photo: Cardinals Dominican Academy (St. Louis Cardinals)
The rookie-level Cardinals Dominican Summer League club finished above .500 for the first time in three years. On the young roster, hitters and starting pitchers again led the way, with the bullpen and defense lagging.
What is the DSL?
The Dominican Summer League (DSL) is at the rookie level within baseball’s minor league system. The league is a gateway into affiliated professional baseball for players who are not eligible for Major League Baseball’s annual First-Year Player Draft. The lack of player eligibility is mainly due to them not meeting the residency requirement.
Please refer to the Week 1 Notebook for an overview of the league, its current construct and the team as it stood on the cusp of the 2025 season.
St. Louis’ History in the DSL
After 13 seasons with one team in the league, St. Louis expanded to two squads for the 2018 season, becoming one of 17 organizations fielding two teams. The original team became Cardinals Blue and the second team Cardinals Red. They shared the Baseball Oasis facility with one team home while the other was on the road. Except for the 2020 season, wiped out by a worldwide pandemic, this arrangement held through the 2021 season.
During the 2021-2022 off-season, St. Louis contracted its Dominican Summer League organization back to one team. With Cincinnati expanding to two squads for 2024 and Toronto expanding to two teams for 2025, the Cardinals are only one of eight Major League organizations with just one DSL squad.
Since joining the league in 2005, St. Louis has fielded 23 teams, including the three overlap seasons (2018, 2019 and 2021) and no games were played in 2020.
Nine of the 23 entries finished over .500, including 2025. Just one was a division winner, and the 2018 Cardinals Blue squad was eliminated in the first round.
The 2025 Season
The 2025 season was comprised of 52 squads each playing 56 games running from Monday, June 2nd through Tuesday, August 19th. Sunday was a league-wide off-day with Wednesday’s scheduled off-days used for postponed or suspended contests, as needed.
The DSL Cardinals played all 56 scheduled contests. Only one of the 56 games was suspended, a rarity, although 16 games ended after seven frames.
The Team
The DSL has 35-player active rosters and the Dominican Birds began the season with 33 active players: 14 position players and 19 pitchers. 20 players were in their rookie campaign, nine position players and 11 hurlers. 11 players had one year of prior pro experience, five hitters and six pitchers. Two had two years of prior pro experience, both pitchers. (Note: These numbers are for the Opening Day roster and do not include in-season signees.) Included in that number are many of the 12 International signings to open the 2025 period, detailed here.
Additionally, five players were inactive. Two rookies were on the injured list (IL), pitchers Michael Correa and Domingo Mejia, one rookie was on the restricted list (RL), pitcher Kristol Peralta, one one-year veteran was on the IL, first baseman Christian Saez, and one two-year player was on the suspended list, pitcher Kener Perez.
In-season action was taken on four of the five inactive players. Rookie hurler Kristol Peralta came off the RL on June 26th and moved into the bullpen. Correa and Saez were activated off the 60-day IL on August 4th. Correra had also spent the entire 2024 season on the IL. Finally, Perez was activated from the suspended list and released on July 25th.
In-season roster moves included two signings – C/3B Hector Cabrera on June 13 and OF Lucas Takahashi on July 23, one promotion – RHP Brailyn Paulino (two-year vet) to the Florida Complex League on June 25 and one release – RHP Guanchi Martinez (one-year vet) on July 9.
Baseball Reference separates each team’s average age between position players and pitchers. Only personnel seeing in-game action during the season are included. The Dominican Birds’ position players averaged 17.2 years old, placing them in a four-way tie for fourth youngest with the Phillies White, Brewers Gold and Rangers Blue. All four trail the first-place Rays (17.0) and second-place Braves and Twins (17.1). The oldest squad was the Marlins (18.5), which won the Southeast Division, four games ahead of the third-place Cardinals.
The average age on the mound side was 18.0, with the Cardinals tied for 11th place with the Braves. The youngest pitching staff belonged to three teams: Colorado, Guardians Goryl and Mariners with an average age of 17.7. The oldest staff was the Rangers Red at 20.0.
