What the hell are we doing at catcher?

22 comments

1. To me, moving Herrera to the outfield makes it seem like they plan on him being part of the future. They’re trying to find a spot for him so he can get more playing time. They understand they have good catcher prospects so they’re trying to clear up room for them to get called up.

2. A big part of Herrera’s transition is that they are worried about the strain on his legs. He’s already had two leg injuries this year, and they don’t want to risk it.

3. Herrera all of a sudden being a decent hitter came out of nowhere. Time will tell if that holds up and how well he will fair playing the OF. But I agree here with OP, we technically have 3 catchers playing positions currently, which I have never , ever seen in my 50 plus years of watching the Cards. Pages and especially Pozo for some reason are so out of shape for baseball players and yet are catchers. I can not see how they can deal with the impending knee issues. Time for younger catchers to step up, as I dont see us going after a catcher again for a long time.

4. I mostly agree with this, especially about an inconsistent lineup. Very frustrating. On the other hand, our plethora of catchers is great trade bait….

5. The primary reason Herrera is not playing catcher right now is the combination of his health and the value of his bat.

   Whether justified or not, the org is concerned that playing catcher greatly increases his likelihood of reinjuring himself and his bat is just too good to risk that. Before his second injury I was fully in the “keep trying him at catcher because if his defense becomes even passable he’s a huge value there”, but I’m now fully in the “do whatever you need to to keep him in the lineup” camp.

   If that means revisiting him catching during the offseason I’m all for it. If it means him playing LF fine. If it means moving him to 1B, fine. He just needs to be in the lineup every single day.

6. You are literally answering the question with your own explanation. Contreras and Herrera can’t handle the position defensively and physically, respectively. So, they moved to other roles. STL has depth coming in the minors at the catching position, but it isn’t here yet. The big league club is patching together a catching corps that is competent enough to handle the pitching staff, even if they aren’t great offensive forces, until those guys in the minors can develop. Of all the issues STL had, I can’t imagine someone being worried about the catching depth chart.

   Also, of all those guys you describe as miscast, Arozarena is the only one that is in any way qualified to be called a big league regular. Edman still has a job because he can stand around and be average at 6 different positions, but he doesn’t excel at anything. Everyone else on that list are DFA/non-tender quality players.

7. I thought since this was more of a rebuild year they were going to spend the year trying to develop Herrera as a catcher. If you can get him to at least league average at defense then that is huge value for the team to have an 800 OPS guy whose average defensively at catcher. You would also free up the DH spot for other players. If it doesn’t work out then thats okay but at least you tried. At this point they need to brink up Crooks to get him set up for next year. I think it would be a horrible decision to try and keep Pages as the starting catcher. His offense is unplayable and his defense is mediocre at best, but hes caught 65% of games which is ridiculous. Pozos defense is around the same as Pages maybe slightly worse. He’s much better at blocking but worse at throwing runners out. His offense is significantly better, but he hasn’t played enough to see if he can stay consistent and it seems hes gotten into a cold stretch of hitting recently which is unfortunate. Although he still is hitting well when pinch hitting so its weird. They need to send Pages down to Triple A before his value drops even more and try and move him in the off-season. Bring up Crooks and use Pozo as a backup. And if Crooks doesn’t pan out for the future you can eventually bring up Bernal. Between Crooks/Bernal/Pozo hopefully you can get an effective starting catcher and backup. If not Bloom will have to make some trades, but they should be set up for the future as long as they are smart.

8. They tried Herrera at catcher quite a bit but he was awful. Moving him to the outfield was the right move.

   And most of the list you mention was not the result of players being miscast, the likes of Carlson, O’Neill, and Bader were just not very good. None of them have thrived elsewhere, in fact Baders best years were with STL. Carlson has been one of the worst players in baseball since leaving, and O’Neill has struggled big time after a hot start to last year.

   It is incredibly common in MLB for players to be moved around the field to find a spot for them. And it has varying degrees of success. We even moved Pujols between outfield and third base before finding his permanent home at 1b 4 years into his career.

9. Contreras was the primary catcher for his first two seasons buddy. Other thoughts include: this is the same discussion we have here every single day.

10. Herrera has a .813 OPS across 3 ish MLB seasons (of course only partial seasons). But he played half of a year in 2024 with a 125 OPS+ and now in 2025 with a 146 OPS+. Those are way more consistent numbers than other hitters we’ve had in the org. Anything can happen, but it’s clear his bat is way more polished and consistent than Walker, Gorman, Carlson, etc.,

    Also, while Catcher is the more valuable position to have a bat, it also increases injury / durability issues down the line. Moving him to LF is a great move, considering by all accounts he’s a great athlete and LF isn’t a top defensive need. Matt Holliday, Chris Duncan and more have been LFers on successful teams and id say with practice and time, Herrera could be a better fielder than either of them.

    This team isn’t going “all in” next year, or maybe the year after. And the Catching depth you mentioned on the prospect side aren’t super far away from the Bigs.

    I get there is PTSD from moves and non-moves in our past with young players, but Herrera to OF isn’t one of them.

11. The Cardinals have no idea either.

12. Like half the guys you listed haven’t really thrived anywhere else. But I agree with your main points.

13. We have guys that are maybe a year away. Bernal and Jimmy crooks are two way catchers. Herrera was a converted third basemen so his catching wasn’t going to be elite. He was going to be a work in progress and with his leg injuries it means we might as well fill another need.

    Especially when you have crooks in AAA now, possibly ready for next season. He might be as good defensively as pages while being a left handed bat that can hit for power and average. So maybe a combo of Pozo and pages.

    Then you have Bernal who is in AA and pretty similar to crooks but he is a switch hitter and only 21 years old.

    Then you have rainiel Rodriguez who is crushing the ball at catcher but he’s only 18. Hard to project where he plays but it looks like catcher is a loaded spot for us.

    You can potentially move a catcher prospect and still have some real major league quality catchers.

    It feels like catcher is the least of our worries going forward

14. I agree with most points except that no other teams have lineup construction issues. A lot of teams do. The Padres are a notable example, trading for a catcher was a priority of theirs at the deadline.

15. You know what they say, “If you have four catchers, you really have none”.

16. What are we doing???? Period.

17. Because none are fully ready yet. Crooks is the closest but they don’t want to throw him to the wolves necessarily. Keep in mind that the pitching staff would have to get used to the catcher as well which is, typically, done in spring training.

18. We’ll also probably see a lot more freedom and see the youngsters play when we get September call ups and we can still technically keep them in rookie status for next year

19. Gorman will not thrive elsewhere any more than Carlson or DeJong have.

20. They definitely over cooked at catcher when Yadi left.

21. I think this is just another sign of why I’m frustrated with the FO. They don’t manage the signings and prospect pipeline correctly. Transitioning Herrera to OF this late is kind of bonkers. It is plugging guys into the wrong spots and not maximizing value. Mo has consistently been very bad at this.

22. WE NEED MORE CATCHERS!!! Every position player should be a catcher or former catcher.