Cardinals offense leans on preparation as young hitters like Jordan Walker, JJ Wetherholt lead a resurgence
· Yahoo Sports
This was meant to be a rebuilding year for the St. Louis Cardinals. After finishing six games under .500 in 2025, they traded away established veterans like Willson Contreras, Sonny Gray, Nolan Arenado, and Brendan Donovan in the hopes of kick-starting a rebuild around their young roster. In a competitive NL Central division, many expected them to be the doormat for at least the 2026 season. Not that the Cardinals' hitters paid attention or cared.
"We are a young group of guys, but I think a lot of it is our mentality," said rookie outfielder Nathan Church. "We're never out of the game, and we're always going to compete, no matter what the score is. I think having that mentality, one through nine, is what's leading to our success."
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It's been a surprising amount of success on the offensive side for the Cardinals. Heading into Friday's games, they rank 9th in strikeout rate (21.1%), 9th in Win Probability Added by the offense, 12th in wRC+ (103), 13th in hard-hit rate (40.3%), 14th in runs scored (298), and 14th in OPS (.715). That has the Cardinals eight games over .500 and currently sitting in a playoff spot despite having only one hitter in the starting lineup who's older than 27: Lars Nootbaar, who has played a total of six games this season.
The Cardinals have four hitters with a wRC+ over 110 this season: JJ Wetherholt, a 23-year-old rookie; Ivan Herrera, a 26-year-old in his first year as a starter; Alec Burleson, a 27-year-old elder statesman; and Jordan Walker, a 24-year-old former top prospect who is finally breaking out. In fact, in many ways, Walker is the perfect example of what makes this young Cardinals offense tick.
Jun 2, 2026; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; St. Louis Cardinals right fielder Jordan Walker (18) reacts after hitting a one run single against the Texas Rangers during the seventh inning at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-Imagn Images
Jeff Curry-Imagn Images
Once the No. 4 ranked prospect in baseball heading into the 2023 season, Walker had a solid MLB debut, hitting .276/.342/.445 in 117 games in 2023 with 16 home runs and seven steals. However, he wasn't able to build off that over the next two years. In 2024, he hit .201/.253/.366 with a 28.1% strikeout rate and was limited to just 51 MLB games. He got more of an opportunity in 2025, but hit .215/.278/.306 in 111 games with just six home runs and a 31.8% strikeout rate. To many, it seemed like Walker would become another top prospect who failed to live up to expectations, but Walker never wavered. He kept putting in the work with the firm belief that he would produce at the level he believed he was capable of.
“Walker deserves 100 percent of the credit," Cardinals manager Oli Marmol told MLB.com during this week’s Mets series. "This game is hard. He is the one going out there and actually putting it together, having an approach and being consistent. To go from getting beat up the last couple of years to where he is at mentally and physically at the moment, he deserves the credit.”
Marmol expounded on that before Thursday's season finale, suggesting that Walker's confidence has "freed him up to just be an athlete and go out and compete, and we're seeing it in all aspects of his game."
We're also seeing a similar development up and down the Cardinals' lineup. The hitters pride themselves on their preparation and their faithfulness to a plan, believing that putting in the work before stepping out onto the field will give them a crucial mental freedom once the game begins. Even in Walker's offseason work on his swing, he mentioned that he and [assistant hitting coach] Casey Chenoweth discussed their plan for his approach beforehand and then "started hitting off the machine, not thinking much about mechanics at all."
That dedication to a plan carries over into the day-to-day aspects of the regular season as well. Especially because this is a young offense, Marmol and his coaching staff have really stressed the importance of gameplanning and thinking through your approach before ever taking the field or stepping into the batter's box.
"I think there's a lot of teaching, anytime you have a younger group, as far as like just setting up the framework for how you want them to look at a game plan, when to veer from it, the communication in game, what that looks like," explained Marmol before the series finale against the Mets. "They're continuing to get better and better at that. Our hitters meetings are pretty interactive, where it's not just [Cardinals hitting coach Brant Brown] talking to the group but them speaking into it, and what their plan is. Each hitter goes through and describes what their plan is that day and what they're trying to do against that specific pitcher, but that continues to evolve as far as how well these guys in-game are making adjustments and communicating those adjustments."
That aspect of gameplanning has been the biggest change for some of these young hitters as they rise from the minors to the big leagues.
"You definitely learn really quickly here that you have to just dive deep and be a really good chess player," explained Church, who had 65 plate appearances with the Cardinals last season but won a starting job this year and is hitting .253/.286/.399 with five home runs, 18 RBI, and four steals in 48 games. "In the minors, you kind of get away with stuff, but big leaguers are smart. They do their homework on hitters. Not saying minor league pitchers don't do that, but just trying to understand what the best pitchers are trying to do [against you]."
May 14, 2026; West Sacramento, California, USA; St. Louis Cardinals second baseman JJ Wetherholt (26) is congratulated by his teammates after scoring the go-ahead run against the Athletics during the ninth inning at Sutter Health Park. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images
That was seconded by rookie second baseman JJ Wetherholt, another top prospect, who won a starting job in spring training and has impressed with a .248/.354/.388 slash line in 62 games while producing nine home runs, 43 runs scored, 28 RBI, and two steals.
