Are Cardinals looking at first base to relieve logjam behind the plate?
Some of the things that happen at spring training are just things that happen to make the schedule tick by and make the pieces fit in short bursts.
Some of the things that happen are useful hints of the way a roster might unfold.
Yohel Pozo casually taking ground balls with a first baseman’s mitt appeared to be the former but now looks more like the latter, and the result is a clue toward how the St. Louis Cardinals are considering resolving their catching conundrum.
Assuming health, there will be three catchers — or something like three catchers — on the team’s opening day roster.
Pedro Pagés is the reliable backbone and more or less the starter, likely headed for a third consecutive season of leading the team in appearances behind the plate. Iván Herrera, recovering from elbow surgery, has caught bullpens and run through drills but still appears to be a distance away from game action behind the plate. If he is healthy enough to hit, then his bat will be in the lineup.
With Leo Bernal yet to reach Triple-A, that leaves a decision between Pozo and Jimmy Crooks for the last spot among the catchers, and the decision is not a simple one.
For a team preaching opportunity for young players, finding spots for Crooks is important. The difficulty is in determining whether there are enough of those spots available in the big leagues for a third catcher and occasional lefty bat on a team replete with lefty bats. If not, perhaps the solution is Memphis, but it’s hard to imagine either Bernal or Crooks being able to thrive in such a strict timeshare.
Having depth behind the plate is one thing. Utilizing it in a way to maximize each player’s output is a great deal more complicated.
“I think when you look at the catching side of things, there’s a lot of progress being made there,” manager Oli Marmol said of Crooks. “There’s a better understanding of his time in the big leagues, what he struggled with, what he did well with offensively, in some of the mechanical and approach adjustments that need to take place there.
“And then from a communication standpoint, with [pitching coach] Dusty [Blake] and his staff, that’s an ongoing thing with any young player, is getting them to the point where they’re comfortable enough truly expressing themselves and not just saying OK.”
One of baseball’s conventional roster-building pearls of wisdom is that a lefty-hitting catcher, as Crooks is, will always be able to find a spot on any team. The Cardinals, though, feature a heavy dose of left-handed bats that’s left them seeking righty supplements.
Until they signed Ramón Urías to a free-agent deal over the weekend, Pozo was the closest thing to a backup righty first baseman on the roster, acting as a supplement to Alec Burleson. And even Urías, while known to be a standout defender, has only 18 appearances at first in the big leagues.
If Burleson is able to start 130 or so games at first base as designed, then the need for a backup there is perhaps somewhat overblown. Pozo, though, is a valued clubhouse presence, as demonstrated by his being voted by his teammates to receive last season’s Darryl Kile Award, denoting his abilities as a leader, teammate and father.
In a clubhouse that’s bound to be young and likely to suffer through some lean competitive months, there’s something to relying on such a presence.
Of course, that description of Pozo implies the opposite of Crooks, which couldn’t be further from the truth. He has an open and engaging personality and has been praised by both coaches and pitchers alike for the ferocity and conviction he brings to his game-planning work.
Despite going just 6-for-45 with a homer, a triple and 17 strikeouts in his big league cameo last season, it’s exceedingly difficult to see many more hurdles he needs to clear in the minors before getting a real shot in the majors.
“Those are all the right variables,” Marmol confirmed when asked about Herrera’s recovery and Pozo’s abilities at first. There’s no definite formula that makes the right answer obvious, but one will be applied all the same.
The possibility of a roadblock between Bernal and Crooks at Memphis is real, and there is not yet a good solution that has made itself apparent.
Asked if there was room for both to grow, Marmol shook off the question: “Is there a way for both of them to take strides forward if they don’t make the big leagues? What if I said no?”
It’s an unanswerable question because there are no good answers, and because the obvious answer is “yes, but.”
Having a glut of talent at a position as valuable as catcher is typically an exciting value proposition, but the Cardinals are in a competitive spot where they’re acquiring talent, not shedding it. Eventually hard decisions will have to be made among that group, and any of the non-Pagés contingent could find themselves shifted to another position or another organization as a result (Bernal perhaps least of the four).
Some questions are bound not to be answered on a given day because some answers don’t exist until time flies off the calendar. Pushed again about the potential backlog in the minors, Marmol assumed a familiar pose and facial expression, one that unmistakably implies “I’m not going there today.”
Some of the problems get solved somewhere else.