How defense has turned Cardinals into contenders — and set up a trade deadline dilemma
IN CREPT WILLSON CONTRERAS, closer and closer to home plate, to the point that it started alarming his St. Louis Cardinals teammates. Contreras is in his first season as a first baseman, and even if the situation called for him to crash toward the plate — eighth inning, 1-0 lead, runners on first and second with no outs and Kansas City’s Jonathan India squaring to bunt on the first two pitches — Contreras stationed himself 51 feet away, like a bunt scarecrow, as if to invite a swing from someone who routinely hits baseballs more than 100 mph.
“Scoot back a little,” Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado hollered across the diamond. Cardinals coaches urged Contreras to do the same. He did not oblige their requests.
“I was afraid [India] was going to take a swing and kill him,” Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas said.
None of this surprised the Cardinals. Contreras has embodied the team’s defense-first mentality — adopted last year and actualized this season — that flipped the fortunes of a franchise fallen on hard times after decades of unrelenting excellence. St. Louis is 27-23, currently in second place in the National League Central and firmly in the postseason hunt during what was supposed to be a transitional year, thanks to perhaps the best defense in baseball. And Contreras’ positioning, as much as any moment over the first quarter of the season, illustrated who the Cardinals have become.
“I don’t care. I’m not afraid,” Contreras said. “If I’m gonna die, I’ll die right there.”
With Contreras perilously close — the only first baseman in the player-tracking era to stand closer to home on a bunt attempt, according to Statcast, was Contreras’ old Chicago Cubs teammate Anthony Rizzo — India backed away from bunting and took a strike from reliever Kyle Leahy. Contreras didn’t budge. India stared at another pitch to even the count. On the fifth pitch, India hit a one-hopper to second baseman Brendan Donovan, who flipped to shortstop Masyn Winn for the force. Winn then wheeled around, ran toward third and fired to third baseman Nolan Arenado to cut down Drew Waters, turning a perilous situation into two outs.
None of it happens, Cardinals players and coaches said, without Contreras’ daring. “He’s a savage,” left fielder Lars Nootbaar said, and that can be repeated for every Cardinal around the diamond this season, from an infield of Arenado, Winn, Donovan and Contreras to Nootbaar, Victor Scott and Jordan Walker in the outfield to Pedro Pages behind the plate. All have been average or better. Arenado, Winn, Contreras and Scott are among the best in baseball at their positions, according to publicly available metrics as well as the models of three other teams surveyed by ESPN that validated the numbers. And as was the case in the May 17 game that ended with a 1-0 win in Kansas City and plenty more, the Cardinals’ gloves have carried them into contention.
“Guys wanted to take a ton of pride in their defense,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “When we look at what we can control this year, we knew we were going to have our ups and downs, but we can control the effort and being locked in every pitch. And that’s one thing I can say with confidence: We don’t give up a whole lot. Guys are making plays left and right. They’re on point. They’re locked in every pitch.”
COMING INTO SPRING TRAINING, the Cardinals looked scarcely different than the 83-79 team that was outscored by 47 runs a season ago. They signed one free agent: reliever Phil Maton, on a one-year, $2 million contract, in mid-March. They didn’t make any trades. Cardinals fans, among the game’s most die-hard, responded accordingly: attendance at Busch Stadium cratered by more than 7,000 a game to 28,464, the lowest average, outside of the 2021 season played under some pandemic restrictions, since after the strike in 1995.
Fans could not have known what they would be missing. Not even Cardinals players themselves could have foreseen this group into a constant highlight reel of glovework.
“Early on, we didn’t talk about defense,” Arenado said. “It was: ‘We’ve got to score runs. We don’t score runs.’ So that’s all we were talking about. But then as spring went on, we’re like, all right, our defense is actually kind of good. And then as the season has gone on, it’s been like, damn, dude, we’re really good defensively.”
How the Cardinals became arguably the sport’s best defensive team is a story of process and buy-in. For decades, the Cardinal Way — the team’s ethos, codified in an 86-page handbook — was their bible. In a game dominated by objective data, St. Louis’ philosophy grew stale — and the franchise with it. President of baseball operations John Mozeliak is in his last year on the job, with former Boston chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom taking over at season’s end. Clean defense, long a hallmark, bottomed out in 2023, when the Cardinals ranked among the worst in baseball. Their pre-pitch positioning, in particular, lagged severely behind more analytically inclined organizations.
