Cardinals announce surprise position change for All-Star catcher

After a tumultuous first two seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals, Yadier Molina's heir apparent Willson Contreras will no longer catch in 2025. After being moved off the catcher position to exclusively DH just weeks into his Cardinals' career for not meeting the organization's defensive expectations, the All-Star catcher will now take over for Paul Goldschmidt at first base, according to Jesse Rogers. The GM meetings have just begun, and Cardinals fans should get more clarity about the direction of their team this offseason.

If it wasn't clear already, this should mean that Paul Goldschmidt will have to seek opportunities from a different team. But, for the Cardinals, it means their offensive production at first base won't be diminished in 2025 even after losing Goldy, assuming they do keep Contreras around for 2025. It'll certainly be interesting to see how Contreras plays at first base defensively, especially since Goldschmidt was a 4-time Gold Glover.

As for Contreras's future with the Cardinals, it probably means that he won't be moved this offseason to a contending team, as he certainly has more trade value as a catcher. John Mozeliak confirmed to media that Contreras desires to remain with the Cardinals and has a full no-trade clause.

He suffered two major injuries this season while catching, though, so while his positioning won't be as valuable, he will hopefully have more availability going forward, something else highlighted by Mozeliak. His bat should more than suffice as a first baseman, as he was having a career year offensively before being shelved on the IL. In just 84 games, Contreras slashed .262/.380/.468 with a 136 OPS+, by far the best of his career.

Contreras' bat is well worth the $18 million per year that the Cardinals are paying him on his contract, so anyone who is bashing the move right now and making fun of the Cardinals seems to not understand the value Contreras has offensively. The way St. Louis has handled Contreras' catching duties has been frustrating, but his full-time move to first base is not something worth critiquing them for.

This should also open up much more playing time for the future catching tandem of Ivan Herrera and Pedro Pages. Herrera always seemed to have more potential than merely a backup catcher, but Contreras was clearly blocking a very capable young bat from drawing everyday starts. While Pages took over most of the playing time in 2024 due to his superior defense, Herrera deserves regular reps and is sure to get them moving forward.

While unconfirmed, this seems to point to two key parts of the Cardinals' future plans. Ivan Herrera will be the everyday catcher moving forward, and they intend to keep Willson Contreras in the organization for their eventual "reset" process. What will happen with the supposed first base platoon of Luken Baker and Alec Burleson remains to be seen, but they could both get regular playing time at DH. Stay tuned to the site, as we are sure to find out over the coming weeks.