Sunday, February 23

JUPITER, Fla. -- Last spring, when Alec Burleson appeared to be very much like a man without a spot on the Cardinals’ 2024 roster, he kept doing the math over and over in his head and, quite frankly, he wasn’t very encouraged with the numbers that kept coming up. 

“Coming into spring, I was thinking I’m the 13th guy, and then we signed [DH Matt Carpenter] and [shortstop Brandon Crawford], and I was thinking, ‘Well, those guys have to be here,’ and those were some blows to me,” Burleson recalled this week upon reporting to the Cardinals' Spring Training headquarters. “In the moment, it was really tough for me, because I was doing the math over and over and it wasn’t working out for me. Then I’d come up with an equation where maybe it would work out and maybe I’d make the team, but it wasn’t looking good. 

“But I just kept going and kept pushing, and then some injuries happened. You never want anybody to get hurt, but those opened a door for me. Looking back on it, there was nothing I could do about it, but what I did -- I hit and I played good defense -- and it worked out.” 

It certainly worked out for both Burleson and the Cardinals that the sweet-swinging lefty made the 2024 roster and was given a chance to flourish. Burleson parlayed Spring Training injuries to outfielders Lars Nootbaar, Dylan Carlson and Tommy Edman into an opportunity, and he didn’t surrender his spot on the roster. Ultimately, he led the team in RBIs (78), ranked second in homers (21) and had the highest slugging percentage (.420) and third-highest batting average (.269) among all qualified St. Louis hitters. He even put up eye-popping numbers that were comparable to those of Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani over an eight-week period -- when he hit seven homers and drove in 20 runs in June and smashed six homers and plated 25 more runs in July. 

Even though Burleson’s chances of making the Cardinals' roster out of Spring Training looked bleak last March, he still had an unbreakable confidence simmering just below the surface. His comments at the time proved prophetic -- “I’m going to hit. I’m going to hit in this league for a long time. I just need opportunities.” 

After having those comments read back to him this week, Burleson cracked a wry smile. To make it in the big leagues -- a sport where many are often consumed by the failure involved with hitting -- one must possess an unbreakable, unshakeable level of confidence, Burleson said. 

“That’s still true today,” he said. “No matter what somebody is saying about this team or me personally, I’m going to hit, because that’s my thing. We joke about it with me a lot -- ‘Just leave your glove in the locker, bring your bat and hit.’ But I still want to be able to be plugged in defensively, as well. But [hitting] is my calling card, and that’s what I’m going to keep doing.” 

Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol showed faith in Burleson in 2024 even when he often hit into bad luck and struggled for stretches in 2023. Marmol said the determination that Burleson showed last spring -- even when he looked like he might be the odd man out -- speaks to his character and mental toughness. 

“You can build off that feeling of never being comfortable, knowing what it felt like and understanding it will work out,” Marmol said. “The better guys can get at not playing GM and just playing the game, the better off they will be. And he would tell you that now based on how he was processing that pressure last spring.”

Many of the underlying numbers suggest that Burleson, 26, is just getting started being an elite hitter. Possessing the best bat-to-ball skills on the Cardinals, Burleson struck out just 76 times in 595 plate appearances last season, and that 12.8% K-rate ranked in MLB’s top four percentile, per Statcast. Even more impressively, he squared up 31% of the balls he hit last season, a figure that ranked in baseball’s top 9%. 

Those kinds of metrics also suggest that Burleson could be on the verge of further blossoming. With Paul Goldschmidt gone -- and Nolan Arenado a trade candidate -- could Burleson have a 25-homer, 100-RBI season in the cards? 

“I believe I can, but I don’t have any kinds of numbers to put on it,” he said. “I definitely want to improve on last year. I was happy with that being my first full season, but now that I know what success feels like, I want to build upon it.” 

Stymied on every attempt to trade Arenado over the past 4 1/2 months, the Cardinals made it clear this week that they are still holding out hope that the star third baseman might have a change of heart in wanting to remain in St. Louis. Arenado, 33, never demanded a trade, but suggested to president of baseball operations John Mozeliak that he would prefer to play with a championship-contending team at this late stage in his career. 

The Cardinals aggressively sought trades, even constructing a deal with the Astros before it was squashed by Arenado when he flexed his no-trade clause. The Cards also worked on the structure of a potential deal with the Red Sox, but Boston ultimately chose to sign free agent Alex Bregman -- a preference MLB.com reported since mid-December. 

Instead of contemplating life after Arenado, the Cardinals are now thinking he will likely be on their Opening Day roster. Quietly, the Redbirds know they are a better team with the likely future Hall of Famer still manning third base -- especially with him focused on atoning for a down season in 2024. 

“As we think about [resetting the roster], he does make us a better team if he’s Nolan … and if he’s happy,” Mozeliak said. “I like that he does seem to be motivated to want to be good. I can candidly say of all the trade conversations I’ve been in, [an Arenado bounce-back year] is what scares me the most. I think great players have that extra gear, and when they find it, they’re special. 

“I would not bet against him; I’d bet on him. And I was afraid someone else was going to get that if we traded him. He’s a special player and he can still do things that many can’t.”

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