The Dodgers announced they’ve claimed first baseman Luken Baker off waivers from the Cardinals. According to the MLB.com transaction log, he’s been optioned to Triple-A Oklahoma City. Los Angeles designated reliever Jack Little for assignment to clear a 40-man roster spot. St. Louis had not previously announced that Baker was dropped from the 40-man roster but evidently tried to run him through waivers.
It’s a bit surprising that the Cards went that route. They had four open spots on the 40-man roster, so it’s not as if they were pressed for space. (Their count remains at 36 after they claimed lefty reliever Anthony Veneziano from Miami.) They nevertheless decided to move on from Baker, a 28-year-old first baseman who is in his fifth Triple-A season.
A former second-round pick out of TCU, Baker ranked toward the back of the Cards’ top 30 prospects for a few seasons on the strength of his raw power. He has connected on 136 home runs in his minor league career, 96 of which have come at the Triple-A level. Baker owns a .249/.344/.507 batting line in more than 1600 Triple-A plate appearances. He’s down to a meager .196/.309/.397 slash in 65 games this year, so the Cards determined he wasn’t getting another MLB opportunity. Baker has had sporadic big league appearances, hitting .206 with four homers in just under 200 plate appearances between 2023-25.
Before this claim, the Dodgers did not have a single healthy position player who was on optional assignment. Baker at least provides a healthy bat whom they can call upon if necessary without making a future 40-man roster transaction. He’s in his last minor league option year.
Little, 27, is a 6’4″ righty who made his big league debut last month. He has had two very brief stints on the MLB roster, combining to toss three innings of two-run ball. The Stanford product owns a 4.64 ERA with slightly worse than average strikeout (21.1%) and walk (10.3%) rates across 36 appearances with OKC. Little had gotten out to a strong start to the Triple-A campaign, but he has surrendered 17 earned runs in 19 innings dating back to the beginning of June. The Dodgers will put him on waivers this week.
Why was Baker waived? The Cardinals have plenty of spots on the 40 man roster, after making trades last week. If they kept him all along,, including when they needed a roster spot, why let him go now?
Blaze is better and they have a number of guys they have to add to the 40 man in the coming months. Makes plenty of sense
and those are great reasons to let him go, either earlier in the season when they needed a roster spot or at the end of the season, when they need to add those players to the MLB roster. I’m just surprised that they released him now,
It was time to move on. He can’t field. He can’t hit major league pitching. It seems he even lost the ability to hit AAA pitching this year.
Why?
It’s an American tragedy I tell you.
This makes zero sense for the cards. Guy can rake. He’s had a tough year at triple A but I expect him to bounce back. Those no trade clauses for Contreras and gray are not great.
It absolutely makes sense; there is nowhere for him to play, even at AAA!
The Cardinals don’t want to trade Contreras or Gray anyway while they try to compete next year.
They never seemed to want give Luken a chance. The big dude can hit. Makes no sense that he was given no chance to play and we get regularly shut down by lefties. Did ok as a bench bat early in the season.
“Did ok as a bench bat early in the season.”
Went 8 for 35 (.235) with zero dingers in all of 2025 in majors. Did manage 3 doubles.
Small sample size much? Said he did ok, not tore up the league. Easy there.
Same sample size for all of us. All I did was copy the stats. I made no editorial comment.
Small sample size, yes, but clearly NOT an OK performance.
Still no idea why Marmol would hit him third.
Unfortunately, the Cardinals have had too many 1B/DH types blocking him who were clearly outperforming him at the Major League level between Contreras, Burleson, currently Herrera, and previously Goldschmidt.
How did he make it to the Dodgers?
He walked across the field from one dugout to the other, picked up a ticket to Oklahoma City and poof…
because he is 28 and has shown he cannot adjust at the plate against Righties.
Never made it back to his 2023 AAA performance level. He is bench fodder check on his power – this is what LAD will do then cut him next week if they see what he has been last few years recently lost power and cannot hit for average
one trick pony can bat solely against lefties…
Little plunked Tatis.
Did his job.