September 6, 2026
September 6, 2026
St. Louis Cardinals’ 2025 Season: A Franchise at a Crossroads
The Cardinals’ 2025 season began with a franchise still unsure what it wanted to be. It ended with that question answered in the most uncomfortable way possible. St. Louis finished 78–84, fourth in the National League Central, missing the playoffs for a third straight year. Between those two points sat a May hot streak that briefly fooled everyone into believing in a contender. A July collapse stripped that illusion away. A trade deadline sell-off confirmed the organization was no longer chasing this October. This season will be remembered less for what happened on the field and more for what it forced the front office to finally admit.
Every roster decision that winter carried the weight of a franchise stalling out. Paul Goldschmidt departed for the New York Yankees as a free agent. His exit closed the book on a Cardinals tenure built on steady production and clubhouse leadership. St. Louis then spent the offseason trying to move Nolan Arenado. The third baseman used his no-trade clause to block a deal to the Houston Astros and reported to spring training still wearing the birds on the bat. That failed trade did not resolve anything. It just delayed the reckoning. Ownership again drew criticism for straddling the line between contending and retooling, a pattern that had defined the franchise through several uneven seasons. Preseason expectations settled somewhere uncomfortable between contender and rebuild, with a rotation anchored by Sonny Gray and a lineup expected to lean on Willson Contreras, Brendan Donovan, and a healthy Arenado. The roster that broke camp in March looked less like a team built to win now and more like one waiting to find out what it actually was.
Nothing about the opening weeks suggested a breakthrough was coming. The Cardinals opened at Busch Stadium against the Minnesota Twins on March 27, marking the ballpark’s 20th season. The on-field product stumbled through an inconsistent 14–17 March and April. Andre Pallante’s rotation spot became a liability early, a sign of things to come on his way to a 6–15 finish. The offense sputtered in fits and starts, and early injuries forced Marmol to shuffle a lineup that had not even settled into its rhythm yet. Fans wondered whether another lost summer was already underway.
Then May arrived, and everything changed at once. St. Louis ripped off a nine-game winning streak and seized momentum nobody expected. The club finished the month 19–7, by far its best stretch of the season. Sonny Gray steadied the rotation during that run. Matthew Liberatore settled into a reliable back-end role, and Iván Herrera’s power at the plate gave the lineup an unexpected jolt. For a few weeks, the Cardinals’ 2025 season felt like something worth building around. That surge mattered because it changed the calculus in the front office. For a moment, selling looked premature, and contending again looked possible.
The good feeling from May could not survive the summer. An 8–16 July unraveled everything the Cardinals had built. By late August, the record had settled back toward its true level. Injuries piled up, the bullpen lost its edge, and a lineup that once looked dangerous went cold at the worst possible time. St. Louis fell five games short of the final NL wild card spot, finishing behind a Cincinnati Reds team that simply wanted it more down the stretch. The Cardinals were mathematically eliminated from postseason contention on September 24. That elimination did not surprise anyone who had watched July happen in real time.
The front office had a choice to make at the deadline, and it chose honesty over false hope. St. Louis traded closer Ryan Helsley to the New York Mets on July 31, ending a seven-year run that included a franchise-record 49 saves in 2024. In return came a package of young pitching and infield prospects. Reliever Phil Maton and left-hander Steven Matz followed him out the door. The Matz deal brought back power-hitting prospect Blaze Jordan. None of those trades were built to help in 2025. They were built to admit that 2025 was already lost, and that the roster needed to look different by the time it mattered again.
Individual performances kept the season from feeling like a total loss. A few of them will outlast the disappointing record. Sonny Gray anchored a shaky rotation with a 14–8 record, a 4.28 ERA, and 201 strikeouts across 32 starts. He gave the Cardinals a legitimate ace even as the roster around him thinned out. Brendan Donovan earned an All-Star selection and hit .287. Contreras provided thump with 20 home runs and 80 RBI in his third season behind the plate in St. Louis. Masyn Winn’s glove work at shortstop earned him his first career Gold Glove Award. It was a well-earned honor, documented on MLB.com. Alec Burleson claimed a National League Silver Slugger Award as a utility performer, capping a breakout year with real hardware attached to it. Iván Herrera added pop of his own behind the plate, emerging as a reliable complement in the middle of the order. Those honors did not change the standings. But they gave the Cardinals’ 2025 season a handful of storylines worth remembering once the losses faded from memory.
The final numbers told a blunt story. Milwaukee ran away with the NL Central at 97–65. St. Louis finished 19 games back in fourth place, ahead of only the last-place Pirates. A 44–37 home record could not offset a 34–47 mark on the road. A run differential of minus-65 reflected a team that lost more close games than it won. The full ledger at Baseball Reference makes the gap between St. Louis and the division’s contenders impossible to ignore. It makes the deadline sell-off look less like a choice and more like an inevitability.
Longtime baseball operations chief John Mozeliak stepped down once the season ended. He handed control to Chaim Bloom, closing a chapter that had defined the Cardinals for more than a decade. Manager Oliver Marmol survived the transition. He later earned a two-year extension, a vote of confidence covered by MLB.com. It signaled that the new front office wanted continuity in the dugout even as it rebuilt around him. Busch Stadium crowds kept showing up all summer, proof of a fanbase that has weathered far worse than a fourth-place finish. Patience still wore thin as August turned to September, and the same holding pattern that had lingered for three straight years finally forced a decision nobody in St. Louis particularly wanted to hear out loud. Arenado, meanwhile, received a ceremonial exit from what may have been his final home game in a Cardinals uniform. He was pulled from the lineup before the first pitch so he could walk off to a standing ovation few players get to hear on their way out. That moment captured the whole year better than any box score could: a franchise thanking its past while bracing for a very different future. Could a rebuild under Bloom finally give this roster the direction it lacked all summer? The Cardinals’ 2025 season did not deliver the October baseball this city expects. It delivered clarity instead, and sometimes that has to be enough before something better can get built.
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