OK, hello, welcome back, I’m good, I hope you’re good, let’s talk ball. As I assault the keyboard with heavy thumbs on this Wednesday afternoon, there are 15 days until the 2026 season-opening game at Busch Stadium. Cardinals vs. the visiting Tampa Bay Rays. The Cardinals vs. empty red seats. The Cardinals vs. low expectations.
The festivities and ceremonies will lead to the somewhat anticipated 3:15 p.m. first pitch. I’ll see you downtown, a place where you can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares. The lights are much brighter there.
Well, at least Petula Clark thinks so. And yeah, I’ll use oldie-music samples if I want to. Or do you want me to stick to modern times?
OK. I travel through musical genres with the ease of a traveling, medieval troubadour.
With that in mind. As the band Turnstile notes in their Grammy-winning metal performance in the intense, energy infused song “Birds,” – a fast-paced, mosh-provoking anthem …
Finally I can see it.
These birds not meant to fly alone.
Hey, that could be a theme for the 2026 Cardinals!
That’s right. Community. Togetherness. Baseball. So come on down to Busch Stadium, and hang with the new generation of Redbirds.
Yo! Who gives you Petula Clark and Brendan Yates (Turnstile) in the same damn column?
You’re welcome.
I’ve got some things on my mind, so here is a sampling of sampling of thoughts. And all statistics cited here are generally small-sample servings.
1. Who will bat first for the Cardinals on opening day? Oli Marmol’s lineup card may or may not have the name “Masyn Winn” on the top line, written with indelible ink. Or perhaps the skipper is trolling us a little bit.
Down Jupiter way, here’s how Marmol has distributed the plate appearances at the leadoff spot thus far:
Winn, 20 plate appearances
Nathan Church, 10 PA.
Victor Scott, 9 PA
JJ Wetherholt, 9 PA
Winn, of course, has a career .280 on-base percentage in 516 big-league plate appearances as the STL leadoff man. For context, here are some bird-seed facts:
– Over the past three seasons, the overall MLB on-base rate at the No. 1 batting spot was .333.
– And the top 20 major-league leadoff men over the past three years had an on-base percentage of .350 or higher. So Winn’s .280 leadoff OBP is … scanty.
These are crumb-sized samples, but Winn’s leadoff-man OBP this spring is .304. His OPS at the top spot is .462. Church has a leadoff OBP of .500. Wetherholt has the best leadoff-dude OPS of .904.
For those of you who believe Marmol will be taking orders from Chaim Bloom on lineup decisions, the leadoff spot will be our evidence.
Marmol’s pick, independent of Bloom? Probably Winn.
Bloom’s pick, based on his heralded aptitude in baseball analytics? Probably anybody but Winn.
2. Is there anything nice to say about Nolan Gorman? Well, gee, lemme take a swing at it. And probably miss. You know, just like the Gor-man himself. That’s a cheap shot. And way too easy. I’m a terrible person.
Gorman is hitting .160 on the Grapefruit circuit this spring. Dreadful. His on-base percentage is .250. Disconcerting. But there’s a wee wisp of respectability in his .400 slugging percentage. (Hey, I ain’t claiming he’s Kyle Schwarber in the sluggo department, OK?)
Still, I found a couple of items in Gorman’s springtime profile that have some twinkle. Two home runs. Five RBIs. Only three strikeouts in 28 plate appearances – and four walks in 28 PA.
Which means Gorman has an 11 percent walk rate and a 14% strikeout frequency. That BB/K ratio is 1.33. Not what you expect from him. And that’s a good thing! (Did I mention that it’s a small sample?) So there ya go … a few dots and flecks of encouragement.
3. Ivan Herrera’s knee inflammation inflation. Another way to put it: the most predictable of all Cardinal customs is still in place. When they tell you a guy will miss a day or two as a precaution, then add at least 10 days to that. That will be the more realistic assessment. Herrera caught three innings on March 1. He ame out of it with a sore knee to go along with his healing right elbow. Cardinals on the knee: everything is fine. We’re just giving it a day or two to calm down.
Yeah, well, OK, I’ll just disregard that. The media reported Herrera would possibly return Wednesday. He did not. So it’s now been 10 days since Herrera made his only (and brief) catching appearance in an exhibition game. He has seven at-bats in Grapefruit League action. The pattern continues.
Contrary to the normal assumptions, Herrera’s catching endeavors eat away at his overall value. Over the past two seasons Herrera has 4.7 bWAR offensively but is a minus 1.2 bWAR defensively. (Source: Baseball Reference.)
Let’s review:
+ 2024: Missed 4 and ½ weeks with a lower-back strain. Missed 63 in-season days in all.
+ 2025: Bone bruise, left knee, out 32 days.
+ 2025: Grade 2 left hamstring strain, out 23 days.
+ Post-2025: offseason elbow surgery to clean up some loose particles that affected his throwing. The Cardinals indicated Herrera would be ready to go by spring training. Surprise! He was not ready to go by spring training.
+ Spring-training, 2026: Knee inflammation. Expected to miss a day or two. He’s been down for 10 days.
Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard.
The injuries keep knocking the bat out of Herrera’s hands. That’s why 215 MLB hitters have had more plate appearances than Herrera over the last two seasons. He’s averaged 355 plate appearances over the two-year period; ideally that average would be between 550 and 600 PA.
