What's going on with Cardinals' lead off hitter Lars Nootbaar?

Lars Nootbaar starting the year off as the team's leadoff man made sense. He's been an on-base machine throughout his career, and his slugging numbers were strong for a leadoff hitter.

He finished the months of March and April with a .263/.400/.439 slash line and 25 walks compared to 21 strikeouts. He was doing everything he could to start the game off with positive momentum, and it was working quite well for the Cardinals.

Things simply haven't been the same for Nootbaar since. Including Thursday night's game against, Lars has recorded one hit in his last 27 at-bats. That's not ideal from your leadoff hitter. This isn't a new thing for the left-handed hitting outfielder. Over the last month, Nootbaar is slashing just .189/.260/.256 with 33 strikeouts and only seven walks. It's been rough for the club's starting left fielder. What's been going wrong for Lars lately?

Lars Nootbaar's plate discipline and decision making has been lackluster over the last two months.

Pitchers are pitching Lars Nootbaar in largely the same spots as they have throughout his career. He's seeing the bulk of his pitches down and away outside of the zone. In 2023, Nootbaar whiffed at these pitches just 39% of the time, a solid rate. That whiff rate rose to 51% in 2024, and it's skyrocketed up to 60% this year. That's a dramatic increase in only two years on balls low and away and outside of the strike zone.

Nootbaar's out-of-zone swing percentage was down to just 17% last year. This year, it's ballooned up to 21.6%. He's swinging at significantly more pitches out of the zone, particularly ones on the outside of the zone.

Hit out-of-zone contact rate has also fallen from 66.4% last year to just 61.2% this year. Pitchers seem to have figured out Lars this year; throw the ball outside the zone and let him chase. His chase rate as a whole has gone up from 16.9% last year to 22.3% this year. His metrics are still above average across the board, but he's lost ground in stats, which are usually his calling cards.

Nootbaar's swing rate as a whole has gone up this year. He's not only swinging more at pitches outside the zone, but he's also swinging at more pitches inside the zone. This isn't inherently a bad thing, but when your fly-ball rate is as high as 46.9%, being more selective with pitches may be a good idea.

His average launch angle this year on all pitches is now 18.7 degrees. Last year, his average launch angle on all pitches was six degrees.

This is really the first year that Lars has been healthy for this many games in a row. In past years, he would have gone down with some type of an injury by the time the calendar flipped to June. Health has always been his biggest knock, and he's seemingly worked past that so far. Now, he just needs to tap back into what he was doing so well early on in the season.

In 2024, Lars Nootbaar was a Statcast darling. He ranked in the 75th percentile or better in nine key metrics. The hype was high surrounding Noot entering the season, and he followed through on that excitement early on. Since then, however, he's faltered quite a bit.

If the Cardinals want to end this skid and get back in the win column, they need Lars Nootbaar to get back on track. If he can start hitting and drawing walks like he did early in the year, the tide of the season will be changed.