Don't look now, but Lars Nootbaar is on fire

His 2022 with the Cards is a tale of two cities.

If you had Lars Nootbaar going berserk in the second half of the 2022 season and picking up the slack of the St. Louis Cardinals’ outfield on your bingo card, consider buying a lottery ticket.

After being nonexistent at the plate into the first few days of July, the soon-to-be 25-year-old outfielder, formerly a 4th or 5th option out there, is an everyday starter. In case you missed the last 4-6 weeks, it looks a little different out there. Harrison Bader is no longer in center, which is now being patrolled by Dylan Carlson. Tyler O’Neill has taken over his left field perch after injury, and Nootbaar is the established everyday right fielder.

If there’s one reason why Alec Burleson-the next best prospect waiting for his shot in Memphis, isn’t here-it has to be “Noot.” That had to be the play call in the front office at the trade deadline, when Nootbaar was only starting to catch fire and achieve consistency. Bader heads to New York, Burleson comes up for a real shot, and the youth movement continues in St. Louis.

Think about the amount of new talent that has come through already this year:

Nolan Gorman, Juan Yepez, Brendan Donovan, Andre Pallante, and even Andrew Knizner. The backup catcher struggled like Lars when he was first introduced to extended playing time, but he’s shown a steadier bat at the plate over the past two months as well. But it’s Nootbaar who springs out as the most unlikely.

A former eighth round draft pick (243rd overall in 2018), Nootbaar has entered the “not messing around” crew this summer. After collecting five home runs and showing some potential in 2021, this season has put on display a whole new Noot.

After hitting .200 in the first half, Nootbaar is hitting .297 in nearly the same amount of plate appearances (101 to 100) and has nine of his 13 extra base hits. A first half .655 OPS met a .991 second half mark, which helped raise his overall OPS to .814. He is slugging 45% of the time and getting on base at a vintage Matt Carpenter-esque 36% of the time.

Throughout it all, he’s saving runs in the outfield with his glove and arm. Manning the underrated grounds of right field, where doubles turn into triples and a short deficit could turn into an even bigger one with a misplay, Nootbaar has held the fort as Carlson transitioned to center. Against the New York Yankees two weeks ago, he made a sprawling catch in the gap that could have flipped the game if he hadn’t reached it.

This past weekend in Arizona, Nootbaar exposed the Diamondbacks right fielder with a simple groundball down the line that eventually turned into an inside-the-park home run. Instead of bringing in a single run with a line-hugging single, Nootbaar brought three runners-including himself-home to expand the lead.

He’s doing this from all over the lineup, mostly near the bottom. It’s Knizner and Nootbaar that are stretching this lineup out for the stretch run, collecting hits under disguise due to the big three (Goldy, Arenado, Pujols) doing a lot of damage lately.

Still, a .300 upgrade in OPS inside a couple months can’t be ignored for long. Even better, Nootbaar has excelled on the road this year, a place where the streaking Cards aren’t as strong at this season--barely sniffing the .500 mark. His home/road splits resemble his first/second half performances.

Nootbaar’s slash at home: .224/.318/.368.

Nootbaar’s slash on the road: .261/.398/.523.

With five games this week at Wrigley Field in Chicago against the lowly Cubs, Nootbaar has a chance to enrich those stats and continue to help this team make the ultimate comeback. Left for second place dread back in July, St. Louis is now five games ahead of Milwaukee and nearing 20 games better than .500.

For a team that has switched out their outfielders routinely every 3-5 years around here, St. Louis finally looks to have some chemistry and cohesion out there. Two-time gold glove winner O’Neill in left, the versatile Carlson in center, and Nootbaar increasingly making a play for a 2023 starting job.

If he’s made anything clear over the past 6-8 weeks, Lars Nootbaar has informed the front office that right field’s future ownership may go through him.

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