Joshua Baez flashing his super-high ceiling with Cardinals bodes well for the future

Joshua Baez is set to miss the rest of the 2026 season, but St. Louis Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol saw enough of Baez's "super-high ceiling" to get him excited about his future.

It's hard not to agree!

Baez's debut was truly historic, and after scuffling at the plate for a bit following that, he found his footing once again and was mashing once again. There was a whole lot of good, some bad, and some ugly in his game this year, but it's that upside that has the Cardinals dreaming about the future.

Joshua Baez's ceiling could lift the Cardinals future even higher

Let's start with the "super-high ceiling".

Baez's .280 ISO (1st) and .510 slugging percentage (4th) were top-five among rookies with at least 100 plate appearances this season, and if you compare them to all players in baseball, Baez is fourth in ISO and 23rd in slugging percentage. The power is so, so real.

Baez has some of the best bat speed (77.5 MPH) in all of baseball, and his average exit velocity, Barrel%, Hard-Hit%, and xSLG were all remarkable numbers. There's very little question about the quality of contact in Baez's game; it's more of a matter of consistently making that contact.

108 plate appearances is not a huge sample size, but Baez's 30.6 K% is actually not terrible considering how bad it could have been. Facing big-league pitching now, a guy with real whiff concerns at the minor league levels is not going to just magically fix those early in his big league career. Baez will likely always struggle with that, but the more he can cut down on strikeouts, and more importantly, make contact consistently, the better the odds are that his power will translate into real damage at the plate on a regular basis.

The floor that Baez must be careful of was certainly on display as well. That 30.6 K% was the 10th-worst among rookies with 100 plate appearances, and he had the fourth-lowest walk rate (3.7%) of those rookies as well. He strikes out a lot and doesn't draw walks, which is not a recommended profile, to say the least.

Along with having a really high chase% (39.6%, league average is just 28.6%), Baez makes contact in the zone well below the Major League average (Baez is making contact in the zone just 74.6% of the time, while the league average is 82.7%). If he's going to see his power translate to results consistently, he has to be able to make contact on pitches in the zone at a better rate.

His defense also needs improvement. While his arm is top-notch and his speed is good, his instincts and fundamentals are still a work in progress. In his small sample size, Baez posted a -3 outs above average, and while his arm strength is excellent, his arm value graded out at exactly 0.

And yet, Baez still managed to post a .788 OPS, 112 wRC+, and 0.2 fWAR in those 29 games. The upside shines through even when the weaknesses are flashing lights, and it'll be up to Baez and his work with the player development staff to get him closer to his ceiling consistently as he develops.

Jordan Walker is an example of how that evolution can turn into stardom, while Nolan Gorman is the cautionary tale of a young player who found success early with major power but major holes in his swing, and it eventually just turned into power that was seldom used.

Baez has already shown the ability to overcome major adversity in his career, so I have little doubt he'll at least be a good big league player, and the ceiling is some of the highest in all of the sport.

For a team that already has Walker, Alec Burleson, Ivan Herrera, JJ Wetherholt, and Leo Bernal in its lineup, Baez doesn't have to be the savior or even the focal point, but man, he could be the powerhouse that sends the lineup into overdrive. And with Rainiel Rodriguez, Jesus Baez, and more coming, the future is oh so bright in St. Louis.

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