8:15PM: As noted by Denton, Goold, and several others on Twitter, prospect Luken Baker isn’t playing for Triple-A Louisville tonight, and could be on his way to the majors as Berrera’s replacement on both the 40-man and active roster. A second-round pick for the Cards in the 2018 draft, the 26-year-old Baker has broken out with a huge season at Triple-A, hitting .313/.434/.641 with 18 homers over 244 PA. Since Baker is a first base-only player, Paul Goldschmidt is blocking him from his natural position in St. Louis, so Baker would serve as a DH (probably against left-handed pitching, since Baker swings from the right side).
7:40PM: The Cardinals have placed catcher Tres Barrera on waivers, as the catcher himself told reporters (including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Derrick Goold and MLB.com’s John Denton). According to Goold, the Cards will be replacing Barrera on the active roster with another position player.
Barrera signed a minor league deal with St. Louis during the offseason, and his contact was selected in early May when the Cardinals made the decision to temporarily limit Willson Contreras to DH duty. When Contreras was returned to the catcher role just over a week later, it basically ended any chance Barrera had of significant playing time, since Andrew Knizner had already won the backup job out of Spring Training. All in all, Barrera appeared in six games with the Cardinals as a late-game sub, only receiving two plate appearances.
The 28-year-old Barrera has now appeared in parts of four MLB seasons since 2019, though with only 57 games and 164 PA on his big league resume. A longtime member of the Nationals’ farm system, Barrera’s previous Major League experience came in limited action in Washington, and the Nats outrighted him off their 40-man roster after last season. Given the lack of catching depth around baseball, it seems likely that some team will take a look at Barrera on another minor league contract.
Luken Baker era begins. Next Paul Goldschmidt
Cardinals been snakebitten…
That trade killed the entire 1960s dynasty, well most of the surviving members…
Got scientist clamoring about changing the name of pyrite to goldschmidt, nothing against the man.. it’s just John mozeliak thought he could get away with pulling the wool down over the eyes…
Best milb player right now, excited to see what he does. Surprised he’s not on a cardinals top prospects list.
He was top 10 in the organization last year but disappeared off lists after a bad year. Cardinals have a lot more success with prospects that aren’t highly rated vs their top prospects. So maybe it needed to be this way for Baker to become something in the majors.
More probably the next Luke Voit.
Contreras was the catcher, then wasn’t, now is again.
How did such a high quality franchise fall apart so quickly? I think Marmol needs to go, and likely some front office personnel too.
It’s about time they finished cleaning up the mess they made unnecessarily. He’s been dead weight taking up a roster spot since they called him up.
Could see the Red Sox signing him since Alfraro was granted his release.
Can he pitch?
Memphis is St Louis’ Triple-A team, not Louisville.
To that end, to learn that Baker was not playing for Louisville tells us very little.
Louisville is Cincinnati’s AAA team and as much as they have been talking about the Reds youth movement with their prospects, I don’t see how the writers didn’t catch this much earlier.
Seems like a small mistake, but there are a lot of these in MLBTR. Really doesnt give you much confidence in the team that runs it. They need to do better.
Not sure if you’ve noticed the media landscape over literally the last three decades but there’s not currently a whole lot of extra money for editors, nor is there a whole lot of time for revision on the writer’s part. Maybe stop being so entitled?
I understand this is a free site, but I don’t see how expecting accuracy is being entitled.
Chiding them for inaccuracy =\= expecting accuracy
And honestly who gives af about them mixing up Louisville and Memphis. 90% of people reading this article know what was meant.
You don’t sound anything like Ray Lankford. He was a major proponent of both written accuracy and entitlement.
A day or so before the Arenado trade was finalized, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic wrote that Luken Baker was likely one of the 5 players the Cardinals would trade to the Rockies.
Another entry in the logbook, detailing the Summer of Stupid.
Luken Baker headed to Pittsburgh now, look out for Goldie trade coming too!! If they lose Sunday Oli will be gone too. Alot of things coming!!!
Goldie trade? That’s hilarious.
Jeff Passan reported the other day that he actually expects Goldy to be traded. I’d be very surprised, but who knows.
I don’t see the Cardinals trading an MVP caliber player with a very reasonable contract. Luken Baker does not replace Goldie in the lineup. Arenado would probably want a trade if St Louis trades Goldie. Goldschmidt also has a full no trade clause.
Passan is just spitballing for attention.
Passan did not report that he “expects Goldy to be traded.” He said he could see it as a possibility if the Cardinals continue to play so poorly.
I find it extremely unlikely since they will want to compete in 2024.
Typical Pageclick Passan.
Tres will always be the 3rd catcher.
How much will a Tres Barrera baseball card be worth at a flea market 10 years from now?
More than yours or my nonexistent cards. He made the majors, which is incredibly difficult.
6-4 280. How’s his glove?
Ideal for a DH.
So what’s this going to do besides take Dh at bats from Gorman?
Gorman is playing second while Edman and Donovan are playing in the outfield. He also plays third when Arenado is given a rest.
Neat. Marmol finally gets to use his three sided coin to determine who will DH every day between Yepez, Burleson and Baker. Can’t wait to see a the game using Burleson, Mercado, Baker, Kizner and Yepez all in the same starting lineup. It’s going to happen.
Baker come off the bench as power threat prob start rarely with gorman taking dh spot gotta think if he does well at mlb level cards will be unloading some outfielders for some arms at deadline looking at oneil, yepez maybe Burleson
Holy run-on sentence. There’s more periods in your handle than your entire train of thought.
Barrera is expendable with Herrera’s development in AAA this season. Nothing to see here, just basic roster cleaning.
Montgomery was quoted in tonight’s article on the official site, saying “it’s still super early”. Flaherty routinely talks about the Cardinals being so much better than their record shows. Over 1/3 of the season has has been played. It’s not “still super early”, and it’s beyond time
for the players to, at least more consistently, play up to expectation. The only reason they’re still somewhat comfortable at all is because of their division. The players need to stop thinking and talking about how good they are until the win column provides proof to support their inflated opinions.
I’d rather the players have a positive attitude about the future than say, “We suck, the season’s over, we’re done.”
I didn’t say anything about them beating themselves and each other down about their performance so far, but how many times should they say the same ole cliches after a loss, just to show a false sense of optimism to their bosses and fans? At some point, it’s time to just shut up and handle their portion of the responsibility much more consistently. I didn’t say anything about them “sucking”. What I see is the perennial plague of underperformance, so I’m not nearly as surprised as the players are.
Yet, amid all of this tragedy, bad luck, and underperforming, I somehow still believe the Cardinals will win the NL Central this year.
And I will win the Presidency
you’re hilarious, vaderzim
A man with dementia currently holds the position. Anything is possible so don’t give up on yourself too quickly.
Congratulations, Mr. President.
I suppose some team needs to win the NLC. Might not take much more than 81 wins this season.
Cardinals have a history being an 83 win team that won a World Series. I don’t feel strongly about the Cubs and Brewers, I don’t think the Pirates are ready. It’s crazy that Cincinnati actually has a shot this year, but I still feel like the Cards are the best bet, despite how terrible they have been.
If you are going to write about the Cardiinals, you should know where the AAA affiliate has been since 1998.