The Season
The 2025 season revealed the Cardinals to be an above-average team, performance-wise. The squad went 30-26 overall, finishing third in the seven-team Southeast Division, four games behind the Marlins (34-22) and a game behind second-place Bombers (31-25). Their Pythagorean Won/Loss was 35-21 with 392 runs scored and 300 runs allowed.
The Cardinals performed much better at home, going 20-8 versus 10-18 on the road and went 21-10 within their division. Looking at the monthly splits, the Dominican Birds went 13-8 in June, but that record flipped to 8-13 in July before they closed with a 9-5 mark in August.
Pitching
The staff had 20 hurlers take the mound, with 17-year-old rookie tandem starter Hendrick Cana the sole lefty. As mentioned above, the average age of the staff was 18.0 years old. Rookie right-hander Jan Cabrera, who turned 20 in February, was the oldest. and 16-year-old Ricardo Fernandez the youngest. Both hurlers are Cuban.
The rotation was managed differently than the prior season when the starters were set from the season’s beginning. Nine pitchers made at least two starts in 2025, but the starting rotation was mainly comprised of six or seven hurlers with no set tandem pairings.
Cabrera, with nine starts, was the only one to start exclusively but one-year vet Gabriel Chinchilla led the team with 48 1/3 innings pitched over 12 appearances (10 starts) to Cabrera’s 36 2/3.
Further complicating matters was that Opening Day starter Earle Zulueta started twice before being sidelined until July 25th, sitting out for a period of six-plus weeks. Juan Carlos Garcia took his rotation slot after two relief efforts and the newly turned 17-year-old finished second in innings pitched, throwing 47 2/3 frames, 12 games/10 starts.
Xavier Cruz, who started fourth behind Zulueta-Garcia/Chinchilla/Cabrera, was sidelined from June 21St. through July 3rd, nine games, and was handled very carefully on his return with limited innings and a skipped start.
Although southpaw Cana started only four times in 11 appearances, all seven relief efforts were for multiple innings, six of the seven three or more frames. Cana was often Cruz’ tandem mate but that was not always the case.
The final swing or tandem starter was 17-year-old Daniel Gomez. The rookie appeared in 12 games, six starts, tossing 44 innings, third behind Chinchilla and Juan Carlos Garcia.
The starters led a staff generating the following stats:
| Final Pitching Stats (56 games) | |||||||
| Period | IP | ERA | WHIP | BAA | SO/9 | BB/9 | K/BB |
| Year End | 453.2 | 5.12 | 1.55 | 0.267 | 8.83 | 4.62 | 1.91:1 |
| Rank | 11th | 23rd | 19th | 46th | 13th | 3rd | 6th |
| First | 478.0 | 3.64 | 1.30 | 0.211 | 11.26 | 3.5 | 2.32:1 |
| Team | Rays | A’s | Rockies | Marlins | Marlins | Rockies | Rockies |
Dominican Birds hurlers finished in the top 25% of the league, 13th or better, in four of seven categories and top half in six of seven areas. Their batting average against rate was truly atrocious, pulled down by a bullpen that struggled to generate outs the entire season. However, two starters placed in the top 25 in walk rate, with one leading the league. More on that is coming in the Starter of the Year reveal.
Offense
The offense had 17 players take the field in 2025: 11 rookies and six one-year veterans. As mentioned previously, their average age of 17.2 placed them in a four-way tie for fourth youngest with the Phillies White, Brewers Gold and Rangers Blue.
The youngest position player was corner infielder Michael Cordero, who did not turn 17 until August. The elder statesman is catcher Juan Pablo Cabrera who is five days older than third baseman Edward Guribe. Both turn 19 in November.
As outlined in the chart below, the offense was productive, placing in the upper 25% in most categories. While their .254 Batting Average was only in the top half of the league, the squad was much stronger in both On-Base Percentage, Slugging Percentage and OPS, just missing the top 10% in OPS.