"In the minors, guys are more pitching to their game plan," he explained. "Obviously, the aces of the teams, they make a name doing what they do, so they're gonna do that, but in Triple-A, they're not really game planning too much, just a little bit. Here, it's more of a game plan, so each guy's getting pitched to their weaknesses, and so they'll spend more time scouting that. After that, once the league finds out that you're gonna swing at every slider in the dirt on a two-strike count, you're just gonna see that nonstop."
The hitters' meetings are a great chance for the young hitters and coaches to discuss the tendencies they've been seeing and the ones that they expect to see. Even the youngest MLB players have been playing this game at a high level for long enough that they can identify when a pitcher is attacking them differently, but leaning on coaches and the data they can collect to get specifics is often newer for young hitters.
"I would say the coaches will definitely know [how we're being pitched] because they do a ton of work at just looking out at all of our bats and all the data and things like that," admitted Wetherholt. "I'll definitely have that conversation, like, 'Hey, guys, I'm obviously getting more fastballs in, or getting more sliders down,' and then we'll talk about that and how we want to combat that. If it's a problem, you've got to address it."
Which leads to yet another aspect of hitting that can be challenging for younger hitters: in-season adjustments.
Offseason preparation may be more grueling and time-consuming, but it also feels less pressurized. Even if a hitter is altering their swing or approach, they have five or six months in the offseason to tear things down, construct a plan for rebuilding whatever process they're focused on, and then build it back up with regular checks and tweaks along the way. That's a luxury you don't have in the regular season when you have to not only identify if you're being pitched differently or if there's an issue with your swing, but what the change is and how to combat it, all while still preparing for your game that night. Sometimes, like with Jordan Waker, that can take years to figure out.
"I try and [make adjustments] as quickly as possible, like every at-bat, honestly, is what I try," stated Church. Wetherholt was a bit more temperate, suggesting that, "if you get pitched consistently from back-to-back teams, then you know there's something that people have found that they want to go towards."
Identifying the issue is the first step of the problem, but finding ways to address it during the grind of an MLB regular season is another challenge altogether.
"There's still some stuff that you can do early on in the day, like in the routines where you're working with some mechanical things," admitted Wetherholt. "It's not going to be anything crazy, but we'll talk about just making slight adjustments in the routine, and then, when you get on the field, you're just in compete mode. If anything, a lot can be pitches that you're trying to swing at and hunt, you know, if there are certain pitches that are giving you trouble, try to lay off those, so make those day-to-day adjustments."
Those are the adjustments Wetherholt has already had to make as a rookie. He came out of the gates well, hitting .256/.378/.479 with seven home runs, 27 runs scored, 16 RBI, and four steals in his first 31 MLB games. He then hit a rough patch once the calendar turned to May, slashing .182/.308/.236 with one home run, six RBI, and a 12/7 K/BB ratio in 14 games, but has been able to claw his way back, hitting .286/.351/.357 with one home runs, 10 runs scored, two steals, and a 9/7 K/BB ratio in 17 games since May 19th.
After that first month of the season, it seemed like pitchers started attacking Wetherholt inside more often (7% inside), and also realized that the rookie has a passive approach they could take more advantage of. Up until May, Wetherholt only had a 48% true first pitch strike rate (that excludes first pitch hits, so only when he goes down 0-1 in the count). In his cold stretch in May, that rose to 56% as pitchers found locations in the strike zone early on where Wetherholt didn't feel like offering.
However, from May 19th on, Wetherholt's early ball in play rate has jumped 4%, and his true first pitch strike rate has fallen back to 43%, while his early called strike rate has gone from 21.6% to 19.7%. These are not monumental changes, but are the small, incremental ones that Wetherholt talked about. He noticed that pitchers were being more successful at stealing first pitch strikes against him, so he got a little bit more aggressive, likely in certain areas of the zone where he knew he could still make good contact, and put more balls in play early to avoid falling behind.
"He's just very steady, especially for his age," explained Marmol. "You would think he's been in the league for a while, just the way he handles the ups and downs, and the day-to-day aspect of what we do. There's a certain demeanor to him, a presence, that's just pretty calming. He doesn't ride the highs and lows. It's pretty impressive."
It's impressive and emblematic of an entire lineup filled with young hitters who have tons of confidence and trust in one another.
"I think a lot of it is just having more confidence in myself and just not trying to do too much," said Church about the success of the team's young hitters.
Wetherholt also mentioned the closeness of the lineup: "We all have good relationships, just talk back and forth, hitting-wise. I've talked with [Nolan Gorman] a lot this year, and that's been a ton of fun. And then obviously guys like [Jordan] Walker and Masyn [Winn] are kind of more my age, that helped show me the ropes, but it's just been definitely a combined effort."
A combined effort built on communication and preparation. The Cardinals' hitters will tell you that they don't think too much about their statistics, and they won't be lying. They trust in their gameplanning and know that, if they prepare the right way, they continue to pile up the only stat that matters, wins.