“We kind of as a team knew we weren’t in the right positions in ’23, but you have to go based off of whatever [the positioning suggestions given to players] says,” Nootbaar said. “So we did that last year, and it didn’t feel as bad, but you really felt a stark difference from being where it felt like you were never in opportunistic positions. Now it feels like we’re starting to get there.”
Positioning is just the beginning. With former big leaguers Stubby Clapp coaching the infield and Jon Jay the outfield, players were given specific areas to improve. For Scott, who was taking over in center field from a top-flight defender in Mike Siani, he needed a better first step and direction to complement his high-end speed. Nootbaar planned to work on his jumps. Walker, who was among the game’s worst defenders the past two seasons after moving from third base to right, needed to get better in all facets.
During spring training, Jay set three cones in a triangle, cued players to break toward one and tossed a racquetball at them. The outfielders would then break toward another cone and catch another ball, which required soft hands because of the racquetball’s bounciness. He encouraged outfielders to station themselves low, with knees bent, which ensured their engagement in every pitch, a Marmol must.
“It’s so hard to lock in every single pitch, and you don’t know which one’s going to be the one that is coming your way,” Marmol said. “So your ability to be mentally tough enough to do that usually leads to attention to detail in other areas.”
The new approach has paid off. Scott is near the top of leaderboards in publicly available defensive metrics. Nootbaar, Cardinals players and staff said, is playing the best defense of his career, with his first step a tenth of a second faster than last year, something he attributes to focusing on shagging balls during batting practice. Walker has acquitted himself well enough to earn praise from scouts, who had him pegged as a lost cause in right.
And the improvements go beyond St. Louis’ outfielders. Contreras has similarly surprised evaluators, who were unsure how he would fare at first after starting just four games there in his previous nine major league seasons, the majority of which he spent at catcher. With catching duties going to Pagés and 24-year-old Ivan Herrera, whose bat has been a revelation, Contreras’ shift to first to replace four-time Gold Glove winner Paul Goldschmidt was a risk the Cardinals needed to take. And it has rewarded them handsomely.
“He might be one of the best first basemen I’ve ever seen,” Mikolas said. “I knew he’d be bodying it up, and I knew he’d be picking it, but his range and his arm — he’s doing something special there at first base. I think he’s surprising a lot of people. Probably not himself. He knows how good he is.”
It has been matched throughout the infield. Donovan, a 28-year-old utilityman, has settled into second and leads the NL in hits. Winn, whose weakness going to his backhand side was mitigated by an arm that rates among the best in the game, improved his first step and is getting to more balls than ever. At 34, Arenado — a 10-time Gold Glove winner who is regarded as perhaps the best defensive third baseman ever — is moving better than in recent seasons and looking ageless in the field.
“I don’t want to get ahead of myself,” Arenado said, “but I don’t see a defense that’s better than us — so far that we played against — in the big leagues.”
IN BASEBALL, DEFENSE does not win championships. Sometimes it doesn’t even get a team to the postseason. None of the No. 1 defensive teams this decade has made a World Series, let alone won one. But most of the top units are at the very least successful, and if that trend continues, the Cardinals will face one of the most interesting Julys in the sport.
Coming into the season, the expectation was that St. Louis would be among the most active teams in moving players at the trade deadline. Closer Ryan Helsley is the sort of arm every contender covets. Multiple teams seen as smart with handling pitchers planned to target left-hander Steven Matz, who has excelled out of the bullpen. Right-hander Sonny Gray remains a high-strikeout, low-walk, playoff-caliber arm. Fellow right-handed starter Erick Fedde is solid, even with his lack of strikeouts, and has allowed only three home runs in 52⅓ innings. Maton has a 133 ERA+ this season and has pitched in four of the past five postseasons.
If the Cardinals spend the next two months playing like they have the first seven weeks, the prospect of them shipping off their best arms diminishes greatly. Because if anyone knows how a team can back into October and find magic, it’s the Cardinals, who turned an 83-78 regular season in 2006 into their 10th championship and a 90-win wild-card campaign into their 11th title five years later.
“I mean, a lot of us are still kind of growing,” Donovan said. “We’ve had the luxury of seeing people do it for a long time with the Cardinals and around the league, so I think it’s guys just kind of learning how to come into their own.”
Marmol has relished the growth. Now in his fourth season as manager, he has amalgamated players around a new identity of focus and structure — tenets that evoke the Cardinal Way, only modernized. Before the Contreras daredevil game, he invited a number of players into his office to give them concrete data on just how much they had improved defensively, the sort of feedback modern players particularly appreciate because of the objective nature. Gone are the bad vibes from a 12-17 start, replaced by a team that found its footing in series wins against the New York Mets, Pittsburgh, Washington, Philadelphia and Kansas City before losing a series of close games against the team with the best record in MLB, Detroit.
