The Cardinals Can’t Keep Their Next Great Catcher Down Much Longer
Down in Triple-A for the Cardinals, Jimmy Crooks is looking like the team's catcher of the future. He can't stay in the minor leagues for much longer.
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The 2026 season was supposed to be one full of patience for the St. Louis Cardinals fan base. Now, sitting at 15-13 entering April 28th, and 3.0 games back of the Cincinnati Reds in an incredibly competitive National League Central, the Red Birds are showing us all that they may actually be reloading rather than rebuilding.
Next step: promote their catcher of the future.
The Cardinals drafted Jimmy Crooks in the 4th round of the 2022 MLB draft. Since then, in five Minor League seasons, the left-handed backstop has a career .284/.370/.464 line with 48 home runs, 238 RBIs, and a wRC+ that has not dipped below 105.
The start to the 2026 season for Crooks has gone according to plan for all of those who believed in the backstop. In 20 games, Crooks is hitting .270 with a 1.008 OPS, 159 wRC+, and a walk rate that is nearing 16%. A call-up to the big leagues, however, would not be the debut for the 24-year-old.
In 2025, he got his first taste of The Show towards the end of the year. Although he struggled mightily in his 15 games with the big club, largely due to the 37% strikeout rate (and 0% walk rate), there was still a lot of hope that he would be able to implement and correct during the offseason to come into this season showing that was just a tiny blip in his career.
Jimmy Crooks Prospect Profile
Entering this season, Crooks had just cracked Just Baseball’s Top-100 Prospect List coming in at number 99.
When it came to his prospect profile, the hitting side was always one where proper adjustments would need to be made if he was going to develop into an MLB-caliber catcher. Due to his exaggerated leg kick that causes a lot of moving parts in his swing mechanics, there have always been worries that he would be fooled by big league secondaries once he got his opportunity.
Well, if last year’s sample size was any indication, those concerns were right.
Now, if a pitcher decided they wanted to be brave and throw him a fastball, he was going to make sure to punish them for doing so.
Per FanGraphs, Crooks has a wFA (Fastballs Runs Above Average) score of 3.8, which is, by far, the highest rate against any pitch type that he has faced so far in 2026. Compare it to the 0.9 against sliders, 0.9 against curveballs, and the full -1.0 off changeups, and you can see what scouts are talking about when they refer back to his struggles against secondaries.
This isn’t to say that Crooks is just an absolute zero against off-speed pitches, as seen below…
If a pitcher tries to squeeze a breaking ball off him to keep him off balance and lets it hang, Crooks is not going to have any issues absolutely punishing the baseball.
That, as a result, has kept his overall contact rate in his Minor League career on the lower side of what is considered the Major League average. As it stands, solely against off-speed pitches, Crooks is only slugging .368 on the season. Just looking back at last season, he had a 57% contact rate against non-fastballs.
Now, you look at these stats and question whether he is actually capable of being the catcher of the future for the Cardinals, and it is fair. However, Crooks has taken 2026 more as a “prove-it” type of season and has begun to correct the weaknesses of the past.
Improved Approach
His overall approach at the plate is what gives him the success that I have been astounded by. With an overall swing percentage sitting at just 44.4% so far this season, his selective approach is what has allowed him to punish opposing pitching since game one.
Crooks has an “ambush” approach that brings him to where we are now. Remember when I mentioned the fact that Crooks was near a 16% walk rate? Well, this is where the 15.6% comes from.
Then, when it comes to what he provides on the defensive side of the plate, his value goes unmatched. Every aspect of his defense has been graded as an above-average tool.
Cardinal fans, despite entering this year with little to no expectations for the 2026 season, have had it up to their wits’ end with Pedro Pagés. Despite the fact that he has played admirably for the Red Birds during the 2026 season, his play style is seemingly very vanilla. Ivan Herrera was once called upon to be the catcher of the future, but his defensive lapses have locked him into the designated hitter’s role.
Despite the injury concern, Cardinals fans were quick to cast aside the worries for a potential injury to Pages when he was removed from the game against the Mariners and quickly began calling for the promotion of Crooks.
Per everyone’s favorite red and blue sliders benchmark on Baseball Savant, there is ZERO red across any of the batting metrics on Pagés‘ page. None of which rank at the 50th percentile aside from the 58th percentile bat speed, which, with all due respect, really doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. Especially when it just amounts to quicker whiffs at the plate.
If you’d like to see how Crooks compares alongside Pagés, see below…
At the end of the day, it seems as if the quickest way for Crooks to be called upon to take the starting catcher responsibilities for the Cardinals, it would have to come at the expense of an injury or trade of Pagés.
Closing Thoughts
I, for one, believe that the promotion of Crooks needs to be talked about even more than it already is. The Cardinals have a roster currently consisting of such young, vibrant talent that does nothing but build optimism for a bright future.
While what Pagés does for the team is valuable in the grand scheme of things, when you’re taking part in a season where all you want is pure excitement, and building upon optimism for the core of the future. Players like Crooks need to be allowed to show the front office that he is a part of their future.
For everything that Jimmy Crooks has the potential of providing any given team at the big league level, the Cardinals need to be willing to allow him to showcase his talents. Give him the runway now to work through whatever he has to work through next to be their backstop of the future.
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Written by
Cristian has been at Just Baseball since 2021, when he first started writing about prospects. He spent eight years working in Major League Baseball with the…