THE REDBIRD REVIEW
Hello. I’m your writing man again today, setting up my laptop in my home office. I live in the neighborhood near Washington University. A block south from where I sit was the one-time home of William Inge, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and novelist. His famous literary home runs include Picnic, Bus Stop, Come Back Little Sheeba, Spring Holiday, and Farther Off From Heaven. And Inge wrote, or at least drafted, all of that and more in the home near mine.
Inge’s friend Tennessee Williams used to hang out with Inge in the home close to mine. Well, so what? My friend Derrick Goold frequently visited my home to record episodes of the “Best Podcast In Baseball.”
Tennessee Williams or Derrick Goold?
I win!
Later in life, after Inge moved far from here, he won an Academy Award for his screenplay of the famous film, Splendor In the Grass – starring Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood.
I think Splendor in the Grass was about baseball, or something …
Anyway, that’s my not-so-clever way of introducing today’s column on the St. Louis Cardinals. I’ve decided to monitor spring training by looking at at least one question each weekday. Hey, I don’t have a Come Back, Little Sheeba in me … but I can write about who should bat leadoff for the Cardinals.
So, who should bat leadoff for the Cardinals in 2026? Based on the current St. Louis roster, there are four options. And two of them are better the others:
1. Lars Noootbaar
2. JJ Wetherholt
3. Masyn Winn
4. Victor Scott II
LAST SEASON, A RECAP
Let’s begin with this – and just a note that PA stands for plate appearances. As a team, the 2025 Cardinals were terrible at the leadoff spot. Nootbaar had the most PA as the No. 1 hitter (436), and Brendan Donovan was next with 236 PA. Winn got a few looks at the top but had only 46 PA. There were scattered leadoff-man at-bats for Scott and Thomas Saggese.
In 2025, St. Louis leadoff men collectively batted .234, had a .315 onbase percentage, slugged .354, and posted the worst OPS (.669) among the 15 National League teams. The primary assignment for a leadoff dude is to get on base as much as possible, but the Cards’ No. 1 hitters ranked 12th in the NL in OBP. When the offense stinks at the top, the flaw makes it even more difficult to get something going offensively.
Let’s zero in on each leadoff candidate, shall we?
LARS NOOTBAAR
Nootbaar the busiest leadoff man on the team, and he was phenomenal in the opening month of the ‘25 season. But it went wrong from there, and at the end of the campaign, his wRC+ at the No. 1 hitter was five percent below league average offensively. You may recall that Noot’s berserk start to the season; in his first 29 games as the leadoff man, he was just that. Crafted a superb .403 onbase percentage, slugged .442, drew 25 walks, cranked 30 hits, scored 21 runs, and drove home 18 RBIs.
That profile is exactly what you want from a leadoff hitter. But over the final five months of the season, Nootbaar’s leadoff-spot offense collapsed into a heap of near nothingness; per wRC+ he was 26 percent below league average as the No. 1 hitter and struck out in 23.2% of his PA. And Noot, who bats from the left side, was overmatched against lefty pitchers. His double-heel injury had to be a factor in the decline.
Among current Cardinals Nootbaar has the most experience on the No. 1 line on the card. In 836 career PA there, he’s cultivated a good .343 onbase percentage, slugged .401, and performed 10 percent above league average offensively per wRC+. His walk rate at the top (12.2%) is appealing. And he can do some power damage when leading off.
(Side note: Donovan was OK at leadoff last season. Not good. Not bad. But yes, OK. Donny’s wRC+ (100) was exactly league average.
MASYN WINN
In his small-sample shifts at leadoff last season, Winn walked only 4.3 percent of the time, struck out at an inflated rate of 26.5%, batted .116 and managed a weak .174 OBP. In the majors Winn has 516 career PA at leadoff, and the numbers, which are poor, include a wan .280 onbase percentage and a wRC+ that’s 15 percent below league average offensively. That simply will not do.
VICTOR SCOTT
Vic has only 15 PA in the majors as a leadoff hitter. Let’s toss that aside, and focus on his overall onbase percentage in 2025 … and in 436 PA, that came to .305. That’s higher than I would have guessed – but a lot less than ideal. But Scott did walk at a rate of 9.1%, so at least he’s tried to work some counts. But his overall offensive performance in 2025, based on wRC+, was 26% below average. The Cardinals will need more from Scott, and he’s been hard at work to upgrade his offense. Given his excellent speed and stolen-base skill, the Cards could ignite from the top spot if Scott could just inflate his onbase percentage. He’s also doing a lot of extra-session stuff to improve his bunting, and that makes a lot of sense … because frankly Vic was awful as a bunter last season. I have numbers on that but will use them in a future column. In a rebuilding season, the Cardinals have the freedom to give Scott a shot at leadoff. But is he the best choice? I guess we won’t know unless the Cards give him an audition.
