Cardinals One of Six MLB Franchises with Three Prospects on Minor League All-Star Teams

Despite Wednesday’s disappointing results in Wednesday night’s Texas League championship series, the awards continue to roll in for St. Louis Cardinals prospects Rainiel Rodriguez, Sandro Santana and Jesús Báez.

Rodriguez and Santana were named to the first-team Minor League All-Star squad, while Báez was named to the third team, by Baseball America. Rodriguez is the top prospect in the Cardinals Minor League system and Minor League Baseball’s top catching prospect, while the Cards acquired Santana from the Dbacks in the July trade centered around Lars Nootbaar. Báez, who was acquired in the 2025 trade with the Mets for Ryan Helsley, hit 39 homers in the regular season with High-A Peoria and Double-A Springfield and added two more in the postseason.

Rodriguez and Báez were key pieces on a Springfield squad that won the Texas League’s North Division and reached the Texas League championship series where it fell 6-4 in Wednesday’s deciding Game 3. Santana also pitched for Springfield following the trade from the Dbacks to the Cardinals, but he was promoted to Triple-A Memphis late in the season. Memphis beat Rochester 15-4 on Wednesday to force a deciding Game 3 tonight for the International League title.   

The Cardinals are one of just four MLB franchises with two prospects on Baseball American’s first team All-Star squad and they are one of just six MLB franchises with three MiLB All-Stars.

Largely because of the work that president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom has done in restocking the Minor League system with young talent, the Cardinals ranked No. 2 in Baseball America’s final rankings of MLB team’s farm systems.

Rodriguez, 19, slashed .324/.413/.574/.987 with 30 doubles, 27 homers, 87 RBI and 11 stolen bases in 115 games split between High-A Peoria (28 games) and Double-A Springfield (87 games). Rodriguez, a 5-foot-10, 197-pounder, led Springfield to a Double-A-best second-half record of 47-22, a 2-0 sweep of Tulsa (Dodgers) in the North Division playoff series and a spot opposite Amarillo (Dbacks) in the Texas League championship series. He crushed a two-run homer in Wednesday’s third inning to give the Cardinals an early lead in the deciding Game 3.

The second youngest position player in Double-A, Rodriguez hit .328 with 22 doubles, 23 homers and 66 RBI with Springfield after being promoted from High-A Peoria on May 12. He became just fourth teenager to hit at least 23 homers at Double-A joining Delmon Young (26 in 2005) and current MLB superstars Bryce Harper (23 in 2012) and Juan Soto (24 in 2018). Also, he is just the fourth teenager with a wRC+ of at least 150 at Double-A over the past 20 years, joining Vladimir Guerrero, Mike Trout and Justin Upton.

Báez, 21, hit 39 home runs and drove in 109 runs in 113 games over his full Minor League season. What he did in 59 games with Double-A Springfield was downright jaw-dropping: He hit 25 homers and drove in 68 runs. He mashed two more homers in the playoffs – the second one of them being a walk-off winner in Game 1 of the north division playoff series against Tulsa.

Báez, the No. 15-ranked prospect in the Cardinals system, was acquired by the Cardinals from the Mets in the 2025 trade centered around former All-Star closer Ryan Helsley heading to New York. The shortstop/third baseman signed with the Mets as an international free agent out of the Dominican Republic for $275,000 in January of 2022 when he was still 17 years old.

This season, Báez homered in four straight games (May 17, 19, 20, 22 and July 23, 24, 25, 28) and he had three other three-game homer streaks. He smashed three homers and drove in five runs against Arkansas on Aug. 23 in a four-hit afternoon.

Santana, 21, put together a strong 2026 at High-A, two Double-A stops and with Triple-A Memphis. In 46 games, he’s gone 5-2 with a 1.97 ERA with nine holds and six saves in nine opportunities. He also posted an eye-popping 101 strikeouts in 64 innings pitched. In eight games with Springfield, foes hit just .074 against him and he limited the opposition to .036 hitting in seven games with Triple-A Memphis. Featuring a frisbee-like slider, Santana allowed lefties to hit just ,106 this past season.