And the Redbird brains are still determined to have Herrera catch this season? What, so he can pile up more frequent-IL points? And for a team that is overloaded with catchers? The Cardinals need Herrera’s bat in the lineup. But they are seemingly prioritizing his catching over his offense – or at least sacrificing his availability and his offense in a poor tradeoff. His offense is elite, and his catching is, uh, deficient.
This is all so incredibly ridiculous, you’d think John Mozeliak was still making the decisions.
4. Jordan Walker went 1 for 3 in Wednesday’s loss to the Nationals. His hit was a grounder that deflected off a fielder’s glove. His other two at-bats ended with ground-ball outs. Walker came into the game with an earth-turning 60 percent ground-ball rate. After Wednesday, that GB rate is up to 66.7%. Walker has put 18 batted balls in play this spring, and 12 were grounders. He has a .231 average and .517 OPS this spring.
BIRD BYTES
Geoff Pontes, Baseball America, on Ivan Herrera’s potential for a breakout season in 2026:
“In his last 162 games dating back to April 2024 … he’s been 38% better than the average MLB hitter. For Herrera, the issue isn’t ability, but health. This offseason, he had elbow surgery to remove loose bodies, but he’s expected to be ready for Opening Day and will likely be the Cardinals’ everyday DH. Herrera dominates against lefthanders and is productive against righties. A full season of at-bats could yield a huge performance in which he hits for a high average, ranks among the leaders in on-base percentage and puts together his first 20-homer campaign.”
Ian Cudall, Baseball America, on Cards pitcher Quinn Matthews:
“This spring, Mathews’ fastball has averaged 94.6 mph—which mirrors his 2024 output when he emerged as a top-50 prospect—and has topped out at 96.7 mph, which is up from 2025, but still a tick down from his max in 2024 of 97.7 mph. His rediscovered velocity is already making a difference, as his fastball’s whiff rate this spring is 44.8%. That mark will almost certainly come down, but even if it does, it still will be an improvement over its 19.2% whiff rate in 2025.
“The Cardinals loaded up on lefthanded pitching over the last year after drafting Liam Doyle and acquiring Brandon Clarke in a trade,” Cudall continued. “If Mathews is back to his old self in 2026, they could rival the Red Sox and Athletics for the best trio of lefthanded pitching prospects in baseball.”
Mike Axisa, CBS Sports, put Lars Nootbaar at No. 4 on a list of MLB players most likely to be traded during the season.
“He has never fully launched and lived up to the terrific contact quality numbers (exit velocity, etc.), though Nootbaar is a very good and very valuable player, one who is under team control (through 2027),” Axisa wrote. “He can hit leadoff and play center field in a pinch, and you needn't try hard to convince yourself there's upside beyond the near .800 OPS he's posted throughout his career. As with most players in this post, the question is not will Nootbaar get traded, but when. (That also applies to rental lefty reliever JoJo Romero. The Cardinals will move him soon enough.) Early possible landing spots for Nootbaar: Diamondbacks, Mets, Royals.”
Seattle Mariners president of baseball ops Jerry Dipoto on the team’s newest acquisition, Brendan Donovan.
“It’s just his baseball I.Q. The way he goes about playing the game is just pro all the way,” Dipoto told MLB Network. It’s high contact, elite bat-to-ball skills, his ability to move the game. We felt like the missing ingredient for us was that on-base percentage type of presence at the top of our order, and Brendan brings that.”
Baseball analyst Joe Sheehan recently ranked Nolan Gorman at No. 11 on his list of the top MLB third basemen (for fantasy-league purposes) going into 2026.
Sheehan slotted Gorman between Kazuma Okamoto (Toronto) and Brendan Donovan. Sheehan has touted Gorman for several years and hasn’t given up.
Joe happily poked fun of himself when he wrote, “I have a duplex on Gorman Island that I built in 2021 or so. Once you make that level of investment, it’s hard to let go. Finally being left alone to play his only good position should help a lot.”
Sheehan believes former St. Louis outfielder Dylan Carlson will make the Cubs’ opening-day roster and likes the fit.
Carlson is competing against Michael Conforto and Chas McCormick for a backup spot in the Chicago outfield.
“Carlson, though, is what the team needs -- a right-handed-hitting caddy for Pete Crow-Armstrong,” Sheehan wrote. “ A switch-hitter, Carlson has a career .274/.347/.410 line from the right side, and at 27 he’s still a credible center fielder who can serve as Seiya Suzuki’s legs late in games. He has more roster value than Conforto and, in my opinion, more than McCormick, who is also in this outfield mix.”
By the way, please consider subscribing to Joe’s valuable newsletter. Just visit JoeSheehan.com and get it done.
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. Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach. Bernie has covered several Baseball Hall of Fame managers during his media career including Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and (as an interim) Red Schoendienst. In his career as a beatwriter and columnist, Bernie covered Pro Football Hall of Fame coaches Joe Gibbs, Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson and Dick Vermeil on a daily basis.
Bernie has covered and written about many great St. Louis sports team athletes including Albert Pujols, Kurt Warner, Brett Hull, Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, Jim Edmonds, Marshall Faulk, Scott Rolen, Mark McGwire, Orlando Pace, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Al MacInnis, Brian Sutter, Bernie Federko, Chris Pronger, Dan Dierdorf, Jackie Smith and Aeneas Williams. Bernie covered every baseball Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues, Saint Louis U, and Mizzou football and basketball. Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STL Sports Central, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows. And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.