When the Cardinals acquired Tai Peete as part of the Brendan Donovan trade in February, the hope was that they could unlock a special power-speed skill set in the tantelizing prospect.
In that sense, 2026 has been a major success for the Georgia prep star who went 30th overall in the 2023 Draft. Now the Cardinals' No. 17 prospect, he hit a career-best .296/.359/.549 while making it to Double-A.
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Sunday marked just the 14th Minor League playoff game since at least 2005 in which a player racked up at least five hits, and among that group, his nine total bases were second only to Cedric Mullins' 11 in 2019 with Double-A Bowie.
The 22-year-old jumped on hittable pitches he saw early -- particularly fastballs, which has historically been a strength of his. The lefty-hitting Peete peppered singles the other way, up the middle and to right in his first three trips to the plate before crushing a first-pitch low fastball off righty Wellinton Aracena (AZ No. 15) 440 feet at 113 mph into the parking lot beyond the right-center fence. He capped his day by pulling a ground-rule double over the right-field fence in the eighth.
Peete has had several memorable games in his first year in the Cardinals organization. He hit for the cycle in his 10th game of the season -- High-A Peoria's first since 2017 -- and then again on Aug. 1. The former Georgia Tech commit also logged three multihomer games in a 27-game span in the second half.
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Add it all up, and it's been perhaps the most impressive season of his career. Although neither his 13 homers nor 16 steals represent a career-high, he reached those totals in just 66 games because he missed two months with a concussion. His .908 OPS ranked fourth among Cardinals Minor Leaguers with at least 300 plate appearances.
Even below the top-line numbers, Peete has made improvements under the hood that suggest his breakout could be sustainable. Swing-and-miss was one of the biggest questions about his profile, and his increased his in-zone contact rate from 73 to 78 percent while trimming his strikeout rate from 30.6 percent to 26.9 percent.
Peete has at least one more playoff game with Springfield, which can clinch the best-of-3 series with a win Tuesday, but his season won't end with the Texas League playoffs. He'll be making up for lost time as the Cardinals' top hitting prospect in the Arizona Fall League, a hitter's haven that could be another platform for his dynamic tool set.