“The buy-in has been through the roof,” Marmol said. “And then when they can see the improvement in numbers, however many days in, it just reinforces: don’t let up.”
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Bradford Doolittle
The initial 2025 MLB All-Star Game rosters are out, the product of the collaborative process between fans, players and the league. How did this annual confab do?
We already know that injuries will prevent some of these selectees from appearing in Atlanta, and replacement choices will be announced in the coming days. By the end of this post-selection period, we’ll wind up with something like 70 to 75 All-Stars for this season.
These first-draft rosters contain 65 players, the odd number stemming from the decision to send Clayton Kershaw to the festivities as a “Legend” pick. First reaction: Baseball’s newest member of the 3,000 strikeout club has earned everything he gets.
Now, on to the nitpicking.
American League
Biggest oversight: Joe Ryan, Minnesota Twins
The Twins’ lone representative on the initial rosters is outfielder Byron Buxton, a worthy selection. Ryan (8-4, 2.76 ERA) fell into a group of similar performers including Kansas City’s Kris Bubic and the Texas duo of Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi. Bubic and deGrom made it, which is great, and Bubic in particular is quite a story.
But Ryan and Eovaldi didn’t make it, and both were probably a little more deserving that Seattle’s Bryan Woo, whose superficial numbers (8-4, 2.77) are very close to Ryan’s. But Woo plays in a more friendly pitching park, and the under-the-hood metrics favor Ryan.
The main takeaway: If this is the biggest discrepancy, the process worked well.
Second-biggest oversight: Many-way tie between several hitters
The every-team-gets-a-player rule, along with positional requirements, always knocks out worthy performers from teams with multiple candidates. Thus, a few picks on the position side might have gone differently.
The Rays are playing so well they probably deserve more than one player. Their most deserving pick made it — infielder Jonathan Aranda — along with veteran second baseman Brandon Lowe. Infielders such as J.P. Crawford (Seattle), Isaac Paredes (Houston) and Zach McKinstry (Detroit) had good cases to make it ahead of Lowe, whose power numbers (19 homers, 54 RBIs) swayed the players.
While acknowledging that Gunnar Henderson has had a disappointing season, I still think he deserved to be the Orioles’ default pick instead of Ryan O’Hearn. But the latter was selected as the AL’s starting DH by the fans, and Baltimore doesn’t deserve two players. It’s a great story that O’Hearn will be a first-time All-Star just a couple of weeks before his 32nd birthday.
Other thoughts
• The default White Sox selection is rookie starter Shane Smith, a Rule 5 pick from Milwaukee last winter. Smith is my lowest-rated player on the AL squad, but he has been consistently solid. Adrian Houser, an in-season pickup, has been great for Chicago and has arguably produced more value than Smith. But I like honoring the rookie who has been there the whole campaign.
• The Athletics’ Jacob Wilson was elected as a starter and is easily the most deserving player from that squad. I’m not sure I see a second pick there, but Brent Rooker made it as a DH. Rooker has been fine, but his spot could have gone to one of the overlooked hitters already mentioned, or perhaps Kansas City’s Maikel Garcia.
• Houston’s Jeremy Pena is a deserving choice and arguably should be the AL’s starter at shortstop instead of Wilson. Alas, he’s on the injured list, and though reports say he might soon resume baseball activities, it’s likely Pena will be replaced. Any of the above-mentioned overlooked hitters will do.
• As for the starters, the fans do a great job nowadays. I disagreed with them on a couple of spots, though. I would have gone with a keystone combo of Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Pena rather than Gleyber Torres and Wilson, but I’d have them all on the team. And I would have definitely started Buxton over Javier Baez in the outfield.
National League
Biggest oversight: Juan Soto, New York Mets
Not sure how this happens, but I’m guessing Soto is a victim of his own standards. Yes, he signed a contract for an unfathomable amount of money, and so far, he hasn’t reinvented the game as a member of the Mets. He has just been lower-end Juan Soto, which is still one of the best players in the sport. His OBP is, as ever, north of .400, he leads the league in walks and it sure seems as if Pete Alonso has very much enjoyed hitting behind him.
The All-Star Game was invented for players like Soto, and though you might leave out someone like him if he is having a truly poor season, that’s not the case here. It is kind of amazing that he didn’t make it, while MacKenzie Gore and James Wood — both part of the trade that sent Soto from Washington to San Diego — did. They deserve it, and you can make a strong argument that a third player the Nats picked up in the trade — CJ Abrams — does as well. But Soto deserves it too.
