Cardinals Catcher Iván Herrera Is a Prime Break Out Candidate for 2025

After the 2022 season, the St. Louis Cardinals found themselves having to ask a question they hadn’t needed to consider answering for the better part of two decades. Who was their starting catcher going to be?

For a long time up until then, the previous answer was Yadier Molina. The ten-time All-Star, nine-time Gold Glover, two-time World Series champion, and possible future Hall of Famer had finally played the last game of his career.

At first, it looked like the Cardinals came up with a quick solution to their problem. That offseason, they signed one of the top slugging catchers of the previous seven seasons in free agent Willson Contreras.

At the plate, Contreras has been exactly what the team hoped for. In his two years with St. Louis, he has slashed .263/.367/.468 with 44 doubles and 35 homers in 209 games, representing an offensive upgrade over his predecessor.

Behind the plate, it was a much different story. With Contreras providing negative values over two years in both defensive runs saved and Baseball Savant’s framing metrics, it didn’t take long before the Cardinals started considering whether to move him to a different position.

For a brief time, they floated the idea of working Contreras into the outfield, but that didn’t come to fruition. In 2025, though, the position switch will officially be happening, as the veteran is being asked to shift over to first base.

That means the focus behind the plate will instead shift to the two homegrown youngsters who backed up Contreras last year: Iván Herrera and Pedro Pages. The former was an international free agent signed during the summer of 2016, while the latter was a sixth-round pick in 2019.

While Pages made his MLB debut last year, Herrera debuted two years prior. A former top-five prospect of St. Louis, he had two small cups of coffee in 2022 and 2023 before performing in a bigger capacity in 2024.

Similarly to last year, both players should get a good amount of playing time for the Cardinals in 2025. Both catchers are talented, but one truly has the chance to break out for the team in the upcoming campaign.

Iván Herrera Is Ready To Break Out as the Cardinals’ Primary Catcher

Herrera being the Cardinals’ potential catcher of the future has long been the expectation. MLB Pipeline had him rated as not only the team’s top catching prospect but the No. 4 prospect in the system overall to end the 2020, 2021, and 2022 seasons.

A quick ascent through the team’s minor league system helped move him up prospect lists. After moving to affiliated ball full-time for the first time in 2019, Herrera was already up to Triple-A just two seasons later.

Herrera excelled at nearly every level in which he played on his way to the majors, and the numbers back it up. The backstop slashed .280/.392/.434 in his 440-game minor league career with 82 doubles, 49 homers, and 272 RBIs. He kept his strikeout rate respectable along the way at 19.8%.

After two very limited sample sizes in his first two seasons in the majors, Herrera got a more ample one last year. It turned out to be yet another good offensive season for the now 24-year-old, as he slashed .301/.372/.428 with 12 doubles and five homers in 72 games.

Similar to Contreras, Herrera does have some room for improvement on defense. While he finished at an even zero in framing runs and did well with three blocks above average, FanGraphs had him at a -7 DRS for the season. He was also by far the worst of the Cardinals’ catching trio at catching base stealers with just a 7% success rate.

Pages, meanwhile, was better in most defensive metrics but was much less of a threat at the plate with a .238/.231/.376 slash line in 68 games. He also struck out more often at 26.6% compared to Herrera’s 20.5%.

If the Cardinals need one of those types of players more in 2025, it is definitely the better bat. Their 4.15 runs per game last year was ninth lowest in MLB and also the team’s lowest such mark since 2015.

Herrera has the tools to take that extra step to break out into one of the better offensive catchers in baseball. If he can improve a bit behind the plate as well, he could eventually be one of the better catchers period.