Jimmy Crooks has terrible timing. In more ways than one. In most organizations, he would be in a pretty great spot right now. Sure, he’s struggled pretty mightily in his second try at the major leagues. But he’s a catcher and considered a good defender at that. Teams will wait multiple years for your bat to show up. You will get every opportunity to prove you’re a starting caliber catcher and you probably have a nice backup role if your bat never comes around.
Jimmy Crooks is not in most organizations. He has the misfortune of being sandwiched between two established MLB catchers and two great prospects below him. One of them is unquestionably a better prospect than him and the other is debatable but at worst, they seem like they are equal prospects. And the latter will be MLB ready fairly soon and is also on the 40 man. He is unfortunately in more of a “you got to perform” situation than most comparable prospects to him this quickly into their MLB career.
Basically, he has poor timing for a very simple reason: if you swapped Pedro Pages and Jimmy Crooks timelines, I’m not sure Pages ever gets a real shot with the Cardinals. Pages has great timing, and to his credit, he has capitalized on it. After a poor rookie season, he has been worth 2.2 fWAR in 548 PAs the past two seasons. Not a star, but a really good bridge catcher honestly while you wait for the higher potential guys to be ready. Assuming Crooks does in fact get 218 PAs like Pages got in his rookie season, will he get more chances if he’s not performing? Tough to say.
So the Jimmy Crooks conversation requires some nuance. Because I am very vocal in being a Pedro Pages defender, because I believe in his glove. I have also been vocal – at least I think – that assuming Crooks is worst case scenario Pedro Pages with a better bat was…. not a good assumption. (Especially in 2026) It ignores how difficult the transition from AAA to the majors is. And most importantly, I was absolutely not assuming Crooks was Pages’ equal defensively for the same exact reason I don’t assume Nathan Church is as good defensively as Victor Scott: when the bar is set that high, I need actual proof. (I still don’t think Church is as good defensively as Scott, but obviously his bat is way better)
Actually, in this specific case, it has more to do with catcher defense in general more than Pages setting some unreasonably high bar. Make no mistake: the average fan is underrating Pages defensively. But my skepticism about Crooks has more to do with how insanely difficult it is to grade catcher defense. Unless they are egregiously bad at it, you basically can’t tell how good a catcher is at framing from the eye test. You can’t tell how good they are with the staff at all.
What you can see is how good they are at throwing out runners and blocking. And blocking might be the lowest impact part of catching of all the things you can grade a catcher for. It doesn’t feel like it is, but consider: Pedro Pages doesn’t seem great at blocking right? That has cost him a grand total of….zero runs. Yeah he has been a neutral blocker. Neither a positive or negative. Part of it is we probably underrate how many balls do actually get by an average catcher, but also… one extra base here and there just isn’t moving the needle much.
Willson Contreras was a good blocker and also good at throwing out runners and also bad enough at defense that he needed to move to a different position. Like the two things we can actually notice as fans, Contreras was good at, but he was bad at literally every other part of being a catcher. Scouting defense at catcher is impossible for the average fan and very difficult for a pro scout.
Back to Crooks, I am not actually worried about his defense. I don’t know how good it will be, but we’re dealing with a small sample size. Also, I think in the same way a rookie will struggle to adjust to MLB pitching, there’s probably a learning curve for catcher defense too. I’ve been comparing Crooks to Pages this whole article and I’ll do it again: Pages did not rate as a good defender in his rookie season. There’s an adjustment period.
Am I worried about his bat? Yes and no. No, because he does have a .314 xwOBA so he should be getting better results than he has so far. And even if he was deserving of them, again it should not be surprising that a hitter who struck out nearly a third of the time in Memphis is having trouble making contact at the MLB level. I was certainly not expecting Crooks to be good right away. Not every hitter struggles for the first time in the majors, it just so happened Crooks was the exact kind of hitter who usually does tend to struggle. Nothing that has happened has altered my view of Crooks.
But I am worried about his bat a little bit, unrelated to his MLB struggles, because I kind of think his power in Memphis was completely fake. It happened of course. So it was “real.” But I don’t think we can trust those numbers whatsoever. And it is entirely due to one stat: HR/FB%. Most of you know what that is, but I’ll explain for those who don’t. When a hitter hits a flyball, it becomes a homer a certain percentage of the time. That’s what the stat is describing.