Finally, the Marlins’ most-deserving pick is outfielder Kyle Stowers, who indeed ended up as their default selection. But he probably ended up with Soto’s slot.
Second-biggest oversight: Andy Pages, Los Angeles Dodgers
It’s hard to overlook anyone on the Dodgers, but somehow Pages slipped through the cracks despite his fantastic all-around first half for the defending champs.
It was just a numbers game. I’ve got five NL outfielders rated ahead of Pages, and all but Soto made it, so no additional quibbles there. The fans voted in Ronald Acuna Jr. to start at his home ballpark. Having Acuna there in front of the fans in Atlanta makes sense. But he has played only half of the first half.
Other thoughts
• The shortstop position is loaded in the NL, but the only pure shortstops to make it were starter Francisco Lindor and Elly De La Cruz. Both are good selections, but the Phillies’ Trea Turner has been just as outstanding. Abrams and Arizona’s Geraldo Perdomo are also deserving. The position has been so good that the player with the most career value currently playing shortstop in the NL — Mookie Betts — barely merits a mention. Betts has had a subpar half, but who will be surprised if he’s topping this list by the end of the season?
• Both leagues had three pitching staff slots given to relievers. The group in the AL (Aroldis Chapman, Josh Hader and Andres Munoz) was much more clear-cut than the one in the NL, which ended up with the Giants’ Randy Rodriguez, the Mets’ Edwin Diaz and the Padres’ Jason Adam. It made sense to honor someone from San Diego’s dominant bullpen, and you could have flipped a coin to pick between Adam and Adrian Morejon.
• Picking these rosters while meeting all the requirements and needs for teams and positions is hard. I don’t have any real issue with the pitchers selected for the NL. One of them is Atlanta’s Chris Sale, who is on the IL and will have to be replaced. My pick would be Philadelphia’s Cristopher Sanchez (7-2, 2.68 ERA).
• And for the starting position players, Alonso should have gotten the nod over Freddie Freeman at first base, though it will be great to see Freeman’s reception when he takes the field in Atlanta. For that matter, the Cubs’ Michael Busch has had a better first half than Freeman at this point, though that became true only in the past few days, thanks to his explosion at Wrigley Field. I would have gone with Turner at short, but it’s close. And I’d have started Wood in place of Acuna.
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Jesse Rogers
The last-place Washington Nationals fired president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and manager Davey Martinez, the team announced Sunday.
Rizzo, 64, and Martinez, 60, won a World Series with the Nationals in 2019, but the team has floundered in recent years. This season, the Nationals are 37-53 and stuck at the bottom of the National League East after getting swept by the Boston Red Sox this weekend at home. Washington hasn’t finished higher than fourth in the division since winning the World Series.
“On behalf of our family and the Washington Nationals organization, I first and foremost want to thank Mike and Davey for their contributions to our franchise and our city,” principal owner Mark Lerner said in a statement. “Our family is eternally grateful for their years of dedication to the organization, including their roles in bringing a World Series trophy to Washington, D.C.
“While we are appreciative of their past successes, the on-field performance has not been where we or our fans expect it to be. This is a pivotal time for our club, and we believe a fresh approach and new energy is the best course of action for our team moving forward.”
Mike DeBartolo, the club’s senior vice president and assistant general manager, was named interim GM on Sunday night. DeBartolo will oversee all aspects of baseball operations, including the MLB draft. An announcement will be made on the interim manager Monday, a day before the club begins a series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Rizzo has been the top decision-maker in Washington since 2013, and Martinez has been on board since 2018. Under Rizzo’s leadership, the team made the postseason four times: in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019. The latter season was Martinez’s lone playoff appearance.
“When our family assumed control of the team, nearly 20 years ago, Mike was the first hire we made,” Lerner said. “Over two decades, he was with us as we went from a fledging team in a new city to World Series champion. Mike helped make us who we are as an organization, and we’re so thankful to him for his hard work and dedication — not just on the field and in the front office, but in the community as well.”
The Nationals are in the midst of a rebuild that has moved slower than expected, though the team didn’t augment its young core much during the winter. Led by All-Stars James Wood and MacKenzie Gore, Washington has the second-youngest group of hitters in MLB and the sixth-youngest pitching staff.
The team lost 11 straight games in a forgettable stretch last month. And during a 2-10 run in June, Washington averaged just 2.5 runs. Since June 1, the Nationals have scored one run or been shut out seven times. In Sunday’s 6-4 loss to Boston, they left 15 runners on base.
