{"id":578769,"date":"2026-02-18T05:58:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T05:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/578769\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T05:58:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T05:58:16","slug":"st-louis-cardinals-ivan-herrera-experimenting-with-interesting-positional-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/578769\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Louis Cardinals’ Ivan Herrera Experimenting with Interesting Positional Switch?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though the St. Louis Cardinals<\/a> have spent most of the offseason subtracting from their major league roster, they have been looking consistently for outfield additions.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals were reportedly interested in veteran Austin Hays before he signed with the Chicago White Sox, and we recently heard that the team was exploring the idea of moving a current infielder into the outfield.<\/p>\n

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Well, apparently, they could also be moving a catcher into the outfield, at least on an experimental basis.<\/p>\n

As noted by Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat, Ivan Herrera was spotted working on outfield drills at spring training on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

As the big league catchers work through pop time drills and throws to second base on the half field, Iv\u00e1n Herrera is with the outfielders working through footwork, agility, ball tracking.<\/p>\n

Herrera, who is a catcher by trade, only caught in 14 games last season. He served as the designated hitter in 89. He also played four games in the outfield, the only four of his major league career.<\/p>\n

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He has still worked at catcher this spring.<\/p>\n

\"Ivan<\/p>\n

Ivan Herrera as a catcher in spring training. Reinhold Matay-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

A 25-year-old from Panama, Herrera made his major league debut in 2022. Since then, he’s hit .286 with a .370 on-base percentage, also popping 24 career home runs. Nineteen of those came in 2025, along with 66 RBIs. It was by far his most productive big-league season, as 2022 and 2023 represented brief cameos in the big leagues.<\/p>\n

He carried an OPS+ of 136 and will likely be the best offensive option for the organization in the wake of this offseasons rebuild. The team has traded Willson Contreras, Nolan Arenado and Brendan Donovan, leaving younger players like Herrera, Nolan Gorman, Masyn Winn and JJ Wetherholt as current or future centerpieces.<\/p>\n

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Herrera had been scheduled to represent Panama at the upcoming World Baseball Classic, but it appears he won’t be able to because of insurance issues related to an offseason elbow procedure.<\/p>\n

–Cardinals’ reliever Riley O’Brien is dealing with a calf issue<\/a> which could impact his WBC plans as well. He’s supposed to play for Korea, likely serving as a key part of the bullpen.<\/p>\n

–Left-hander Matthew Liberatore will\u00a0earn the start<\/a>\u00a0on Saturday when the Cardinals open up Grapefruit League play with a contest against the Washington Nationals. Liberatore has said he aspires to be the team’s Opening Day starter.<\/p>\n

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–The Cardinals have been looking for additional outfield help this offseason, but might they try an infielder in that spot? It looks like\u00a0it’s a possibility<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Remember to join our CARDINALS on ROUNDTABLE community, which is FREE! You can post your own thoughts, in text or video form, and you can engage with our Roundtable staff, as well as other CARDINALS fans. If prompted to download the Roundtable APP, that’s free too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though the St. Louis Cardinals have spent most of the offseason subtracting from their major league roster, they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2403],"tags":[124,5,4492,160,49,6012,50162,1600,14976,1553,1453,4,1028,1893,75881,151,673,67,4311,4310,71,409],"class_list":{"0":"post-578769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-cardinals","8":"tag-austin-hays","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-brendan-donovan","11":"tag-cardinals","12":"tag-chicago-white-sox","13":"tag-ivan-herrera","14":"tag-jeff-jones","15":"tag-major-league","16":"tag-major-league-roster","17":"tag-masyn-winn","18":"tag-matthew-liberatore","19":"tag-mlb","20":"tag-nolan-arenado","21":"tag-nolan-gorman","22":"tag-outfield-drills","23":"tag-spring-training","24":"tag-st-louis","25":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","26":"tag-stlouis","27":"tag-stlouiscardinals","28":"tag-washington-nationals","29":"tag-willson-contreras"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116090104843604305","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578769","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=578769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}