Lars Nootbaar

Nootbaar made three trips to the injured list in 2023 due to thumb, back and abdominal issues. Those injuries limited him to 117 games and 503 plate appearances, but when available he was impressive with the bat, totaling 14 homers and 11 steals to go with a .261 average. The outfielder showcased an impressive eye at the plate with a 14.3 BB% and 19.7 K%, nearly identical to his 2022 marks. The slugging lags behind the rest of his offensive game a bit -- his SLG fell to just .418 last season -- but Nootbaar does enough well across the board to warrant a high level of interest in mixed leagues that require five starting outfielders. Given that he had a dramatic lefty/righty platoon split (200 points of OPS to be exact), it would make sense if the Cardinals sat him occasionally against tough southpaws. Even so, Nootbaar could in theory approach 600 plate appearances with better luck on the health front while rotating between the three outfield spots for St. Louis.

Was this Cardinals' Devil Magic or just good development by St. Louis? Nootbaar inched his way up the organizational depth chart since entering the organization in 2018 and has shown an ability to hit for average and get on base in the minors but that did not initially translate into the same success at the big-league level. He certainly accepted his walks as a rookie in 2021, but he has not yet hit for average in nearly 500 plate appearances at the big-league level. He did, however, show surprising power in 2022, banging out nearly as many homers (18 between Triple-A and MLB) than he had from 2018-21 (20.) The StatCast sliders show plenty of bright Cardinal Red in many of the right places, but things get funky when you dive into the splits and see 13 of his 14 homers came against righties. However, Nootbaar hit .217 against righties and .273 against lefties when left in there to face them. He had similar R/L splits in 2021 but no such troubles in Triple-A, so it could be a small case of reverse splits. Either way, he is trending in a very good direction and has gone from 2022 deep sleeper to 2023 potential five-category producer if that average against righties adjusts.