In theory, the Cardinals had their chance.
Or so it seemed.
After an uneven opening month, the Cardinals emerged as a buzzworthy team during their 19-8 May. They flew through an 11-game winning streak as part of a 12-1 streak. The Redbirds lost only five of their final 23 games that month and FanGraphs gave them a 42.7 percent chance of making the playoffs.
At the end of May, the Cardinals were 33-25 and trailed the first-place Cubs in the NL Central by only three games. Incredibly, at the time the Cards were 2 and ½ games above the Brewers in the standings. The Cardinals were 4 and ½ games ahead of the Reds, and a mountainous 11 and ½ games higher than the last-place Pirates.
The reason I provided the team by team standings in the NL Central at the end of May was to show how hard the Cardinals crashed.
It took a while. For example the Cardinals were .500 in June and reached a season-high nine games over .500 on June 29.
Then …
– 8-16 July …
– 13-15 in August …
– 10-14 in September …
– 12 losses in their last 18 games on the schedule.
The choking New York Mets allowed the Cardinals and Reds a chance to hang around in the uninspiring pursuit for the NL’s third wild-card. The Reds managed to scoop up the ticket after the Mets dropped it. But just to show you how the addition of a third wild-card has rewarded mediocrity, the Reds were able to sneak by the Mets despite going 16-19 in their final 35 games. Terry Francona’s team ignited just in time, winning eight of their final 11 games.
But even on the final day of the regular season the Reds lost to the Brewers, and would have been eliminated from the third wild-card bidding if the Mets defeated the Marlins. But the Mets barfed again, getting shut out 4-0 by the Marlins. Hey, in the Mets’ case, a $341.7 million payroll just doesn’t carry you as far as it used to.
Sure the Cardinals had a chance. The Reds did just enough to get it done.
The Cardinals?
Well, let’s go back to the end of May when the men had a 42.7 percent chance of making the playoffs, were just three games in arrears to the Cubs, and had opened standings space above the Brewers, Reds and Pirates.
Here’s the NL Central standings since the start of June:
1. Brewers, 66-37, .641
2. Cubs, 56-48, .538
3. Reds, 54-49, .524
4. Pirates, 49-54, .476
5. Cardinals, 45-59, .433
From June 1 through Sept. 28 the Cardinals were 21 and ½ games behind the Brewers, 11 and ½ games behind the Cubs, 9 and ½ in back of the Reds, and were 4.0 games below the Pirates.
To underline just how poorly the Cardinals played, let’s take a look at each NL Central team’s run differential from the start of June until the end of the regular-season schedule:
Brewers, +157
Cubs, +51
Reds, +1
Pirates, minus 6
Cardinals, minus 102
Yeah, the Cardinals had a chance.
The Redbirds just didn’t have a very good baseball team. No surprise there. In the first phase of a rebuilding project the 2025 Cardinals weren’t set up to win this season.
Nearly $40 million was sliced from last season’s payroll, only $2 million was spent on one established MLB veteran (reliever Phil Maton), and outgoing president of baseball operations John Mozeliak had his own “America’s Got Talent,” audition show for the younger players. Which isn’t a shot at him; this was the plan put in place and it made sense as the first step of a rebuild.
The Birds didn’t receive any roster sweetening or morale boosts from ownership-management. Three pending free-agent relievers – Ryan Helsley, Maton, Steven Matz – were dealt to contenders. But that’s the way it was supposed to be. So it was no surprise to see the Cardinals spiral to the NL’s third-worst record – ahead of only the Nationals and Rockies – over the last four months of the regular season.
I’ve been through all of this before, but I’m not sure how a team realistically does better than the Cardinals’ final record (78-84) with ineffective starting pitching, weak lineup power, a lack of speed, and a FanGraphs’ baserunning metric that puts St. Louis at 24th overall and 12th in the NL.
Since the conclusion of their redbird-hot May, the Cardinals ranked among the 15 NL teams in the relevant categories:
+ 14th in home runs, 14th in slugging, 14th in OPS.
+ 13th in batting average, 13th in doubles, 12th in on-base percentage, 11th in stolen bases.
+ 13th with a starting-pitching ERA of 5.28.
That reaffirms the limited ability of a thin roster and insufficient impact from starting pitching or power hitting.
The defense leveled off some as the season played out – but was still stellar overall, leading the majors in Outs Above Average.
The Cardinals’ bullpen was money at protecting late leads for the second consecutive season. That warrants a compliment.
And the Cardinals had enough competitive feistiness to make the charge for 39 comeback wins. Without that tenacity (and the boffo bullpen) the 2025 Cardinals probably would have lost close to 90 games. If not more.
Before the season, most analytics-based projections had the Cardinals winning anywhere from 78 to 81 games. Bingo. That’s what happened.
According to analyst Clay Davenport – based on run differential and other underlying factors – the Cardinals should have ended with a 74-88 record. Instead, they finished four games better than that.
And they had a chance … even if they really didn’t have a chance … because they weren’t good enough to have a chance… and they weren’t given a chance by their employers.
That was the plan. This was a season set aside to pivot to a rebuild. It was the first phase of a rebuild. And the rebuild mode will move into a more serious level in advance of 2026.
WAIT A MINUTE!
I THINK I BURIED THE LEDE.
Back to the offense for a minute. I’m not blaming these two guys specifically, but here are the combined 2025 statistics for Jordan Walker and Nolan Gorman in their 798 plate appearances and 714 at-bats. And for context, then I’ll provide some comps from past Cardinals.
Gorman + Walker
* Batting average, .211 … The comp: Pete Kozma, .217 in 2013.
* On-base percentage, .289 … The comp: Michael Siani, .285 in 2024.
* Slugging percentage, .338. The comp: Felipe Lopez, .340 in 2010. Or if you prefer – Denny Shaeffer, .333 in 1996, and Peter Bourjos .333 in 2015.
* On-base + slugging percentage, .627. The comp: Cesar Izturis, .628 in 2008, Mike Matheny .630 in 2002.
* Strikeout rate, 32.8 percent. The comp: Paul DeJong, 33.3% in 2022.
Good grief.
When the combined Walker-Gorman statistical profile gives you (roughly) Pete Kozma’s batting average, Michael Siani’s on-base percentage, Peter Bourjos’ slugging percentage, Cesar Izturis’ OPS, and Pauly DeJong’s strikeout rate …
(As the kids would say, maybe five years ago: OMG.)
Yeah, I think we can say that Gorman and Walker were busts in 2025. How many more games could the Cardinals have won even if Gorman-Walker were league-average hitters? In fairness to Gorman, he was 12 percent below league average offensively this season power wRC+. That isn’t good, obviously. But hardly grotesque. But Walker was 34 percent below league average offensively, and that’s appalling.
I’ll be turning my attention to the future, but I wanted to do a final wrap-up of the 2025 St. Louis season. I will look back from time to time during the offseason to review individual player/pitcher performances, one by one. That’s a tradition here in The Review.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STLSportsCentral, catch him weekdays on the “Gashouse Gang” or “Redbird Rush Hour” on KMOX, and Bernie does a weekly “Seeing Red” podcast on the Cardinals with his longtime pal Will Leitch. Bernie joins Katie Woo on the “Cardinal Territory” video-podcast each week, and you can catch a weekly “reunion” segment here at STL Sports with Bernie’s appearance on the Randy Karraker Show every Friday morning at 10:30 am.