The Cardinals and catcher Yohel Pozo are in the final stages of agreeing to a new deal for the 2026 season, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Pozo was non-tendered by St. Louis on Friday. It’ll presumably be a minor league deal between the two parties.
Pozo, 28, logged 67 games with the Cardinals in 2025 and tallied 188 plate appearances — both career-high marks at the MLB level. He hit just .231/.262/.375 in that time, however — well shy of league-average (even relative to other catchers, where offense is lighter than that of the average position). Pozo delivered a handful of clutch pinch-hits, endearing himself to many in the Cardinals fanbase. He’s now a .248/.278/.376 hitter with six home runs in 245 MLB plate appearances.
Pozo hit well with the Cardinals’ top minor league affiliate in Memphis, albeit in a sample of just five games. He’s a career .321/.343/.525 hitter in Triple-A, with a significant portion of his time spent in an extraordinarily hitter-friendly Las Vegas setting (with the Athletics’ Triple-A club). Pozo draws decent grades for his framing and has regularly posted strong caught-stealing rates in the minor leagues.
While Pozo isn’t going to jump to the top of the depth chart anytime soon, he’ll give the Cards some additional depth along with Jimmy Crooks, Ivan Herrera and Pedro Pages. Pozo has a full slate of minor league options, so if the Cards do add him to the 40-man roster, he can be shuttled freely between St. Louis and Memphis without first needing to be exposed to waivers.
I wonder if he’s related to all-time Red Sox Great Arquimedez Pozo?
According to Baseball Reference the answer is no.
Wasn’t he living out of his car 2 years ago? Dude really turned his Baseball career around if he’s who I’m thinking of.
Yeah but that was to pay for his sick kid.
It was due to covid, he wasn’t “working”
Yes, it was just about a year ago. And he also had a new baby at that time.
He’s still got a long way to go to be able to successfully throw out runners, but a lot of people in the STL are definitely pulling for him 👍👍
Making it to the Bigs just shows how much grit Pozo has. Hard to make it to the show, but even harder to stay in the show.
It was during covid
It was during covid when they weren’t paying MiLBers
The Rangers got it taken care of after they found out.
Hot Stove heating up!!!!!!!!! 🔥 that will probably about do it for cardinals offseason
interesting to see he gets some positive defensive praise. i thought the reports had been his defense mostly stunk, hence sitting in AAA for quite awhile across orgs. if they’re serviceable though, could be a guy that has a long MLB career as a backup given he can hit decently well for the role
Some Cards fans are a little too high on him. Though he was hitting nearly .300 through late July, which coincides with when many Cardinals fans started checking out of the season lol
It’s Bozo the Clown’s cousin Pozo the Clown.