2.8 Inches
JJ Wetherholt’s Opening Day home run could end up being the signature moment of the 2026 season for the Cardinals. All the expectations coming into the game combined with the excitement of Opening Day, and JJ delivered. Here it is one more time.
Watching it live, I thought there was no way it would go out simply because of how far off the plate it was, 2.8 inches, to be exact.
Here it is in our gameday snapshot.
That is just absurd. I certainly don’t remember seeing a Cardinals batter take a pitch that far off the plate for a bomb. I checked the logs and sure enough, the Cardinals had exactly zero home runs in 2025 from left-handed batters on pitches off the outside corner. The furthest outside pitch a lefty hit all year was from Lars Nootbaar against the Phillies on May 14th.
Not only is this feat rare for the Cardinals, it is quite rare across baseball. Only 30 pitches off the plate outside were hit for home runs by lefties in 2025. Of those 30 home runs, only three were further outside than JJ’s blast. These three were hit by Oneil Cruz, Jason Heyward, and Riley Greene, all standing at 6’2” or above. The fact that Wetherholt, standing at 5’9” and listed at 190 pounds, was able to drive this type of pitch illustrates his plus bat control and opposite field power.
95.2 MPH
The Cardinals staff has not yet started generating the strikeouts that they have long chased, but you can see signs of the improved stuff in the average fastball velocity. The staff as a whole is averaging 95.2 MPH on four-seam fastballs, which is up from 94.3 MPH last season. For context, that moves them from 18th in baseball last year to 7th so far this season. Most of this increase is coming from the starting rotation, but the average bullpen fastball is up 0.5 MPH as well. Outside of suppressing home runs, the pitching has been pretty bad so far, but the increased velo is a nice silver lining.
.327 xwOBA
While the pitching looks a little lucky so far, the hitters have underperformed their expected production based on batted ball data. The Cardinals rank 21st in team wRC+ through 225 plate appearances, but their xwOBA of .327 is tied for seventh. This is still an extremely small sample size, but after facing some great pitchers in the first two series, it is hard not to be encouraged by the offense thus far.
25% Chase Rate
Jordan Walker has certainly looked different to start the season. His 25% chase rate is a big reason why he has kept the strikeouts in check thus far. He has also done a better job elevating the ball with an increased average launch angle and launch angle sweet-spot %. It is certainly too early to start jumping to any conclusions, but Walker looks more comfortable at the plate than at any time in my memory of him.
27,409 Average Attendance
Average attendance through the first homestand has been almost identical to the 2025 season through the first six games (27,975). I will be interested to check in on this periodically to get a sense of the broader fan sentiment. With all the (relative) optimism at VEB, this will be a good sanity check on the perception of the team from the general public. I think the Cardinals have to be happy with the numbers thus far given the winter selloff.
10-1 Minor League Record
Wins and losses at the minor league level don’t matter… But, for a team focused on restocking the system, it is comforting to see the excellent start down on the farm. Memphis has played the most games, starting off 7-0. The offense has been driven by scalding hot starts from Jimmy Crooks, Blaze Jordan, and Cesar Prieto all posting OPS north of 1.300. Leo Bernal and Joshua Baez have held their own in the early going but are still looking for the power to take off.
Springfield opened the season Friday night with a win behind 5 ⅔ scoreless innings from Jurrangelo Cijntje in his Cardinals debut. He struck out seven and walked two while allowing only one hit.
The Peoria Chiefs stole the show in their opener on Friday winning behind Ryan Franklin’s nine strikeouts in just 3 ⅔ innings. Franklin touched 100 MPH and sat in the mid-to-upper 90s. He generated gobs of swings and misses with all of his offerings. Rainiel Rodriguez and Tai Peete hit home runs to start their campaigns off on the right foot.
Palm Beach split their first two games of the season without any major fireworks to report.
Gabe wrote an excellent guide to the minor leagues earlier this week, so check that out to get fully hyped for the baby birds now that all the full season affiliates are underway.
FanGraphs has a unique process of ranking farm systems in which they tie a specific dollar value to each prospect based on grade and position (pitcher vs. batter). I was curious how the talent distribution looks across levels now that all of the minor league rosters are set. In the table below, you can see the aggregate amount of prospect value and total prospects by level.
The top four levels are remarkably balanced driven by a good distribution of the top prospects. While the Palm Beach Cardinals (A) and short-season leagues don’t grade out as highly according to FanGraphs, there are still plenty of high upside guys at the lower levels who should improve their stock as the year goes on.
