In Praise of the St Louis Cardinals 2026 Season

There are some things we, as fans, should feel good about, so let's feel good about them. It was in some ways a very entertaining season! I won't be done complaining about the interim state of this team, especially because of the stale finish and bad aftertaste of losing 4 in a row at the end, but that's for another time. This is a feel-good sportsball article. Let us praise them.

The Cardinals lead MLB in three of the four double play categories on fangraphs. That said, Masyn Winn and JJ Wetherholt were the best middle infield defensive combo in baseball. I had fun watching it all season, when they weren't out with injuries. According to Baseball Savant, the statcast metric Infield DP shows that JJ Wetherholt was the second best defender in MLB at turning the double play, with Masyn Winn tied for third! That combo beats any other fielding combo. And ok so, big deal, they turn a lot of double plays… they are also The Top 2 middle infielders at Fielding Run Value. Both are among the best at the Range statistic. Only Pete Crow-Armstrong had more FRV! Now that is a valuable middle infield. The Nationals and the White Sox also were really good at turning the DP, but the Cardinals ran away with it here. (Honorable mention to the Brewers, yet another thing they are good at).

Alec Burleson keeps getting better at hitting every season, and now that he isn't playing the outfield, he isn't a liability on defense. Burly has arrived in 2026! Big time. While Burleson's wRC+ is about the same as the previous season, Burly raised his ISO from .169 to .193 which resulted in 8 more home runs than 2025 and 11 more doubles! This power surge provided RBI, 116 to be exact, enough to lead all of MLB! It's been a long while since the Cardinals had a RBI leader: the last time it happened was in 1971! While his offensive season was a resounding success, his improvement on defense was perhaps equally as impressive. Burleson is simply better at playing first base than at the outfield, and this helped him not tank his overall value. Alec was not the most rangey first baseman, but the fact that he was not a liability there was huge. He's an average defender range-wise. Where Burleson truly shined was at fangraphs Scoops statistic, #4 in MLB… while the new statcast statistic 1B Receiving described Burleson as the best in all of baseball. Go Burly! He should get a haul if they trade him, but he appears to be part of the core team for the foreseeable future.