Cardinals, one of MLB’s most surprising teams, have forced themselves into the conversation, but can it last?

It’s still relatively early in the 2025 Major League Baseball season, which means a glance at the standings will reveal multiple surprises. One of those surprises is the St. Louis Cardinals, whose nine-game win streak has put them just a hairsbreadth behind the Chicago Cubs in the National League Central. 

As for the surprising part, the Cardinals in 2025 were expected to be in a transition year in which the emphasis would be on giving consistent playing time to young players as opposed to going out and adding low-cost veterans, which has been a Cardinals staple in recent years. It was to be a forward-looking approach during John Mozeliak’s final season as president of baseball operations and one that would allow his already-in-the-fold replacement, Chaim Bloom, to assess which of these young players figured to be part of the long-term core. The realities underpinning this is that the Cardinals in 2024 were outscored by their opponents by 47 runs, and then over the winter they sloughed off roughly $37 million in Opening Day payroll by letting Paul Goldschmidt walk and declining club options elsewhere. They tried to shed even more, but their winter efforts to trade veteran third baseman Nolan Arenado went unrealized. That’s an already weak baseline undermined by a lack of spending, or at least that’s how it seemed. Throw in what looked like a competitive NL Central landscape, and the Cardinals figured to be poised for their second losing season in the last three years. 

That may yet still be their reality, but the one-quarter mark of the season finds the Redbirds at 23-19 – good for an 89-win pace – with a plus-25 run differential. Nine of their 19 losses have come in one-run or extra-inning games, and when a game is decided by five or more runs the Cardinals this season are 10-4. If you look at the Third-Order Standings, which use underlying statistics and strength of opposition to arrive at a deserved record (and better predict future outcomes than the team’s actual record does), then the Cardinals should be 26-16 right now and roughly on par with the National League’s best teams. That puts a veneer of legitimacy on what the Cardinals have done so far. 

As for whether the team’s success at run-scoring and run prevention is legitimate and sustainable, signs point to yes. First, there’s the offense. The Cardinals right now rank 11th in MLB in runs scored per game, and that roughly squares with their ranking in OPS (ninth) and park-adjusted OPS (tied for ninth). Getting a bit more granular, we’ll turn to weighted on-base average (wOBA), which assigns proper value to everything a hitter does at the plate and scales it to look like the more familiar on-base percentage. Right now the Cardinals rank ninth in MLB in wOBA. There’s also expected wOBA, or xwOBA, which pegs an offense’s deserved wOBA based on the quality of batted balls. The Cardinals’ current xwOBA of .328 is effectively the same as their wOBA of .327. It’s possible these indicators are going to improve now that Iván Herrera is back from the injured list and primed for everyday duty at DH with some catcher detail. As well, Masyn Winn and Willson Contreras are finding their levels after slow starts to the season. 

On the pitching front, the Cardinals’ staff ERA of 3.81 ranks 13th in MLB, and their staff Fielding-Independent Pitching, or FIP, of 3.70 ranks eighth. In terms of expected FIP (xFIP), which uses the league-average rate of home runs per fly ball, the Cardinals’ mark of 4.05 ranks 16th. The strong staff-wide ground-ball tendencies, however, may allow them to “outplay” that particular estimator. Helping matters along during the course of the win streak is manager Oli Marmol. He’s found a leverage bullpen mix that works better than what he was using in the early weeks of the season. Specifically, the emergence of Kyle Leahy, the arrival of Gordon Graceffo, and the steady presence of veteran Phil Maton have given him reliable options from the right side. Veteran Steven Matz has been a savior from the left side, and fellow lefty JoJo Romero following some adjustments has looked more like himself in recent outings. 

As well, Marmol has shown a willingness to preemptively hook veteran Miles Mikolas during his starts and thus limit how often and how much he faces the opposing lineup for a third time in a given game. That plus Mikolas’ recent dedication to trying to get chases in two-strike counts has allowed him to thrive since his April 6 core-reactor meltdown in Boston. More broadly, the Cardinals now have improved the tech in place and filled coaching and instructor vacancies throughout the system. That makes these necessary adjustments, whether mechanical or approach-driven, more possible and more effective (see also: Liberatore, Matthew). 

Defensively, the Cardinals have been one of the best teams in baseball, and the advanced public-facing metrics agree on that point. It also passes the smell test given the defensive improvements of Victor Scott II and Jordan Walker in the outfield, a left side of the infield that features Winn and Arenado, Brendan Donovan‘s innings load at second base, and Willson Contreras’ successful transition to first base.

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There are, of course, questions. How long will the Cardinals abide Walker’s poor production in the outfield before making changes? Yes, the whole point was committing to these young players for the bulk of the season, but contention at some point takes precedence, assuming it persists. The same question could be applied to Nolan Gorman. As well, the Cardinals have been largely healthy on the pitching front, and these days we know better than to expect that to continue. Michael McGreevy stands ready to plug the first rotation hole, but they may need more than him at some point. That’s where the Cardinals’ lack of pitching depth in the high minors could exact a price. 

One prominent factor should temper all this preceding enthusiasm, at least a little. That’s the general strength of the NL. The Cubs still project as heavy favorites in the division, and the heretofore disappointing Atlanta Braves and Arizona Diamondbacks may yet be heard from in what’s an already crowded NL wild-card fray. That’s to say, the Cardinals could keep all of this up, threaten or even eke out a 90-win season, and still miss the playoffs for a third straight year. FanGraphs, for instance, right now gives the Cardinals a 31.7% chance to make the postseason. Baseball Prospectus is far more bearish and gives them just a 14.4% chance. Baseball-Reference splits the difference with 20.4% odds. DraftKings places their odds at +265 to make the postseason. Even with a third wild-card spot available, the NL is a gauntlet these days when it comes to making the playoffs. More than the prospect of any coming regression or even the schedule ahead, that’s what’s likely to undo the Cardinals’ season.

All that said, those playoff odds were vastly more grim a mere nine games ago, but the Cardinals have forced such a re-appraisal with their recent success on the field. Perhaps they’ll continue toppling assumptions.