I covered some of this in a video I recorded earlier this week, and I’m sorry for the overlap. But this topic has entered my mind, and it’s staying there for a while. I must clear it out. And I’ll have a lot of analysis and information that wasn’t part of the video.
Topic: Cardinal catching.
1. Pedro Pages is better offensively than many (most?) of us realized. And that includes me. I should be fined for failure to pay attention. But I also believe it’s important for me to admit when I am wrong. I will fill in the details about his offense later in this catcher catalogue. To me, this is the leadoff item. The No. 1 takeaway. Among the 25 catchers that entered Wednesday with at least 60 plate appearances this season, here’s where you can locate Pages on the charts:
.250 average, 12th
.303 on-base pct, 15th
.433 slugging pct, 6th
.736 OPS, 9th
106 wRC+, 9th
That 106 means Pages is six percent above league average offensively. I also want to point out that he has the bulk of the homers (3) and RBIs (8) produced at the STL catching spot.
2. With Pages, there’s a larger body of evidence here. I know that he hit well down the stretch last season, so I went back and put together Pages’ offense over his last three-plus months of baseball.
Since the beginning of August of 2025, and including the early phase of this season, here’s where Pages ranks among the 21 MLB catchers that have at least 180 plate appearances over that time:
.281 average, 3rd
.326 on-base pct, 7th
.467 slugging pct, 6th
.793 OPS, 8th
.186 Isolated Power, 8th
120 wRC+, 8th
That 120 wRC+ translates to 20 percent above league average offensively. Since the start of last August, Pages has a better wRC+ than William Contreras, Will Smith, Yainer Diaz, J.T. Realmuto, Carson Kelly, Salvador Perez, Austin Wells and Bo Naylor … and others.
Pages’ .467 slugging since the start of last August puts him ahead of Dillon Dingler, Ryan Jeffers, Perez, Kelly, Contreras, Diaz, and Realmuto.
During this time frame Pages is above most of these names in batting average, OBP and OPS.
Pages: he can hit.
More than I realized.
And probably more than at least some of you realized as well.
2. Speaking on KMOX, here’s what Cardinals manager Oli Marmol had to say after I told him I’d underestimated Pages’ offense for too long. Which was true. I confess.
“A lot of people are not going to like your comment there, Bernie, because they're always chasing that next shiny toy. And being that we have a lot of catching prospects coming – that's a good thing for the organization, right?
“But what Petey has done is super positive for a lot of reasons, because he's providing value on the defensive side. If you talk to our pitchers, if you were to put a mic in front of all of our pitchers and allow them to give 30 seconds on Petey, you would understand in a heartbeat why he's back there as much as he is, okay?
“You set that aside, he's making improvements offensively, and he's going to continue to. He's working hard at it. It's getting better. There's more room there. But he has done a nice job, to your point, but it also allows you to not have to rush in bringing some of these guys up that need to continue to develop in certain areas and check certain boxes in AAA.
“I love where we're at when it comes to the combo of the guys that are up here in the catching position and what we have coming up. The competition is great, but to your point, Petey has provided a lot of value, and not only defensively, but he's making strides offensively as well.”
3. Some underlying metrics in Pages’ offensive performance offer a warning: there’s some likely regression up ahead. But I see no reason to look at that and dismiss his contributions offensively. I’m a strong metrics guy, and have been for many years. But sometimes I just like to see the on-base percentage, the slug, the OPS and the wRC+ and give a dude credit for what he’s actually doing in the numbers that actually count in the box scores. I understand the concept of what “may” or “probably” happen. But the stuff that actually does happen … what, it goes into the wastebasket? Nope, not with me.
4. Pages is, in fact, one of the best defensive catchers in the majors. He isn’t – as I have previously suggested – overrated. As I type this, Pages is in the 70th percentile for fielding run value, which means he’s better than 70 percent of all major-league defenders – no matter what position they play. Among catchers, his FRV is tied for 9th. The second credential: Pages’ caught stealing above average (CSAA) rating is in the 97th percentile. He’s better at throwing out stealers than 97 percent of big-league catchers. His blocking is below average. His framing is slightly above average. His “pop time” ranks 10th at the position.
If a catcher reaches the 97th or 98th percentile in the caught-stealing ratings, it means he’s pretty much at the top as the most effective catcher at neutralizing the running game.
FanGraphs lists Pages at No. 6 in the overall catcher defensive rankings. And when Pages catches, the Cardinals are 12-7. They’re around .500 with Ivan Herrera behind the plate but there’s some randomness cooked into that.
