2026 Team Previews: St. Louis Cardinals
A detailed fantasy baseball oriented team preview of the 2026 St. Louis Cardinals
Full Series Links and Explanation Page Here
Podcast
Intro
Things are bad right now in St. Louis. After years of being very good and constantly making the playoffs, coming up with unforeseen minor league gems, and just doing a lot of things right, we’ve hit rock bottom. What goes up must come down, and things are down right now.
It’s a rebuild situation for the Cardinals right now. I suppose that was always going to happen after they went big with Arenado and Goldschmidt. It’s still early in the offseason as I write this, but I can’t say this team is going anywhere in 2026. The pitching staff is so, so bad.
Fantasy baseball isn’t a direct correlation to real-world wins, but you can be pretty sure that a team is going to be bad when they don’t have a single player going in the top 200 picks.
Hitters
Ivan Herrera
Age: 25
Pos: C
As I already mentioned, the Cardinals don’t have a single player going inside the top 200 ADP in early drafts. Herrera sometimes sneaks into the top 200, but his average is just above it.
You have the situation with Herrera where you’ll get a catcher in fantasy who isn’t playing a ton of catcher in real life. He’s arguably the team’s best bat, so he’s going to play a bunch. And that’s the kind of fantasy catcher you’re looking for. If you can get a guy in your C slot that plays 150 games, you’re already ahead of a lot of your league.
The numbers from last year:
→ 450 PA, .284/.373/.464, 19 HR, 8 SB, 18.7% K%, 9.6% BB%
He played just 107 games, missing time in multiple stints with knee and hamstring issues. He also had to get some loose bodies removed from his elbow right after the season. So the durability is in question.
The good news was that he finished the year healthy and swinging a very good bat.
He homered eight times with a .276/.394/.575 slash line in September.
→ 18.6% K%
→ 9.3% BB%
→ 11% Brl%
→ 77% Contact%
→ 84.5% Zone Contact%
→ .378 xwOBA
→ 107.7 EV90
Really impressive numbers up and down the list for the dude.
It’s fair to say that he’s one of the better bats at the catcher position ahead of 2026. One criticism could be the lack of balls hit into the air. A 49% GB% and 11.4% Air Pull% are bad. He’s never been a big-time home run hitter, more or a singles/doubles guy, but he swings the bat and hits the ball hard enough to make you think he could blossom into a 22-25 homer bat.
I doubt there will be a ton of RBI opportunities for the guy. This is a situation where the catcher eligibility is creating the fantasy value for the guy. If he were a 1B, what you’re getting here would be pretty replaceable. But at catcher, it’s much less so.
Projection
477 PA, 63 R, 19 HR, 60 RBI, 8 SB, .276/.360/.464
Ranking
Alec Burleson
Age: 27
Pos: 1B/OF
Burleson was a bright spot for the Cardinals last year. He did the best work of his career, getting the OPS over .800 for the first time.
Burleson has always had a very low K%, but didn’t turn that into a great batting average until last season, when he hit .290.
→ .284 xBA
→ .351 xwOBA
→ 14.5% K%
→ 7.0% BB%
→ 86.9% Z-Contact%
→ 35% Sweet Spot%
→ 40% GB%
→ 106.1 EV90
His bat speed is about league average. There’s never been a ton of pop in his game, but he got his EV90 to a good place last year. I do think his power upside is capped around the 20 homers we’ve seen the last two years. He is more of a contact guy than a power guy. Pair that up with hope for only a handful of steals on a bad team, and you don’t have a very appealing fantasy option.
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