The St. Louis Cardinals are collecting catchers. A year ago, Willson Contreras and Ivan Herrera handled backstop duties for the club. These days, Contreras plays first base and Herrera often handles DH chores, if not cutting his teeth in left field. Pedro Pagés has been the Cardinals’ primary catcher, backed up by Yohel Pozo. Meanwhile on the farm, climbing their way toward Triple-A Memphis are Rainiel Rodriguez (the franchise’s fifth-ranked prospect) and Leonardo Bernal (fourth).
But if you’ve been a regular at AutoZone Park in 2025, you know Jimmy Crooks has been the man behind the plate for the Redbirds. The 2024 Texas League MVP with Double-A Springfield, Crooks has transitioned to Triple-A baseball rather seamlessly, posting a .274 batting average with 14 home runs and 79 RBIs, all figures near the top of the Memphis roster. The home run total is the most for a catcher in 27 years of Redbirds baseball. Last Friday, Crooks was rewarded with a promotion to St. Louis, where he made his major-league debut in Cincinnati. (He homered in a Cardinals loss on Sunday.)
Crooks bats from the left side, distinctive on its own for a catcher, and with his hands closer to the pitcher than you see in a typical batting stance. (It’s a timing mechanism Crooks adopted last winter to generate more power.) And he seems to have mastered the one element most critical to staying in the lineup and ultimately earning his big-league promotion: consistency. “That’s the name of the game,” he says. “Stick with your routine. There have been some hills and valleys for sure, but you gotta keep your head straight. That’s what I’ve learned this year: have a good mindset when things aren’t going well.” Crooks’ current numbers read like a natural progression from his award-winning 2024 season: .321 batting average, 11 home runs, and 62 RBIs in 90 games.
Particularly as a catcher, Crooks recognizes the mental challenge baseball brings, whether he’s holding a bat or suited up in the “tools of ignorance.” “It’s a game of failure,” he says. “You gotta keep your feet above the ground. Look back on the good times, but keep grinding. Pitching is different up here; they’re just a call from the big leagues. You need to keep the same approach, drive the ball up the middle, and be on time. If you’re on time for the [fastball], you’ll be on time for anything else.”
Crooks has thrown out close to 30 percent of base thieves this season, a rate that should please the parent club. “I started catching when I was 10 years old,” he says. “The new, one-leg-down approach is helping most catchers’ bodies. And it helps you steal strikes on the bottom half of the zone. I have a pretty good arm, but the key for me is to be accurate and trust my arm. I need to be calm and throw to the [infielder’s] glove.”
Like every catcher before him, Crooks enjoys the entire field in front of him, literally every pitch requiring both action and decision-making from a position that is, technically, outside the field of play. “You’re the leader,” he emphasized, “directing traffic when you need to. Catching’s like a video game. You have the pitch-com , so you know what’s coming, and I’m ready for it.”
How might Crooks separate himself from the Cardinals’ crowded catching club? “Just trust in my abilities,” he says. “Be happy where I am, and when I get the call, I get the call.” Crooks won’t shy from the bright lights, having starred at Oklahoma and helped the Sooners reach the 2022 College World Series (where they lost the championship to Ole Miss). While he’s competing with the likes of Pagés and Pozo for a prize job, he also credits them for helping him learn a challenging craft on his way up. “Having a good group has been fun,” he says. “We talk a lot, and when it’s go time, it’s go time.”
Having grown up in North Texas, Crooks cheered for the Rangers as a young player. But he confesses that his favorite player was Yadier Molina, the iconic Cardinals catcher who retired in 2022, the year St. Louis drafted Crooks. Should he continue to mash baseballs and control opponents’ running games, Crooks may soon command the hallowed patch of land at Busch Stadium Molina called his own for 19 years.
