Cardinals To Promote Joshua Báez

The Cardinals are going to promote outfield prospect Joshua Báez. Manager Oli Marmol tells reporters, including Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, that Báez will be in tomorrow’s lineup. Mike Rodriguez of Rompiendo Sports had the scoop earlier today. Báez is already on the 40-man roster so only a corresponding active roster move will be required. Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat notes that infielder César Prieto‘s locker was being cleared out after today’s game, so he is probably being optioned as that move.

Báez, 23, was the club’s second-round pick in 2021. Since then, he has continued to add more and more power but with lingering concerns about his strikeouts. From 2021 to 2024, he made 896 plate appearances across various minor league levels, striking out in 34.4% of those while hitting 24 home runs.

He showed big improvement last year. Splitting his time between High-A and Double-A, he hit 20 home runs in 499 plate appearances while only getting punched out at a 20.6% clip. That was enough for the Cards to give him a 40-man spot in November, to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. This year, he has taken the power to new levels but the strikeouts have ticked back up. In 461 trips to the plate, he has already launched 34 homers but has also gone down on strikes at a 29.5% pace.

Despite the concerns, Báez is still considered a top 100 prospect by some. Baseball America currently lists him #56 overall and MLB Pipeline has him at #59. Kiley McDaniel of ESPN had Báez #93 coming into the season. Some are less optimistic, however. Keith Law of The Athletic didn’t have Báez top 100 before the season and recently provided an updated top 70 with no Báez on it. FanGraphs currently lists him sixth in the Cardinals’ system and outside the Top 100.

As expected, reports focus a lot on his work at the plate, but other facets of his game are also notable. He’s considered a capable corner outfielder with a strong arm. His baserunning is also an asset, as he stole 54 bases last year and is at 21 so far this year.

The timing of the promotion is surely not a coincidence. As MLBTR covered earlier today, several prospects will likely be called up in the coming days as it’s now possible to call a player up and keep his rookie status going into next year. A player exhausts rookie status once he has 45 days of service time or 130 at-bats or 50 innings pitched. It’s now late enough in the season that Báez can’t hit the 45-day threshold. As long as the Cards keep him under 130 at-bats, he will still be a rookie going into 2027.

That could be a notable distinction when considering the Prospect Promotion Incentive. Players are PPI eligible if they begin a season on two of the three top 100 lists at Baseball America, MLB Pipeline and ESPN. If such a player is promoted early enough in a season to earn a full year of service time, he can earn his respective club an extra draft pick based on awards voting.

The Cards are also mostly focused on the future, despite being only 3.5 games out of a playoff spot. They just traded Dustin May, JoJo Romero and Lars Nootbaar at the deadline, getting prospects in return. Though they are not totally buried in the standings, they can use their remaining games to get a look at Báez and see how he fares against big league pitching. He will jump into an outfield mix with Jordan Walker, Nathan Church, Everson Pereira, José Fermín and Bryan Torres.