Checking in on the MLB, part 3:

There’s been a lot of good teams in the National League this year, but none have had more surprising success than the St. Louis Cardinals. After seemingly entering a rebuilding era in the offseason, St. Louis has instead pivoted itself to a 28-19 start, planting itself squarely among the NL contenders through the first two months.

With Chaim Bloom’s promotion as the new president of operations and the previous three seasons ranging from middling to terrible, the writing was on the wall for the Cardinals. They traded top veterans Nolan Arenado, Willson Contreras, Sonny Gray and Brendan Donovan and set in for a long 2026.

But that hasn’t happened. Instead, the young talent has had a resurgence, most notably led by Jordan Walker. The right fielder had an awful 2025 with a -1.7 WAR and was horrible in all aspects. However, that’s been turned around this year, leading the team with 13 homers (as of writing) and being defensively solid, a desperately needed turnaround for the former top prospect.

The bats up the middle have also held up with Masyn Winn and JJ Wetherholt at shortstop and second base respectively. Winn was one of the few standouts that stuck around in the offseason, but he continues to excel defensively while Wetherholt finds himself among the top contenders for Rookie of the Year voting.

While metrics may indicate some regression, they’ve beaten the odds thus far; who’s to say they can’t keep it up?