Lars Nootbaar is quite an intriguing baseball player. Lars Taylor-Tatsuji Nootbaar, born September 8, 1997, is an American professional baseball outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. His mother was born in Japan and met his father on a college trip. They then settled in southern California and decided to start a family. Lars has three siblings and he is the youngest of the three. He was first introduced into international baseball as a little kid serving as a bat boy for the Japan national team in the WBC. He was born and raised in California and attended El Segundo High School, where he played baseball and football. He attended University of Couthern California and played baseball for three years before getting drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in the eighth round of the 2018 draft. He was in the minor leagues for several years, experiencing lots of promotions, but also a few setbacks before his MLB debut in 2021, wearing the number 68. In his first MLB season in 2021, Lars Nootbaar slashed .239/.317/.422 with 5 home runs and 15 RBIs over 109 at-bats. His first hit was a triple at tiger stadium in detroit. The Cardinals later won the game. The next day, he had his first career walk off.
He played a key role in the cardinals 17 game win streak having 2 homerun’s, 14 RBIs, and 2 SB. He also had an iconic leaping grab at the warning track during the at-bat of Mets Pete Alonso, evidently saving the cardinals 17 game win streak. The Cardinals made the wild card spot after the 17 game win streak, barely clinching a week before the postseason began. They then had a heartbreaking loss to the Dodgers in the 10th inning off Chris Taylor’s walk off home run. He started the 2022 season as the Cardinals fourth outfielder, but was moved up to starting right fielder after the trade of Harrison Bader to the Yankees. In 2022 he changed his number to 21, which is still his number to this day. He then played in the postseason with Cardinal legends such as Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols in their concluding seasons. Once again they had a heartbreaking loss to the Phillies in the wild card series concluding the careers of two Cardinals legends. In the beginning of the 2023 he played for the Japan international team with other MLB stars like Shohei Ohtani, Yu Darvish, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shota Imanaga. He was the first player not born in Japan to represent the country in a WBC game. He later went on to win the tournament hitting .400 with 1 home run and 1 RBI in 5 at-bats. In 2023 he really started rolling. Everytime he steps up to bat, the stadium yells NOOOOT!!! Statistically speaking 2023 was his best season increasing his hard-hit rate up to 49.5% making himself top ten in the MLB. He slashed .261/.333/.468 with 14 home runs. Sadly the Cardinals didn’t make the postseason that year.
In 2024 he had a pretty solid season, he even got his own bobblehead which I personally have. He even had his own Bruce Bolt series named just after him with ardinal red as the base and baby blue as the secondary color. He also made the all underrated team in march of 2025 as a right fielder.
Outside of baseball, he has started a restaurant in Japan. Nootbaar became a true-life folk hero in Japan, with a local ramen restaurants even inventing a dish named “Nootbaar Noodles” in his honor. He is off to a terrific start in 2025 after homering on opening day and cardinals fans got a new glance at a new celebration as he waved his arms around like a bird. He has two home runs and is batting .414. Overall, I think Lars Nootbaar has quite the future ahead of him.