JJ Wetherholt is back in the Cardinals’ lineup, but the rookie race still looks like Sal Stewart’s to lose.
Wetherholt returned Wednesday for St. Louis after missing 15 games with a wrist injury. The Cardinals activated him off the 10-day IL before their 6-5 loss to the San Francisco Giants, and the move put the infielder back on the field after an absence that stretched back to the end of August.
For a while, Cardinals fans were making a real case for Wetherholt in the 2026 National League Rookie of the Year conversation. His defense and WAR were the main talking points, especially in the argument that he was outpacing Cincinnati’s Sal Stewart. But even before Wetherholt landed on the injured list, the numbers were starting to tilt the other way.
After the All-Star break, Wetherholt was hitting just .201/.313/.305. Stewart, meanwhile, caught fire after his own All-Star appearance. Over that stretch, the Reds first baseman put up a .287/.335/.521 line with a 127 wRC+, a run that earned him Rookie of the Month honors in August for the second time this season.
Stewart has cooled some in September, but not enough to open the door. Entering Thursday’s series finale against the Los Angeles Dodgers, he was 16-for-58 (.302) over his last 14 games, though he had not picked up an extra-base hit since the calendar turned to September.
The bigger picture still favors Stewart. He leads all NL rookies in games played (152), hits (157), home runs (31), and RBI (108). He’s also sitting in the top five among rookies in batting average, runs scored, stolen bases, doubles, and slugging percentage.
Wetherholt’s time away didn’t change one thing Cardinals fans kept pointing to: WAR. He still leads all first-year players with 4.3 fWAR, ahead of Carson Benge (3.4), TJ Rumfield (2.6), Stewart (2.5), and A.J Ewing (2.0).
Nolan McLean has also drawn plenty of attention lately, and he’s been strong in his first season in Queens with a 3.24 ERA and a 26.5% strikeout rate.
Still, as plenty of Reds fans have been saying since mid-August, the race feels close to finished. We’ll have to wait until the end of the year to make it official, but a few more home runs before the final game would go a long way toward locking it up.
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