Albert Pujols is turning his latest baseball role into a Cardinals reunion tour.
After being inducted into the Cardinals Hall of Fame in St. Louis this month, Pujols is now lining up familiar faces for Estrellas Orientales in the Dominican Winter League. The club, which named him president of baseball operations in April, recently announced that Cardinals catcher Leo Bernal will play for them this winter.
Bernal won’t be the only Cardinals connection in the mix. Cesar Prieto and Hancel Rincon are also expected to join the team, while Angel Ovalles - a Latin American cross-checker for the Cardinals - is already in place as the club’s general manager.
For Bernal, the assignment comes with a real development payoff. He’s coming off his first taste of big league action, and entering play Friday he was hitting .282/.322/.459 with four home runs, seven total extra-base hits and 18 RBI in 90 plate appearances.
The Cardinals clearly believe he can grow into their primary catcher, handling something closer to 70% of the workload instead of living in a timeshare or platoon. More reps this winter could help him build toward that role, as long as the workload is managed carefully and he avoids any physical issues in 2027.
Prieto’s winter run will be worth watching for a different reason. He hasn’t produced at the big league level for St. Louis yet, with a -57 wRC+ in 41 plate appearances, but he did hit well at Triple-A in 2026 with a 120 wRC+.
Rincon, who was recalled to St. Louis this weekend to work out of the bullpen, is another Cardinals arm who stands to benefit from the extra innings.
He put together a solid minor league season with a 3.83 ERA in 47 games, but he entered play Friday having allowed seven runs in just 1.1 major league innings. He was also at the center of the Doug Eddings umpire controversy earlier this month.
The whole setup shows how quickly Pujols is using his Cardinals ties to shape his winter league roster. He has made no secret of wanting a big league managing job, and while Oli Marmol remains in charge in St.
Louis, Pujols could be in line for his first opportunity soon - maybe even this offseason. For now, he’s moving from winter league and World Baseball Classic managing duties to running baseball operations this winter.
In Other News...
Oli Marmol Revisited The Early Goldschmidt Lesson That Changed Him
Long before the Cardinals were sorting through the present-day details of their roster, Oliver Marmol was already learning a lesson that would shape the way he handled players. In a private conversation, Paul Goldschmidt told Marmol that some of the younger guys felt intimidated by the managers demanding style, a blunt message that landed hard enough to stick with him. Marmol recently revisited that exchange as a turning point, one that forced him to think differently about how he connected with the clubs youngest players.
The memory appears to trace back to a 2023 road trip, though the exact timing and some of the names around the conversation are a little hazy now. Even so, the takeaway is clear for a manager whose edge was never in question: the challenge was not just getting players to meet a standard, but making sure they could hear it without feeling shut out. For the Cardinals, that kind of evolution matters because it says as much about the tone in the room as it does about the results on the field. [Read more 🡒]
Cardinals May Have An Expensive Answer To Their Third Base Problem
The Cardinals have taken care of a couple of major offseason chores already, with catcher and center field looking settled, but third base remains the lineups most obvious hole. It has been a weak spot since 2025, and that makes it one of the key areas St. Louis has to address if it wants a cleaner, more complete roster heading into next season.
One name to watch is Teruaki Sato, the 27-year-old third baseman and reigning MVP from Nippon Professional Baseball, who profiles as one of the top free agents available. He could offer an immediate answer at the hot corner, but the fit is not without questions, from his defensive home to the strikeout concerns that follow him, and on top of all that comes the price tag tied to bringing him over through the posting system. [Read more 🡒]
Cardinals Face 3 Offseason Questions That Will Define This Rebuild
The Cardinals spent much of this season looking like a club caught between eras, which is exactly what makes the winter ahead so important. Even after trading away top players and officially leaning into a rebuild, St. Louis hung around the playoff race for most of the year before finishing with a losing record, and there were real signs of progress along the way. Jordan Walker, Alec Burleson and JJ Wetherholt all gave the organization reasons to believe the next wave might be close enough to matter.
Still, the offseason questions are the kind that can shape whether this rebuild moves forward or stalls out. The bullpen needs help, the rotation needs a front-end starter, and third base remains unsettled after Oliver Marmol called the competition there wide open with several players in the mix. For a team trying to thread the needle between development and contention, those are the decisions that will tell the story of what comes next in St. Louis. [Read more 🡒]