Brendan Donovan, the second baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals, has been nothing short of spectacular in the 2025 MLB season. He has improved from prior years and is now ranked among the top players in the league.
Brendan Donovan is ranked near the top of the National League (NL) in multiple stat categories to start the 2025 season. He is in the top 25 in the following categories: batting average, OBP, slugging percentage, and OPS. Most impressively, he is ranked third in the NL and tied for fifth in the entire league in batting average, sitting at .333 on the season. This has been a massive improvement for Donovan and he will look to continue putting up these kinds of numbers throughout the rest of the season.
Although Brendan Donovan has had rather strong prior years in his career, he has still seen a huge improvement this year. He is in his fourth season in the league and in his first three seasons, his batting average hovered just above the .280 mark. That is well above-average, but Donovan has still found a way to level up this year.
Brendan Donovan’s slugging percentage has significantly increased as well; it was .417 last season and is .491 this season. Granted, it is still early on in the season, but if he can even stay close to this pace for the remainder of the year, he will have his best season by far.
On the defensive side, Brendan Donovan is having a stellar year, too. He has not made a single error this season; to have a fielding percentage of .1000 roughly a fifth of the way through the regular season is next level. This kind of fielding excellence is similar to his 2022 season when he had a fielding percentage of .982 and made only seven errors the entire season. Donovan won a Gold Glove Award that year, so if he continues defending at such a high level, he will be well on his way to receiving another Gold Glove Award this season.
If he is able to keep up this level of play on both the offensive and defensive sides of the game, he will undoubtedly be named an All-Star for the first time in his career.
The Cardinals are having a decent start to the season. By no means are they one of the top teams in the league right now, but they are 14-17 on the year, and only four games back of first place in the tight NL Central standings. If Brendan Donovan continues contributing so effectively, then they will have a chance at climbing the rankings. Between him and eight-time All-Star teammate Nolan Arenado, the Cardinals have the potential to be a top team in the league. The last time that they made the playoffs was when they lost in the 2022 NL Wild Card Series, so they would love to get back to the playoffs and improve upon that performance.
Brendan Donovan has taken a leap this year and he is hoping to continue this level of elite play. He has made a name for himself this season; with his track record of being a consistent player, look for him to stay at the top of the MLB rankings for years to come.
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