2 weeks Ago By By Benjamin Hochman St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By the All-Star break in 2024, Alec Burleson looked like a guy who’d be an All-Star in 2025. I sure was sold. He was hitting .
288 with 17 home runs and 53 RBIs, while sporting an excellent .814 on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS). On the cusp, right? I wrote a lauding column during the break , complete with anecdotes and quotes from East Carolina coach Cliff Godwin, who previously was on staffs at Ole Miss, Louisiana State and Vanderbilt: “He’s got the best hand-eye coordination of any human being that I’ve ever coached.
” Well, after the All-Star break, the Cardinals outfielder hit .244 with just four homers and a .626 OPS.
Burleson’s two halves averaged out for an average season (.735 OPS). So here we are, looking ahead to the rebuilding 2025 Cardinals, who likely will play a lot of youngsters to grow their games (and to see if there’s any greatness in the guys).
Burleson turns 26 on Nov. 25, so he fits into that bucket. I still think Burleson has the intangibles to be a quality big leaguer.
Any way you slice it, he still hit 21 homers. And he’s not necessarily a slugger anyway. Burleson is a hitter.
In fact, his 2024 expected batting average was in the 84th percentile, per the analytics site Baseball Savant. And his percentage of balls squared up (31%) was in the 91st percentile. Burleson battles in the batter’s box.
Seldom strikes out. In fact, only four players in the entire National League struck out at a lower rate than Burleson did. His strikeout percentage was 12.
8%. Incredible, right? But that second half, man. Some of the pitchers sure seemed to have figured him out.
Makes me backtrack on that 2025 All-Star stuff. In August, he had a .752 OPS.
And in September, he had a .510 OPS. His final homer of the year? It happened on Aug.
17. And starting on Aug. 28, in his final 112 plate appearances, he had only two doubles (and no triples or homers).
That’s it. And the left-handed hitter struggled, as many do, against left-handed pitching. Obviously, the reassuring thing is there are more right-handed hurlers than southpaws.
But goodness gracious, Burleson hit .196 in his 142 plate appearances against lefties, along with a .514 OPS.
Three doubles. Three homers. Again, though, put it all together and there are more Burleson positives than negatives.
And you must consider a Brant Brown bump. That’s something to look for in a lot of Cardinals. Under hitting coach Turner Ward, the Cardinals’ offense suffered overall.
Under new hitting coach Brown, who was lauded by the likes of Skip Schumaker, the Cardinals offense should be at least somewhat better. Of course, who will be a part of that offense? Makes sense, as I’ve written, to trade Willson Contreras . And as colleague Ben Frederickson wrote recently , would Nolan Arenado really want to be part of a rebuilding project in his age-34 season? Thus the Cards likely will have one of the younger clubs in Major League Baseball.
Catcher Ivan Herrera must be in the club’s lineup every day. He profiles to be such a dynamic hitter. But even Burleson probably could steal second base off him.
The Cardinals have tough questions to answer at catcher, first base and one outfield spot (assuming Jordan Walker and Lars Nootbaar start at the other two spots). With Paul Goldschmidt a free agent, Burleson and Herrera could benefit from playing first base. Burleson even has experience there — he started 12 games there in 2023 and 13 in 2024.
Herrera hits right-handed, so there could be some sort of platoon at first with Burleson. And the designated hitter spot provides flexibility, too. But if the Cards truly want to see through this Victor Scott II situation, the young center fielder would need to play every day.
So that would take Burleson out of the outfield mix, which is fine. As for comparisons, they are, if anything, fun — though they’re not always reliable. But if you take a look at Burleson’s comps, they are encouraging.
Per stat site Baseball Reference, batters whose careers most mirrored Burleson’s through their age-25 years included J.D. Martinez, Josh Naylor, Matt Lawton and Joe Carter — all former All-Stars.
Now, the list also included the likes of Greg Briley, Deron Johnson and Franklin Gutierrez. So the onus is on Burleson (and the coaching staff). He must succeed in making adjustments, as the league did to him.
But the belief here is that he can still be an above-average big leaguer, though probably not like J.D. Martinez or Joe Carter.
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