Can the Cardinals Carry a DH Who Doesn’t Do Damage?

The Cardinal Chronicle
Can the Cardinals Carry a DH Who Doesn’t Do Damage?                                     St. Louis, MO
By Ray Mileur

There may be a misperception forming around Iván Herrera and his value as the St. Louis Cardinals’ designated hitter.

That does not mean Herrera is failing.

It does not mean he is not valuable.

It does not mean the Cardinals should ignore one of the better on-base profiles on the roster.

But it does mean the offensive picture is more complicated than simply saying, “He gets on base, so the bat has to stay in the lineup.”

Herrera’s season line sits in the neighborhood of .244/.370/.378 with an OPS around .748, depending on the daily stat feed. That tells a fairly clear story. He is still reaching base at an excellent rate. His on-base percentage is well above the Major League average, and that is not some small detail to brush aside.

Getting on base still matters.

It has always mattered.

Herrera shows patience. He controls the strike zone. He does not give away as many plate appearances as some hitters do. In a lineup that can go through stretches of chasing, rolling over and giving away outs, that kind of approach has real value.

The Cardinals need hitters who can extend innings.

Herrera can do that.

But there is another side to the profile, and that is where the harder questions begin.

The power has not matched the on-base ability.

A batting average around .244 is not a disaster. In today’s game, that is close enough to league average to avoid panic. But the slugging percentage, sitting under .400, is below where you would like it to be for a hitter the Cardinals are trying to keep in the lineup as a bat-first option.

That matters more when Herrera is used at designated hitter.

The standards are different there.

If a player is catching, handling a pitching staff, contributing defensively and still producing a .370 on-base percentage, that is a very useful player. But when the bat is being protected or prioritized through the DH spot, the question changes. The Cardinals are not just asking whether Herrera can hit enough to play. They are asking whether he is doing enough damage to justify regular DH at-bats.

That answer is less clear.

The most important number may not be the slash line.

It may be the hard-hit rate.

Herrera’s hard-hit percentage has dropped significantly from last season, falling from 47.7% to 38.9%. That is a meaningful decline. It puts him right around Major League average, but it also shows that the quality of contact has not been the same as it was during his stronger offensive stretch.

That is the key.

Herrera is still getting on base, but he is not impacting the baseball the same way.

That changes the way we should evaluate his offensive value.

An OPS around .750 looks respectable, and in a vacuum, it is. But if that OPS is being carried heavily by on-base percentage while the slugging side remains light, then the Cardinals need to be honest about what type of hitter Herrera is right now.

He is more table-setter than damage producer.

More patience than thump.

More quality plate appearance than middle-of-the-order force.

That is not an insult.

It is just the profile.

The problem comes when fans, and maybe even the organization, continue seeing the 2025 version of Herrera at the plate. That version hit the ball harder. That version looked more dangerous. That version made it easier to dream on a bat that could force its way into the lineup every day regardless of defensive position.

The 2026 version still has value, but it has not done the same level of damage.

That is where the eye test and the underlying numbers can start to split.

Fans remember the hard contact. They remember the big swings. They remember the offensive promise. They see the on-base percentage and assume everything is still mostly fine.

But the quality-of-contact data says something has changed.

That does not mean Herrera cannot get it back.

He absolutely can.

Hitters go through stretches where timing is a tick off, the lower half is not driving the baseball the same way, or the swing path produces more routine contact than barrels. Herrera is still young enough and skilled enough at the plate to make adjustments.

The strike-zone judgment gives him a strong foundation.

That is important. A hitter who controls the zone has more room to work through mechanical or contact-quality issues than a hitter who is chasing everything from foul pole to foul pole. Herrera is not lost. He is not overmatched. He is not an empty at-bat.

But the Cardinals have to evaluate the player in front of them, not just the player they believe is still in there.

Right now, Herrera’s value is being propped up by his on-base ability. That is useful. It helps the offense. It keeps innings alive. It creates chances for the hitters behind him.

But if the power remains limited, and if the hard-hit rate stays closer to league average than last year’s more impressive level, then the Cardinals may need to rethink exactly how they use him.

That does not mean benching him.

It may mean being more selective.

It may mean choosing matchups carefully.

It may mean using him more as an on-base bat than pretending he is providing traditional DH production.

It may mean recognizing that his best offensive value comes from patience and approach rather than impact contact.

That kind of honesty matters for roster construction.

The Cardinals have a lineup full of moving parts. They are trying to balance young bats, platoon advantages, defensive needs, rest days, and a DH spot that can be used in several ways. If Herrera is not slugging, then the DH spot becomes a more complicated decision.

A designated hitter does not have to be a pure slugger in today’s game, but he does need to provide real offensive value.

Herrera does that in one way.

He gets on base.

The question is whether he does enough in the other way.

Does he drive the baseball enough?

Does he punish mistakes enough?

Does he create enough extra-base damage to keep pitchers from challenging him?

That is where the numbers are less flattering.

The Cardinals should not overreact. Herrera remains a useful offensive player. His plate discipline is too strong to dismiss, and his ability to reach base gives him a legitimate place in the lineup discussion.

But they also should not ignore the warning signs.

A declining hard-hit rate is not nothing.

A sub-.400 slugging percentage is not nothing.

A DH profile carried mostly by on-base percentage is not nothing.

Sometimes it takes the game, and fans, a little time to catch up to what the numbers are already telling us.

Iván Herrera still has offensive value.

He still brings a professional approach.

He still deserves credit for getting on base at a high level.

But the bat may not be doing quite as much damage as the perception suggests.

That is the honest read.

And for a Cardinals team trying to squeeze every run it can out of the lineup, honest reads matter.

Herrera is not the problem.

But his profile is more complicated than the surface-level OPS suggests.

The Cardinals do not need to give up on the bat.

They just need to understand what kind of bat they have now.

The Cardinal Chronicle, in association with Gateway Sports & MiLB Today
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Photo Credit: Ivan Herrera, St. Louis Cardinals | MLB

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