hurt his "value" a bit when it comes to the big picture. Plus, he's a first baseman, so positional value is dinged a bit here as well.

Okay, enough with the nitpicking, because all Burleson does is hit the baseball and do it with authority, and he has gotten better and better at doing that each and every season he has played at the big league level.

During his 2023 rookie campaign, when many wondered what on earth the Cardinals saw in him, Burleson posted an 89 wRC+ while the advanced metrics said he was one of the unluckiest players in baseball. In 2024, he had an incredible summer, but a really rough September dropped his wRC+ to 106 on the year. 2025 was his first Silver Slugger season, posting a 124 wRC+ with 18 home runs and 46 total extra base hits in 139 games. Now on the young season, Burleson has a 130 wRC+ and is just really beginning to heat up at the plate.

Burleson has always been a great bat-to-ball guy who pairs that with above-average power, but this year, he actually ranks in the 96th percentile in xSLG (.571), and he's doing so due to improved hard-hit rates, barrel%, and average exit velocities.

This is likely due to Burleson continuing to hone in on the strike zone. He's never been a guy who strikes out much, always ranking among the best players in the sport in K%, but he would expand his zone a bit and make contact with not great pitches. This year, Burleson is taking his walks, forcing opposing pitchers to attack him in the zone, and he's using his plus-plus bat skills and great power skills to do damage.

How the Cardinals handle his future will be one of the biggest storylines to follow in the coming years. Based on everything Bloom has said about this rebuild, Burleson kind of seems to fit the mold of Brendan Donovan, someone they could get a ton of assets for, more so than the younger players on the roster. But if this is who Burleson is becoming, there is every argument to be made that he needs to be a part of this core moving forward.

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