Several Cardinals pepper ESPN's baseball awards list as season nears one-third mark

As the calendar drives toward June, the St. Louis Cardinals remain in contention for first place in the vaunted NL Central. That wouldn't be possible without some surprise performances across the roster, and on ESPN.com, Bradford Doolittle wrote a piece breaking down the top candidates for various awards around the league. Much to fans' delight, the Cardinals feature heavily on these lists.

At the National League MVP spot, Cardinals breakout star Jordan Walker is in third place, behind Shohei Ohtani and Corbin Carroll. ESPN uses a rating system called AXE that combines publicly available metrics, and Walker's AXE stands at 134, just three points behind Carroll but trailing Ohtani's 150.2 by a decent margin.

The article points out how Walker is tapping into his 98th-percentile exit velocity by improving his plate discipline. The emergence of a potential face of the franchise has been a remarkable sight, but ESPN believes he's due for regression given his historical numbers. However, this is a different Walker with a revamped plate approach, and even if he falls back a bit, he should remain a dangerous presence in the lineup.

Walker isn't the only Cardinal on MVP watch, either. Rookie JJ Wetherholt is ranked sixth on the list, with a 129.7 AXE, but more importantly for the Cardinals, he leads the pack in Rookie of the Year contention. This is no longer just a vanity award; if Wetherholt earns the Rookie of the Year award, the Cardinals will receive a draft pick after the first round, which could accelerate their rebuild.

Although Wetherholt is hitting just .239, he is reaching base at a high clip thanks to walks and a propensity to get hit by pitches, as he's currently tied with teammate Iván Herrera for the major league lead, with 10 plunks. The article cites Wetherholt's low .255 BABIP as a stroke of bad luck to this point that should turn around soon, and his excellent defense will only add to his Rookie of the Year case.

Cardinals manager Oli Marmol is also in an esteemed position on the list

The Cardinals might not have seen this kind of unexpected success without Marmol guiding the team. Odd as it may seem for a 39-year-old, Marmol is the sixth-longest-tenured manager in the major leagues, hired in October 2021, and he has displayed marked improvement in his managerial aptitude. It's reflected in the ESPN article, as the Cardinals' shocking performance in 2026 has Marmol ranked just behind San Diego Padres manager Craig Stammen in EARL, ESPN's manager version of AXE.

According to the article, EARL places a large emphasis on teams outperforming their run differential, which the Padres lead the league in. But Cardinals fans have seen the team squeak out narrow victories, which often require a deft hand with the bullpen. The Cardinals cobbled together a ramshackle arm barn that ranks toward the bottom of the league in most stats, so Marmol's ability to continue winning on the margins is impressive.

Walker and Wetherholt might form the nucleus of the next competitive Cardinals team, and with Marmol at the wheel, there's no telling how far the club could saunter into October in the coming seasons.

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