The team worked 345 walks, good for fourth best behind the Cleveland Goryl’s league-leading 358 walks. Additionally, they were hit by pitches 77 times, tying them with Miami for fourth most behind Tampa Bay’s 88. Their 35 home runs tied them with NYY Yankees for seventh, 21 bombs behind the Marlins. The DSL Cardinals struck out 439 times, 12th most in the league, but they did it in 1,756 at bats, which was fifth in the DSL.
| Final Offensive Stats (56 games) | ||||||
| Period | AB | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS | BABIP |
| Year End | 1756 | 0.254 | 0.395 | 0.392 | 0.787 | 0.315 |
| Rank | 5th | 19th | 11th | 7th | 6th | 21st |
| First | 1849 | 0.285 | 0.413 | 0.429 | 0.826 | 0.353 |
| Team | Rangers Blue | Rockies | Rockies | Marlins | Marlins | Rockies |
Positions and Defense
Below is a chart listing all 17 position players and the number of games played at each position. The nine bolded names were the Opening Day starters.
| Players | C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | LF | CF | RF | DH |
| Amoroso, Brayan | 24 | 13 | 1 | ||||||
| Cabrera, Hector+ | 9 | 5 | |||||||
| Cabrera, Juan Pablo | 21 | 5 | 2 | ||||||
| Chaparro, Jhonny+ | 13 | 1 | |||||||
| Cordero, Michael+ | 14 | 18 | 1 | ||||||
| Dos Santos, Sebastian+ | 15 | 24 | |||||||
| Guribe, Edward | 31 | 5 | |||||||
| Hernandez, Miguel+ | 31 | 5 | |||||||
| Hunter, Kenly+ | 29 | 7 | 1 | ||||||
| Lebron, Cristofer | 12 | 14 | 13 | 8 | |||||
| Lucena, Yaxson | 9 | 27 | 7 | ||||||
| Perez, Jesus+ | 1 | 24 | 2 | ||||||
| Portolatin, Yeferson+ | 30 | 7 | 2 | 1 | |||||
| Rujano, Juan+ | 15 | 19 | |||||||
| Saez, Christian | 9 | 2 | |||||||
| Strop, Royelny+ | 2 | 15 | 2 | 5 | |||||
| Takahashi, Lucas + | 10 | 2 | |||||||
| + = Rookie |
Impacting the chart’s numbers was the extended absence of several players. (For the purpose of this report, extended absence is defined as not in the line-up for five consecutive games.) They are:
Edward Guribe was the primary third baseman from Opening Day through August 4th but missed the last 11 games of the season. In 2024, the Dominican native was absent from the lineup from July 5th through August 16th.
Kenly Hunter, the Opening Day centerfielder, missed 10 straight games from July 1St. through July 14th.
Outfielder Jesus Perez was absent from the lineup from August 4th onward, a span of 12 games.
Finally, bonus baby Roelny Strop, who received a reported $1.4MM signing bonus, missed several chunks of the season. The rookie made his pro debut as the designated hitter on June 3rd but was not seen again until June 21st, 12 games later. He played in two games before going missing from June 24th through July 2nd, seven games, then saw action in nine of the next 10 games. However, Strop did not play in any of the next nine contests through July 30th. He was active from that point through season’s end, on August 19th.
Defense is very difficult to ascertain at this level. The players combine extreme youth with a lack of experience, which does not lead to defensive excellence. Right fielder Yaxson Lucena led the outfield with five assists and Kenly Hunter had a team high 92 putouts with one and two errors, respectively.
Award winners
Guribe and 18-year-old right-handed pitcher Branneli Franco were named to the mid-season DSL All-Star Game roster representing the National League.
The Cardinals had no members of the more exclusive post-season DSL All-Star team.
Conclusion
The DSL Cardinals generated above-average results compared to 2024, driven by their offense and starting pitching. The rotation was solid, by and large, but the bullpen was not, compiling just five saves against 11 blown saves.
The defense was far stronger than in 2024, committing 66 miscues, a three-way tie for 10th best with Royals Venture and Tampa Bay. (It needs to be mentioned that the 2024 Cardinals defense was bad.) They yielded 42 unearned runs. But the 2025 squad underperformed their Pythagorean Won-Loss of 35-21 by five games by finishing at 30-26.
What is next
The Cardinal Nation’s 2025 minor league team recap articles will continue with the Florida Complex League next up.
The full schedule for The Cardinal Nation’s annual article series highlighting team results and top hitters and pitchers across the St. Louis Cardinals system can be found in the following article. After our free Team Recaps across affiliates, we will recognize individual player leaders through the current month and into November.
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