Here's why Herrera-Pagés catching rotation is working for Cards

ST. LOUIS -- Before last Saturday's game against the Royals, in the midst of Tarps Off madness, another interesting conversation blossomed inside Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol’s office.

Does it make sense to shift the current nature of the Cardinals’ catcher rotation?

To this point, it’s been pretty straightforward. Iván Herrera, working to more firmly establish himself at the position, has been tasked with the backstop role on days that Michael McGreevy and Andre Pallante pitch. Pedro Pagés has handled the club’s other three starters behind the plate.

Given the Cardinals’ early success, it's been hard to doubt the blueprint. But while Herrera has raked as one of the club's most important bats, Pagés’ numbers have lagged, at times -- though a two-hit outing in Thursday’s 6-2 loss to the Pirates at Busch Stadium should be acknowledged.

Still, the idea: Herrera could catch more, allowing a DH to occupy Pagés’ spot in the lineup.

In pushing back against the premise, Marmol leaned on an anachronism to make his point.

“Yeah, but I think you're also minimizing the other dude's ability to put fingers down,” Marmol said.

In the era of PitchCom and ABS challenges, there’s a growing notion from outside observers that minimizes the impact of a bona fide field general behind the dish.

The Cardinals simply don’t see it that way, and they believe their adherence to a catcher rotation that was developed back in Spring Training has paid early dividends.

“I've been trying to figure out how to word this better for people to understand the value in the way we have set up the three and two,” Marmol said. “The consistency of, ‘You have these three guys. You have these two guys.’ There's a lot that goes into that from stacking outings on top of each other, from a growth standpoint of understanding what went well the previous outing. … There's a ton of prep that goes into that.

“The consistency right now, I, with confidence, can say, is allowing our [starting] rotation to do what it’s doing.”

What Pagés provides doesn’t always gain him notoriety. It lies in the nuance, but the Cardinals see it.

“It presents itself more often than you may think,” Marmol said.

Marmol highlights Pagés’ preparation, which the manager feels has grown over his time working with pitching coach Dusty Blake, turning Pagés into a key resource for the pitching staff.

“It’s to the point now where he comes in with his own notes, right? And not just relying on Dusty’s notes for a gameplan,” Marmol said. “Then, they can chop it up prior to the pitchers sitting in and going through: ‘How are we going to attack the day?’”

The prep gets put into play through Pagés’ institutional knowledge -- knowing the pitchers as well as they know themselves, Marmol notes -- weighing the strengths of his guy against the tendencies of the opposition.

The frequency with which those factors coalesce is woven so directly into the fabric of the game that it’s hard to encompass it all.

“There’s just so many little intricate details throughout the course of competition, of an at-bat, that having that type of game awareness is, it’s important,” Marmol said.

Even considering Pagés’ strengths defensively, if catching were the only avenue for getting Herrera’s potent bat in the lineup, Marmol conceded the conversation would change.

After his two stints on the IL with lower-body issues last season, isolating Herrera’s catching duties has kept him available to provide impact at the plate. He clubbed his sixth home run of the year Thursday serving as the designated hitter.

The Cardinals’ mentality on the catcher role also gets to the crux of why the clamoring for Jimmy Crooks isn’t necessarily aligned with the near-term blueprint.

Crooks’ strides at the plate are impossible to ignore. The Cardinals’ No. 7 prospect, per MLB Pipeline, has a 1.028 OPS and 13 home runs with Triple-A Memphis. Some might see those numbers and wonder what he has left to prove.

Others could point to an elevated strikeout rate as cause for hesitation. If you’re making a move to add thump to the lineup, you have to be confident the bat would translate, right?

But I’m not convinced that’s the inflection point. Hearing Marmol outline the club’s priorities, it’s clear that Crooks’ bat alone won’t create catching opportunities in St. Louis.

So, can Crooks be Pagés defensively while representing an upgrade in the batter’s box? While I can’t reject the supposition, the team’s stance is evident: That’s a higher bar to clear than most outsiders seem to realize, and the notion of a catcher shakeup in St. Louis won’t be driven by a gaudy Triple-A batting line.

There’s too much at stake to the integral function of the Cardinals to press that button haphazardly, so the catcher rotation looks likely to march forward into the upcoming road trip and beyond.