JJ WETHERHOLT
Wait a minute. Rookies shouldn’t bat leadoff. The Cardinals need a more experienced guy up there. I hear that line of thinking from others, and it makes me grab my own scalp.
Rookies shouldn’t bat leadoff?
What?
+ What about Vince Coleman in 1985? He wasn’t a great hitter as a rookie, but Coleman got on base enough to steal 110 bases, and he was selected as NL Rookie of the Year.
+ Bake McBride wasn’t going to get much of a chance to do it, considering that the Cardinals had a leadoff man named Lou Brock. (You may have heard of him.) But in 1974, when McBride won the NL Rookie of the Year award, he batted .369 with a .442 OBP in a small-sample look at leadoff.
+ Dylan Carlson may have been a bust overall as a Cardinal, but in 2021 he had 159 PA at leadoff and put up a .314 OBP, .447 slug and .761 OPS. (In 2019, Cards rookie Tommy Edman wasn’t good at leadoff but eventually did better.)
+ In 2022, rookie utility man Brendan Donovan had a terrific .363 OBP in 113 PA at leadoff.
+ One notable rookie leadoff man in Cardinal history was Wally Moon, who won the NL Rookie of the Year award in 1954. That year he had a .314 average, .382 onbase percentage and .440 slug in 419 PA at the top spot.
Rather than go into all of the stats, here are some other rookies who batted leadoff for their teams through the years – and by no means is this a complete list. (And I didn’t include Ichiro Suzuki, who was an established international star when he came to the Mariners as a rookie in 2001.)
Derek Jeter, Yankees, 1996
Paul Molitor, Brewers, 1987
Rickey Henderson, A’s, 1989
Dwayne Murphy, A’s, 1978
Davey Lopes, Dodgers, 1973
Bobby Richardson, Yankees, 1957
Kenny Lofton, Cleveland, 1992
Rafael Furcal, Braves, 2000
Mookie Wilson, Mets, 1981
Al Bumbry, Orioles, 1973
Doug Glanville, Cubs, 1997
Juan Pierre, Rockies, 2000
Devon White, Angels, 1987
Brett Butler, Braves, 1981
Steve Sax, Dodgers, 1982
Chuck Knoblauch, Twins, 1991
Billy Hamilton, Reds, 2014
Starling Marte, Pirates, 2012
Omar Moreno, Pirates, 1977
Fernando Vina, Brewers, 1993
Corbin Carroll, Diamondbacks, 2023
Trea Turner, Nationals, 2016
Lonnie Smith, Phillies, 1980
Ronald Acuna Jr., Braves 2018
Hanley Ramirez, Marlins, 2006
Jonathan India, Reds 2021
Bob Dernier, Cubs, 1984
Ian Happ, Cubs, 2017
Manuel Margot, Padres, 2017
Bo Bichette, Blue Jays, 2019
Mookie Betts, Red Sox, 2014
Carl Crawford, Rays, 2002
Lloyd Moseby, Blue Jays, 1980
Rocco Baldelli, Rays, 2003
Jacoby Ellsbury, Red Sox, 2007
Ellis Burks, Red Sox, 1987
Darren Lewis, Giants, 1991
OK, now back to JJ. Of course he can bat leadoff. He takes smart at-bats. Knows the strike zone. Doesn’t chase many non-strike pitches. Will coach walks. Hits for average. Rolls up a healthy onbase percentage.
Playing at two levels (AA and AAA) of the minors last season, Wetherholt put up these numbers as a leadoff man during the 2025 season:
– 48 games, 204 plate appearances
– .299 average, .412 OBP, .519 slug, .931 OPS
– when leading off an inning: 116 at-bats, .310 average, .416 OBP, .586 slug, .968 OPS.
That’s a wonderful set of numbers. Soon enough, Wetherholt will be the Cardinals’ best overall hitter. Seems to me that it’s smart to get him as many plate appearances as possible to maximize his value to the team.
Personally? I’d plug in the left-handed hitting Wetherholt at leadoff in his first MLB regular-season game and leave him be.
Considering that he’ll likely face right-handed starting pitchers around 70 percent of the time (at least), check out JJ’s numbers vs. righties last season for Springfield and Memphis: .319 average, .442 OBP, .511 slug, .953 OPS.
But for the chronic worriers who evidently believe Wetherholt is made out of terracotta, I suppose a healthy Nootbaar can bat leadoff for a while to keep JJ safe from harm caused by those evil-doer pitchers – or something like that. I’d skip that unnecessary step and treat Wetherholt for what he is: a damn mature rookie with deep confidence and a natural-born gift for elite-level hitting.
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.
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, 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 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 STLSportsCentral, 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.