As we prepare to head into a transitional season for the St. Louis Cardinals, one of the bigger projects will be to determine if Ivan Herrera can become the team\u2019s regular catcher. The question is if you have confidence that Ivan can make the changes needed after his time behind the plate last season was less than inspiring and do the Cardinals really need him to be a catcher long-term?<\/p>\n
In 2025, Ivan Herrera caught a grand total of only 14 games<\/a>. We know that he battled elbow issues that limited him resulting in his move to DH where he appeared in 89 games<\/a>. At the Winter Warmup, Ivan was very positive about how his elbow feels now. He also elaborated on how his elbow was a key factor into his efforts as a catcher. \u201cYeah, I mean\u2026I basically couldn\u2019t straighten my elbow\u201d. The surgery has created one issue he\u2019s never had to deal with before and that\u2019s the fact that he hasn\u2019t been able to do his typical off-season workout.<\/p>\n There\u2019s more to Ivan and his development as a catcher than just his elbow issues. President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom has said that he believes that Herrera was \u201cnot set up for success\u201d.MLB.com<\/a> quoted manager Oli Marmol as saying \u201c\u201cThere\u2019s a real curriculum that\u2019s been put together for him to follow and build upon,\u201d Marmol said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very hands-on approach\u201d that will be led by catching coordinator Ethan Goforth that will work with Ivan and help him develop the workflow he needs. Herrera said that he and Goforth have been meeting every week of the off-season going over his defensive approach as he\u2019s just now been able to start ramping up his physical activities.<\/p>\n I will admit that I initially balked at the idea of the Cardinals trying to give Ivan another shot at being the team\u2019s catcher especially after the dumpster fire of the Willson Contreras catching situation<\/a>. The Cardinals wanted Contreras to be the regular catcher for the same reason they want Herrera behind the plate. They want\/need that bat in the lineup and the team is much better if their catcher is also a positive offensive contributor. My knee-jerk reaction is don\u2019t try to turn a player who isn\u2019t a natural catcher into one, but I\u2019m now completely on board for several reasons with only one big picture reservation.<\/p>\n As was mentioned by Jake Wood a few days ago<\/a>, the St. Louis Cardinals really benefit if Ivan Herrera is the catcher. I\u2019ve also had to adjust my thinking from approaching the season as an expected contender to understanding the St. Louis Cardinals have really shifted to an emphasis on development. I would never want to enter a season with a question mark at the catcher position if the St. Louis Cardinals were a serious playoff contender. That being said, the team really has nothing to lose with Ivan Herrera being given a shot and turning his development as a catcher around. We have Pedro Pag\u00e9s<\/a>, Jimmy Crooks<\/a> and Yohel Pozo<\/a> to fall back on if this new attempt at making Herrera a reasonable defensive catcher falls short.<\/p>\n The only question that remains in my mind is if we really need Ivan Herrera as catcher with top prospects Leonardo Bernal and Rainiel Rodriguez<\/a> waiting in the wings<\/a>? If either or both players are ready for the majors either sometime in 2026 or 2027, wouldn\u2019t Herrera be a block to their progression? I understand you can never have too many great catchers as any one of them would be prime trade candidates. What do you think? Do the St. Louis Cardinals need Ivan Herrera to be a catcher or are we about to create a problem we don\u2019t currently have?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As we prepare to head into a transitional season for the St. Louis Cardinals, one of the bigger…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2403],"tags":[5,160,4,673,67,65076,4311,4310],"class_list":{"0":"post-548371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-cardinals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cardinals","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-st-louis","12":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","13":"tag-st-louis-cardinals-analysis","14":"tag-stlouis","15":"tag-stlouiscardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115992534923627534","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}