The Cardinals’ outfield picture is starting to come into focus, and the early read is clear: they’re not in a rush to buy their way out of the problem.
St. Louis is entering its second full season under president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom, and the organization is still working through the retool it began after he took over last winter.
Even while hanging around the Wild Card race at the deadline, the Cardinals stayed committed to that long-term plan. That same patience appears likely to carry over into next year, with the club focused on building up its starting-pitching pipeline.
There’s some flexibility here if they want it. The only contract currently on the books is the JJ Wetherholt extension, which leaves the Cardinals with plenty of short-term payroll room if they choose to shop outside the organization.
They’re expected to add pitching help, and they remain open to a move at third base after a group led by Nolan Gorman and Blaze Jordan didn’t produce. But in the outfield, the approach sounds different.
St. Louis ranked in the bottom third of the league in production from left field and center field, making those spots obvious trouble areas alongside third base. Even so, the Cardinals don’t appear ready to make external outfield help a priority.
Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote in a reader chat this week that the Cardinals are likely to give rookie Joshua Báez a long leash in left field.
Goold also said the team is not expected to aggressively chase a stopgap center fielder over Nathan Church. Instead, Church and Victor Scott II are set to compete for most of the short-term reps in center, with Church having the edge to begin the season as the club waits for Tai Peete and Josiah Ragsdale.
Church got a real chance in 2025 and made the most of the opportunity to stay in the lineup. He broke camp for the first time, started the year on the strong side of a left field platoon while Lars Nootbaar was rehabbing from heel surgeries, and later moved past Scott as the primary center fielder once Nootbaar returned. After Báez arrived and the Cardinals traded Nootbaar to Arizona, Church kept his role.
At the plate, though, the results were modest. The 26-year-old hit .247/.290/.364 with 10 homers in 470 trips.
He put plenty of balls in play, but he didn’t square many up with authority or work deep enough counts to draw many walks. He did finish the final couple months with a higher average, even if the offensive shape didn’t change much.
Defensively, Church was solid, grading as an average to slightly above-average fielder.
Scott’s profile is very different. The 25-year-old brings speed and elite defense - Gold Glove caliber defense, in fact - but the bat remains a major question.
He hit .193/.270/.253 this past season and spent three months at Triple-A Memphis after being optioned. When he returned in September with the expanded roster, he was mostly used as a pinch-runner or defensive replacement.
Neither player looks like a long-term fixture, but both have enough secondary value to fit as a fourth or fifth outfielder. For now, though, the Cardinals seem content to let Church and Scott sort out the center field job while they wait on younger options.
Left field is the place where the organization is most willing to dream on upside. Báez, 23, will get his first extended look there after a brief debut that made immediate headlines. In the middle of August, he became the first player in MLB history to homer in his first three career at-bats.
The follow-up was much more human, which is probably the best way to describe his profile. After that electric start, Báez hit four more homers but batted .208 with a .260 on-base percentage.
That lines up with the player he’s been in the minors: huge raw power, but plenty of swing-and-miss. He ranked second among Triple-A hitters with 34 homers this year, yet he also struck out in nearly 30% of his plate appearances against minor league pitching.
Early growing pains against big-league arms wouldn’t be a surprise, and Cardinals fans have seen similar ups and downs before with Gorman and Jordan Walker.
The two prospects closest to that next wave, Peete and Ragsdale, both finished the year in Double-A after coming over in recent trades. Peete arrived in the Brendan Donovan deal with Seattle, while Ragsdale came from Milwaukee for Dustin May and JoJo Romero. Both are likely to open next season back in Double-A and should end the year with Memphis.
Even if St. Louis doesn’t make center field a major shopping priority, the Cardinals will probably keep scanning for value.
A right-handed bat such as Tyrone Taylor would be a logical platoon partner for the left-handed Church and shouldn’t cost much. Myles Straw could fill a similar role if the Blue Jays decline his club option.
And if another club decides it’s time to move on from an underperforming former top prospect, the Cardinals would make sense as a speculative landing spot for a player like Evan Carter or Dylan Crews.
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