Re-ranking the 10 most valuable young players in Cardinals' organization

#9 - Lars Nootbaar (Previous ranking: #4)

Another tumbler on this list, Lars Nootbaar has been one of the biggest disappointments of the Cardinals' 2025 season for a number of reasons.

From Nootbaar's debut season in 2021 through 2024, he was 74th out of 303 qualified hitters in baseball in wRC+, forging a path as a key contributor in the Cardinals lineup who had underlying metrics that pointed to even more success that could be had. Among players his age or younger, Nootbaar was 35th in wRC+ out of 120 qualified hitters, which put him in the top 29% of players under the age of 28 at the plate.

For Nootbaar, the question wasn't whether or not he could be productive when he was on the field; it was whether or not he could stay on the field enough to maximize that impact.

For the first half of 2025, Nootbaar stayed on the field, but it was clear that he either was battling ailments that led to his demise at the plate or had just seen major regression at the plate. Through his first 1379 big league plate appearances, Nootbaar was 16% above league average at the plate. This year, in his 557 plate appearances, he's been 3% below league average.

If his season ended today, this would be his career high in plate appearances by 57, but also his worst offensive production of his entire career. The greatest dip that Nootbaar has seen in his profile is in his slugging percentage, which is at a career worst .368 and has been on a downward trend since his 2022 breakout season.

With two years of club control remaining, there will be interest in teams around the league in Nootbaar. He's a valuable player for sure, so I'm not here to pile on him, but with just a .237/.325/.368 slash line, 13 home runs, and continued injury concerns, it's hard to value him nearly as high as we once did.

I very much believe Nootbaar will look more like himself next year, and could even hit the heights that many of us believed he could at some point as well. If the Cardinals decide to hold onto him for that very reason this offseason, rather than sell low, I totally get that, but I do think there is a good chance that Lars Nootbaar won't be with the club in 2026.