JUPITER, Fla. — Spring training games are underway, and there is no shortage of questions for the St. Louis Cardinals as their Grapefruit League campaign begins.
Over the next five weeks, the Cardinals must establish how to divvy up playing time to multiple young players, while also putting their major-league club in a position to win games. It’s something both president of baseball operations John Mozeliak and manager Oli Marmol have admitted will be difficult.
“That’s something that we’re going to try to prepare and have an answer for,” Mozeliak said earlier in camp.
The 29 remaining exhibition games should help with that.
Taking the field for the first time in 2025 😤 pic.twitter.com/u2u2Ja4joB
— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) February 22, 2025
Here are some early things to monitor.
Lineup significance
Some lineups can offer a little more insight as to how a team may be operating. Take the Cardinals Grapefruit League opener lineup, for example.
Let’s play ball! 🙌 pic.twitter.com/cXtVo3bVTK
— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) February 22, 2025
Could this be a foreshadowing of how the Opening Day lineup might look? It’s possible, though Marmol played coy when asked directly.
He has discussed lineup construction challenges at length this spring, acknowledging the difficulties of managing to win the day while weighing what is best for the organization’s long-term goals. Marmol has utilized roster versatility in his past three seasons and didn’t hesitate to rotate players around the diamond on a daily basis. He also regularly deployed a platoon, especially in 2024, to boost offensive production.
Don’t expect to see those strategies used as heavily this season. When asked how he would structure his lineup and how heavily flexibility would impact it, Marmol said he would prefer not to use different people in different positions every day.
“That wouldn’t be ideal,” Marmol said. “The versatility helps in not having players be at the same position every day, but it’d be my preference not to bounce people around for the sake of at-bats. So that’s where we need to figure out what this really looks like and how to do it best.”
When asked if he would platoon his lineup as often as last year, Marmol acknowledged that was something he was still working through.
“Yes and no,” he said. “That’s part of the bigger conversations of the development part of this as well. So yes, to a certain degree, but there are some areas that are not as black-and-white as before.”
Spring training lineups, especially early, will differ each day. But as camp goes on we should see stronger hints as to how Marmol will roll out his daily nine, and just how much give and take the front office is willing to wager as they attempt to find the right balance of development and winning baseball.
The outfield positioning
Expect to see a variety of defensive alignments over the first two weeks of games. Marmol considers center field an open competition, with Michael Siani, Victor Scott II and Lars Nootbaar all firmly in the mix.
The catch (pun intended): Playing time here won’t be dictated solely by individual performance.
In years prior, the Cardinals often rewarded players on the cusp of the roster if their spring season warranted it (see Andre Pallante, Jordan Walker and Scott as recent examples). But this year, the front office has made it clear that prioritizing playing time takes precedence.
This rule applies to two players in particular: Walker and Nolan Gorman. While Marmol hinted early in camp that Gorman doesn’t have to play second base every day (at-bats are what’s most important), Walker will see most of the reps in right field. St. Louis would like to extend as much opportunity to Nootbaar as well, with his health being the prime concern. Nootbaar has missed at least 40 games due to injury in each of his last three seasons.
This could lead to the Cardinals playing Nootbaar in center, at least for some games, even though both Siani and Scott are better defensive center fielders. Alternatively, there might be some pause from the organization about that strategy due to Nootbaar’s lengthy injury history.
Victor Scott ✌️ brings home ✌️ pic.twitter.com/wILWDO5Wcu
— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) February 23, 2025
The Cardinals must also decide which of Siani and Scott they’d like to see more of, as it’s unlikely (though not impossible) that they’d carry all three outfielders if Nootbaar sees a bulk of time in center. It doesn’t help that Siani and Scott have similar profiles. They are both left-handed defensive specialists with elite speed.
The toss-up here will come down to short-term value versus long-term potential. From a metrics standpoint (first-step quickness and route efficiency, in particular) Siani profiles as the stronger center fielder. But Scott is just 24 and his ceiling is arguably higher than Siani’s, who will turn 26 this season.
There’s an argument to make for and against each center fielder, which makes this position battle the most intriguing in camp.
Alec Burleson’s playing time
Marmol is keeping a few positions on an alternating schedule at least through the team’s first off day on March 3. Among those spots are Masyn Winn and top prospect JJ Wetherholt at shortstop, and Willson Contreras and Burleson at first base.
Contreras will be the Cardinals’ first baseman, but the team wants Burleson to take as many reps there as possible while they figure out how best to calculate his playing time. Burleson was the club’s top offensive player in the first half of last season — hitting .288 with an .814 OPS and 17 homers — and St. Louis would like to play him as often as possible.
The current roster construction makes that difficult. The Cardinals have already prioritized Gorman’s at-bats and certainly won’t sit Brendan Donovan, one of their most flexible and valuable everyday players. Burleson isn’t the strongest of outfielders (though he’s proved capable of playing either corner before) but as evidenced above, St. Louis already has enough of a logjam there. The same can be said about the team’s abundance of left-handed hitters.
Where does that leave Burleson, who is limited defensively but projects to be one of the Cardinals’ most productive left-handed bats? That’s what the Cardinals need to figure out.
Burleson’s value lies with his bat. He has one of the top contact rates in the National League and rarely strikes out. Burleson’s 12.8 percent strikeout rate ranked in baseball’s 96th percentile last season and he squared up 31 percent of batted balls last year. He’s a spray hitter with power who especially mashes right-handed pitching, and in a normal season would likely be a mainstay in the lineup because of his offensive production.
But this is not a normal season for the Cardinals, who will prioritize development with some players over others. It’s unclear where Burleson sits in the pecking order, but his play this spring could force a tough decision. That’s why Mozeliak and Marmol want to play Burleson as often as possible: his Grapefruit League performance will likely dictate his major-league usage.
Touching bases: The first Cardinals homer of the spring belongs to Wetherholt, who started at shortstop on Sunday and went 2-for-3 with three RBI. The 2024 first-round pick is slated for an abundance of playing time early, with the club eager to see what the budding middle infielder can do in his first big-league camp.
CRUSHED by JJ Wetherholt 💪 pic.twitter.com/UhqRlRiPSu
— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) February 23, 2025
“It goes a long way to see your name in a lineup in the second game of the year,” Wetherholt said. “It’s like, ‘OK, these guys believe in me, so I should believe in myself too.’”
Selected by the Cardinals with the seventh pick last year, Wetherholt, 22, will fill in for Winn at shortstop, but will also see time at second base. He’s been one of the most buzzworthy players at camp. Staff members have raved about Wetherholt’s bat, with scouts and evaluators pegging him as one of the top hitters in his draft class.
“He has yet to look nervous,” Marmol said after Sunday’s game. “He looks ready, determined for whatever you throw his way. Up to this point, nothing has gotten him off his level of focus.”
The Cardinals have set their starting pitching probables through Thursday, with two notable young pitchers getting the nod for the team’s mid-week trip to Florida’s east coast. Steven Matz starts Monday against the Mets (weather permitting). Top pitching prospect Quinn Mathews will start Tuesday against Toronto, while Michael McGreevy will take on the Yankees on Wednesday. Andre Pallante will make his Grapefruit League debut at home against the Marlins on Thursday.
Sonny Gray threw two innings of live batting practice on Sunday on the back fields of the Cardinals’ spring training complex. Gray, while not yet scheduled to start, remains on track with his throwing program.
(Photo of JJ Wetherholt: Jeff Roberson / Associated Press)
