{"id":528150,"date":"2026-03-11T02:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T02:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/528150\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T02:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T02:40:09","slug":"cardinals-notes-nootbaar-baez-catcher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/528150\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals Notes: Nootbaar, Baez, Catcher"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lars Nootbaar<\/a> still hasn\u2019t played this spring as he works back from heel surgeries. Jeff Jones of The Belleville News-Democrat<\/a> noted yesterday that the left fielder is trending towards beginning the season on the injured list. There\u2019s no clear timetable for his season debut.<\/p>\n

An injured list stint has been a possibility since the Cardinals announced that Nootbaar had surgery to address Haglund\u2019s deformities on both heels in early October. The health uncertainty seemingly took the outfielder off the trade block over the winter. Nootbaar was loosely tied to the Rangers, Mets and Pirates at points throughout the offseason. There was too much uncertainty in his health outlook for the Cardinals to net a strong enough return to move him.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals have two years of arbitration control over Nootbaar. The lefty hitter posted above-average offensive numbers over his first three and a half MLB seasons. He had a career-worst .234\/.325\/.361 showing across 583 plate appearances last year. Nootbaar is making $5.35MM this season and seems likely to be available at the deadline as long as he\u2019s healthy.<\/p>\n

Nootbaar\u2019s injury leaves the Opening Day left field job available. The Cardinals were in the market for a right-handed hitting outfielder late in the offseason but didn\u2019t come away with any MLB additions. They signed\u00a0Nelson Vel\u00e1zquez<\/a> to a minor league deal. He\u2019s mashing at a .333\/.440\/.524 clip with four walks and two strikeouts in 25 plate appearances this spring. They\u2019re also getting utility infielders\u00a0Thomas Saggese<\/a> and\u00a0Jos\u00e9 Ferm\u00edn<\/a> outfield work in camp. One of those players could split time with lefty-hitting\u00a0Nathan Church<\/a> as a stopgap left field platoon.<\/p>\n

One idea not under consideration: carrying highly-regarded outfield prospect\u00a0Joshua B\u00e1ez<\/a> on the Opening Day roster. The Cardinals optioned the 22-year-old to Triple-A Memphis yesterday. B\u00e1ez had an excellent camp, slugging three homers while going 7-21 in 10 games. B\u00e1ez has no Triple-A experience, though, so it\u2019s hardly a surprise that he\u2019ll begin the season in the minors.<\/p>\n

A former second-round pick, B\u00e1ez floundered early in his minor league career. He firmly put himself back on the prospect radar last season. B\u00e1ez combined for a .287\/.384\/.500 slash with 20 homers between High-A and Double-A. Even more impressively, he cut his strikeout rate to a league average 21.4% clip after fanning in more than 34% of his plate appearances in his first three professional seasons. He\u2019ll look to follow up his impressive Spring Training by maintaining that improved contact rate in his first look at Triple-A pitching.<\/p>\n

St. Louis also optioned catching prospects\u00a0Jimmy Crooks<\/a> and\u00a0Leonardo Bernal<\/a> over the weekend. That leaves\u00a0Ivan Herrera<\/a>,\u00a0Pedro Pages<\/a> and\u00a0Yohel Pozo<\/a> as the three catchers on the 40-man roster who remain in camp. Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch<\/a> writes that the team intends to carry all three on the Opening Day roster. Pages will be the primary option behind the dish, while Pozo will work in a traditional backup role. Herrera will continue seeing more time as a designated hitter than at catcher, though the Cardinals aren\u2019t moving him off the position entirely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lars Nootbaar still hasn\u2019t played this spring as he works back from heel surgeries. Jeff Jones of The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,39958,207484,34597,462,82],"class_list":["post-528150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ivan-herrera","tag-joshua-baez","tag-lars-nootbaar","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}