Leonardo Bernal, the No. 6-ranked prospect in the Cardinals' loaded Minor League system, is hitting .380 with seven doubles and six home runs over his last 19 games with Triple-A Memphis. Could a promotion be coming to a Cards club that has gotten little offense out of its catching corps?
When Jimmy Crooks opened the Triple-A season by mashing 13 homers and four doubles and posting an OPS of .979 over his first 39 games, the Cardinals felt obligated to reward the catching prospect’s success at Memphis with a big-league promotion.
With that in mind, what should the club do with 22-year-old catcher Leo Bernal, who had another four-hit night on Tuesday and has capped a solid first season at Triple-A with a flurry of success of late?
Bernal, the No. 6-ranked prospect in the Cardinals’ Minor League system, has shown the promise the Cards felt he had when they originally signed him as an international free agent out of Panama in 2021 for $680,000. In 83 games with Memphis, Bernal has slashed .289/.373/.497/.870 with 18 doubles, two triples, 14 homers and 66 RBI. Bernal has struck out at a 22.4 percent clip, but he’s also walked 13.6 percent of the time, and he’s even stolen seven bases.
Bernal’s best baseball has come of late as he’s hit .380 with seven doubles, six home runs and 26 RBI in his last 19 games for Memphis.
Cards not getting much out of catching corps
Bernal’s torrid stretch comes at a time when the Cardinals’ offense has struggled to score runs and they have gotten little production from their catching corps of Pedro Pages, Ivan Herrera and Crooks. For the season, Cardinals’ catchers rank 28th in MLB in RBI (35), 21st in homers (10), 19th in batting average (.228) and 18th in OPS (.669).
After rallying back to a 13-7 win over the Yankees on Monday night, the Cardinals mustered little offense at all in a 2-0 loss to New York on Tuesday. It was the 16th time in the past 27 games that the Cards have generated three or fewer runs of offense.
Crooks, 25, hit a long home run in Monday’s stirring eighth inning rally past the Yankees, but he has struggled with far too much swing and miss since his promotion to St. Louis. In 37 games, Crooks has hit just .174 with a .592 OPS with four homers, three doubles and 11 RBI. In addition to an alarming 33.3 percent strikeout rate, Crooks has not thrown out a base stealer in nine tries this season or in 15 tries in his 52 MLB games dating back to 2025.
Pages, who was replaced by Crooks as the Cardinals sought more offense from the catching position, is the club’s best option at controlling the running game, but he offers little punch at the plate. Pages has thrown out 14 of 41 base stealers this season and his 34 percent success rate is much better than the MLB average of 29 percent. However, he has hit just .206 with a .574 OPS, four homers and 11 RBI in 64 games.
Herrera, the centerpiece of the offense during the surprising early months of the season, has seen his struggles at the plate coincide with the Cardinals’ dropoff offensively. Herrera, an All-Star for the first time in his career, seemed to wear down physically and get too pull happy in June (.218, three homers), July (.222, two homers) and so far in August (2 for 15, .133, zero homers). Also, there’s this: While Herrea doesn’t have a throwing error or a passed ball in 42 games behind the plate this season, he is 0 for 24 in throwing out runners in 2026 after going 0 for 10 in 2025. The last time he threw out a base stealer was when the Cardinals were last at Yankee Stadium – and superstar Juan Soto was still a Yankee – in 2024.
As for Bernal, he has a wRC+ of 141 and a .948 OPS over his last 60 games at the plate and he’s also thrown out 31.4 percent of base stealers this season at Triple-A. That comes a year after he won the Double-A Gold Glove award and helped Springfield to a Texas League crown. If Bernal is promoted in the coming days or weeks, the Cardinals would need to keep his active roster service time to fewer than 45 days and 130 at bats to preserve his rookie status for 2027.