There was industry speculation over the winter that the Nationals would spend money on free agents for the first time in several years, but that never materialized. Instead, the team made minor moves, signing free agents Josh Bell and Michael Soroka, trading for first baseman Nathaniel Lowe and re-signing closer Kyle Finnegan. Now, the hope is a new management team, both on and off the field, can help change the franchise’s fortunes.
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David Schoenfield
The rosters for the 2025 MLB All-Star Game will feature 19 first-timers — and one legend — as the pitchers and reserves were announced Sunday for the July 15 contest at Truist Park in Atlanta.
Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw, a three-time Cy Young Award winner who made his first All-Star team in 2011, was named to his 11th National League roster as a special commissioner’s selection.
Kershaw, who became only the fourth left-hander to amass 3,000 career strikeouts, is 4-0 with a 3.43 ERA in nine starts after beginning the season on the injured list. He joins Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera as a legend choice, after the pair of sluggers were selected in 2022.
Kershaw said he didn’t want to discuss the selection Sunday.
Among the first-time All-Stars announced Sunday: Dodgers teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto; Washington Nationals outfielder James Wood and left-hander MacKenzie Gore; Houston Astros ace Hunter Brown and shortstop Jeremy Pena; and Chicago Cubs 34-year-old left-hander Matthew Boyd.
“It’ll just be cool being around some of the best players in the game,” Wood said.
First-time All-Stars previously elected to start by the fans include Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, Athletics shortstop Jacob Wilson, Baltimore Orioles designated hitter Ryan O’Hearn and Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong.
Overall, the 19 first-time All-Stars is a drop from the 32 first-time selections on the initial rosters in 2024.
Kershaw would be the sentimental choice to start for the National League, although Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes, who leads NL pitchers in ERA and WAR, might be in line to start his second straight contest. Philadelphia Phillies right-hander Zack Wheeler, a three-time All-Star, is 9-3 with a 2.17 ERA after Sunday’s complete-game victory and also would be a strong candidate to start.
“I think it would be stupid to say no to that. It’s a pretty cool opportunity,” Skenes said about the possibility of being asked to start by Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “I didn’t make plans over the All-Star break or anything. So, yeah, I’m super stoked.”
Kershaw has made one All-Star start in his career, in 2022 at Dodger Stadium.
Among standout players not selected were New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto, who signed a $765 million contract as a free agent in the offseason, and Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts, who had made eight consecutive All-Star rosters since 2016.
Soto got off to a slow start but was the National League Player of the Month in June and entered Sunday ranked sixth in the NL in WAR among position players while ranking second in OBP, eighth in OPS and third in runs scored.
The players vote for the reserves at each position and selected Wood, Corbin Carroll of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Fernando Tatis Jr. of the San Diego Padres as the backup outfielders. Kyle Stowers also made it as a backup outfielder as the representative for the Miami Marlins.
Unless Soto later is added as an injury replacement, he’ll miss his first All-Star Game since his first full season in 2019.
The Dodgers lead all teams with five representatives: Kershaw, Yamamoto and starters Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith. The AL-leading Detroit Tigers (57-34) and Mariners have four each.
Tigers ace Tarik Skubal will join AL starters Riley Greene, Gleyber Torres and Javier Baez, while Raleigh, the AL’s starting catcher, will be joined by Seattle teammates Bryan Woo, Andres Munoz and Julio Rodriguez.
Earning his fifth career selection but first since 2021 is Texas Rangers righty Jacob deGrom, who is finally healthy after making only nine starts in his first two seasons with the Rangers and is 9-2 with a 2.13 ERA. He has never started an All-Star Game, although Skubal or Brown would be the favorite to start for the AL.
The hometown Braves will have three All-Stars in Acuna, pitcher Chris Sale (his ninth selection, tied with Freeman for the second most behind Kershaw) and first baseman Matt Olson. The San Francisco Giants had three pitchers selected: Logan Webb, Robbie Ray and reliever Randy Rodriguez.
The slumping New York Yankees ended up with three All-Stars: Aaron Judge, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Max Fried. The Mets also earned three All-Star selections: Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz.
“Red carpet, that’s my thing,” Chisholm said. “I do have a ‘fit in mind.”
Rosters are expanded from 26 to 32 for the All-Star Game. They include starters elected by fans, 17 players (five starting pitchers, three relievers and a backup for each position) chosen in a player vote and six players (four pitchers and two position players) selected by league officials. Every club must be represented.
Acuna, Wood and Raleigh are the three All-Stars who have so far committed to participating in the Home Run Derby.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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