HR/FB% is clearly a skill, but it’s a skill in the same way BABIP is: you can have a very high BABIP and maybe that’s a skill you have, but it usually isn’t. Sometimes you’re Matt Holliday… and sometimes you’re Alec Bohm (.334 BABIP in his first three seasons…. a lot worse since).
In 2025, there were 19 qualified hitters with a 20 HR/FB% or higher. With the exception of Christian Yelich, all of them had .200 ISO. And besides Mike Trout, all of them hit at least 29 homers and Trout hit 26 while only playing in 130 games. Basically, you’re an elite power hitter if you manage a 20 HR/FB%. The low 30s is about as high as you will get and that’s Aaron Judge territory.
Jimmy Crooks was at 44.4% in Memphis. His previous career high? 17.3%. To be fair, that was in 2025, so at least that wasn’t a few years ago, but yeah I don’t think he’s a true talent 20 HR/FB%. If he hit homers at an 18 HR/FB%, he would have five homers on the season. Which is solid pop for a catcher, but I really would not expect him to be a 20 HR guy.
So I’m not “worried” about Crooks necessarily, I just don’t really see the upside others do in his offense, because I do not believe in his power. And his current profile of high strikeouts and an average amount of walks doesn’t really translate to a good hitter without power. One only really needs to look at his projection to see what the successful version of this looks like: 6.9 BB%, 28.1 K%, .124 ISO, 83 wRC+. If his defense is as good as advertised, that’s a solid player, though not tremendously different than Pedro Pages. But yeah if you were wondering at the projection, it’s because it sees the insanely high HR/FB% with no history to back it up.
Competing against Crooks are an interesting duo. Ivan Herrera should probably move off catcher. They gave him a legitimate shot, he’s still a valuable player with his poor defense, but it doesn’t really make any sense with what’s behind him. None of the four catchers below him have any defensive questions. Only Rodriguez might come close to him with the bat, but Rodriguez is a short stocky, slow guy. Too slow for outfield, too small for first base. Maybe you try Herrera in the outfield, maybe you just stick him at DH, maybe you trade Burly and move Herrera to 1B. Maybe you trade Herrera. It just feels like catcher should not be in his future.
Then there’s Pages who is also a bit weird. For those who want to trade him, in theory I absolutely agree. But it doesn’t seem like he would have actual trade value. And he’s a little bit too valuable to give away for nothing. He’s certainly a much better third catcher than Yohel Pozo at the least. Nonetheless, he makes for a bit of an awkward fit being probably the only dude with no actual potential. As long as Herrera stays at catcher, Pages is staying as the third catcher. And Pages is a perfectly acceptable backup if they only have two catchers, but then of course other catchers come knocking.
As far as what’s coming, I think Leo Bernal only adds to the confusion. I do not mean this in a derogatory way, but Bernal is very much a Dylan Carlson prospect. I mean in the sense of being a prospect because of being consistently average at a very young age for the level he’s playing at. This profile works so much better at catcher than outfield so believe me, this is not a criticism. Nonetheless, kind of hard to gauge what his real potential is due to this. Sometimes, their young age means they will keep advancing and they have way more potential than their numbers say and sometimes… they are Nomar Mazara and never actually take that next step.
And then of course there’s Rodriguez, whose bat certainly seems can’t miss right now. It doesn’t matter how good anyone is above him, he’s kicking them to the side whenever he’s ready. He’s what’s giving everyone else a ticking clock, and he’s to some extent forcing a decision maybe not at the deadline but you would think in the offseason at the least.
And in the middle of all this stands Crooks. Both Bernal and Rodriguez might be ready in 2027. That should give him the rest of this year at the least. Someone has to get traded out of this group and because of poor timing, I kind of struggle to see it not being Crooks right now. But who knows? Maybe they’ll go after a top of the rotation starter, and maybe Bernal returns that or maybe they trade Herrera instead for that. Who knows? Lot of directions this could go. I’m fascinated to see it play out.
