The Cardinals placed catcher Iván Herrera on the 10-day injured list this morning. His stay will last well beyond the minimum. Manager Oli Marmol told the team’s beat that Herrera was diagnosed with a bone bruise in his left knee (link via MLB.com’s John Denton). He’ll be out for at least a month.
Herrera was out to a blistering start to the season, headlined by his three-homer performance last Wednesday against the Angels. That was remarkably the first three-homer game by a catcher in the franchise’s history, which goes back to the 1880s. The 24-year-old is hitting .381 with four longballs in 24 plate appearances overall. Herrera hit .301/.372/.428 over a career-high 72 games last season, so there’s reason to believe he could be one of the better offensive catchers in baseball.
Marmol confirmed that they’re not considering Willson Contreras as a backup option behind the plate. That was more or less established when St. Louis selected Yohel Pozo from Triple-A Memphis as the corresponding move for Herrera’s IL placement. St. Louis will stick to the plan of keeping Contreras as their everyday first baseman. Pozo will back up Pedro Pagés for the time being.
President of baseball operations John Mozeliak told Denton and other reporters that the front office will keep an eye on the catching market. That’d presumably be strictly at depth options, as they’ll want to keep Herrera’s path to regular playing time open once he’s healthy. Former fourth-round pick Jimmy Crooks is one of the organization’s more talented prospects as well. He’s getting his first real look at Triple-A pitching after a .321/.410/.498 showing last year in Double-A. The Cards didn’t want to rush him to the majors in response to the Herrera injury, but they could look for an experienced catcher to add organizational depth alongside Crooks in Memphis.