5. Throwing out attempted base stealers? Well, we know what’s up with that. Pages has an outstanding throw-out rate of 30.7 percent this season. Herrera hasn’t cut down any of the seven runners that have tested him on steal missions.
6. Herrera’s defense behind the plate isn’t good, so there’s no need to fib to anyone about that. But in the wider view of this picture, the learning-curve process isn’t causing much harm. Herrera’s high-impact offense offsets any defensive flaws, and there isn’t much debate about that.
Some perspective is healthy here. Through Tuesday, Herrera had caught only 96 innings this season compared to 158 for Pages.
For the record Herrera is in the 24th percentile for Fielding Run Value (poor) and in the 13th percentile for caught stealing above average. (Poor.) His framing and blocking metrics are significantly below average. Offensively, Herrera is way up high on the leader board – in the 88th percentile in Batting Run Value. His value with a bat in his hands is well established. And when he doesn’t catch, Herrera serves as the primary DH.
7. Do Herrera’s defensive problems bring down the Cardinals’ overall rating in the MLB catching evaluations? Yes. Of course. But it isn’t enough to matter in a significant way. The Pages-Herrera tandem is 13th among the 30 teams in the FanGraphs catcher-defense rankings. That’s still a net positive. And Cards catchers are tied for No. 2 at the position overall in fWAR.
8. This is what Herrera & Pages have done to elevate offense at the STL catcher spot so far in 2026: The position is collectively 1st among the MLB catching groups in on-base percentage (.374.), 9th in slugging (.448), 5th in OPS (.822).
Most of all is their 135 wRC+, which is 35 percent above league average offensively and ranks fourth among MLB catching committees.
9. Cardinals catchers also have a .333 OBP, .407 slug and .741 OPS and are 5% above average offensively when hitting with runners in scoring position. All other Cardinals’ positions have collectively performed 30% below league average offensively when stepping to the dish with RISP.
10. Jimmy Crooks, Jimmy Crooks, Jimmy Crooks. Given all of this information I’ve provided on the combined performance of Pages and Herrera at catcher (offense+defense), I’m absolutely perplexed that so many Cardinals fans and uninformed media types are metaphorically sounding the siren for Crooks to be promoted from Triple A Memphis.
I’m sorry, but what the hell is wrong with what the Cardinals are getting from their major-league catchers? And why do so many people continue to ignore Crooks’ major flaws with swing-and-miss and strikeouts? Crooks has strong power, yes. But he also has a 35.5 percent strikeout rate. And though Crooks is effective in the power department against fastballs – he still strikes out a lot on fastballs (37%).
And when Crooks is offered pitches other than fastballs this season – curves, sweepers, sliders, changeups – he’s 4 for 34 (.118) with a 47.5% strikeout rate … and a whiff-swing rate of 51%. And when Crooks has chased pitches out of the strike zone this season for Memphis, he’s 3 for 25 (.125) with 17 strikeouts.
And yet … some of the peoples out there would be happy if the Cardinals demoted Pages to Memphis and promoted Crooks to St. Louis even though he’d be overmatched by MLB pitchers who would exploit his inability to hit breaking and off-speed pitches.
Crooks wouldn’t play ahead of Pages in the majors right now – absolutely not. So that means Crooks would be glued to the bench most of the time, and I’d like to know how that would enhance his career development and solve his strikeout plague. And the Cardinals aren’t going to pull the plug on Herrera at catcher. And even if they did and made him a full-time DH, Crooks wouldn’t escape the bench. He’d still be sitting because Pages, if healthy, would still be starting five times a week.
This is bizarre. Pages is a top 10 hitter among MLB catchers since the start of last August, and he’s one of the finest defensive catchers in the game. But sure, let’s get that shiny new toy up here to “fix” a catching position that ranks second in MLB in fWAR, and is the fourth-best in the bigs at generating offense. That makes no sense.
Thanks for reading …
And please pardon my typos.
–Bernie
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015. Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach. Bernie has covered several Baseball Hall of Fame managers during his media career including Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and (as an interim) Red Schoendienst. In his career as a beatwriter and columnist, Bernie covered Pro Football Hall of Fame coaches Joe Gibbs, Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson and Dick Vermeil on a daily basis.
Bernie has covered and written about many great St. Louis sports team athletes including Albert Pujols, Kurt Warner, Brett Hull, Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, Jim Edmonds, Marshall Faulk, Scott Rolen, Mark McGwire, Orlando Pace, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Al MacInnis, Brian Sutter, Bernie Federko, Chris Pronger, Dan Dierdorf, Jackie Smith and Aeneas Williams. Bernie covered every baseball Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues, Saint Louis U, and Mizzou football and basketball. Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STL Sports Central, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows. And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.