Part of a series of articles previewing the defensive performance of all 30 MLB teams by asking the question … are they good? We give an overview of team strengths, weaknesses, and other things to know, using Defensive Runs Saved and other stats as the basis for our evaluation. To see the full series, click here.
2025 Team Defensive Runs Saved Rank: 19th
Team Strengths
The Cardinals should be pretty good up the middle. Center fielder Victor Scott II is probably going to win a Fielding Bible Award someday. It could be as soon as this year. He led center fielders in the range component of Runs Saved last season.
Most Runs Saved From Range – Center Fielders in 2025
| Player | Runs Saved |
| Victor Scott | 16 |
| Ceddanne Rafaela | 14 |
| Myles Straw | 13 |
| Pete Crow-Armstrong | 12 |
| Daulton Varsho | 11 |
| Kyle Isbel | 11 |
Masyn Winn had 14 Runs Saved at shortstop two years ago, which helped him win a Fielding Bible Award. He dropped to 2 Runs Saved in 2025 as he went from outstanding to merely good on double plays and his range numbers dropped a bit too.
Pedro Pages finished 2025 with 9 Runs Saved, which ranked 8th among catchers. He was good at throwing out basestealers relative to other catchers in 2025 and a decent pitch framer too.
Utility infielder Ramón UrÃas had 12 Runs Saved between his time at second base and third base last season. He could see a lot of time if JJ Wetherholt doesn’t work out well at second base or if Nolan Gorman continues not to hit at third base.
That’s a pretty good defensive core.
Team Weaknesses
The rest of the defense doesn’t rate well statistically.
Most notable among them is Jordan Walker, who is a weak link in right field to this point in his career. He had -11 Runs Saved there last season. He was bad in left field for 19 games in 2023 which is probably why the Cardinals haven’t flip-flopped him and Lars Nootbaar, who has shown to be better in right field than he is in left field.
Other Things To Know
Wetherholt is the wild card in this. FanGraphs gave him a 40/50 defense grade on the 20-80 scale. If he can work himself up to average quickly that would be a big help.
Are the Cardinals A Good Defensive Team?
I was originally going to say no, but there are four legit very good defenders on this roster, so I’m not writing them off. More likely they’ll probably be somewhere middle of the pack.
