TCN 2024 St. Louis Cardinals Prospect # 30 – Trent Baker

photo: Trent Baker (Peoria Chiefs)

At no. 30 in The Cardinal Nation’s prospect countdown for 2024 is a pitcher who performed well at High-A, but can Trent Baker make necessary adjustments to start successfully at Double-A?  FREE article.

Trent Baker

Position: Starting pitcher
Age: 25 years old
Bats/Throws: R/R
Height/Weight – 6’4/240
Acquired: Selected in the ninth round of the 2021 First-Year Player Draft, 271st overall

Home: Georgetown, Texas

Opened 2023: Peoria Chiefs (High-A)
Primary team in 2023: Peoria Chiefs (High-A)
Finished 2023: Peoria Chiefs (High-A)

Prior Top 50 ranking – 2023 #25

Click on the above photo to be taken to Baker’s player page at The Cardinal Nation, with additional biography and history information.

Link to Baker’s career stats

Blake Newberry’s scouting report

Blake’s ranking – no. 29

(current grade/future grade)

FB SL CH Command Future Value
45/50 40/45 50/60 45/55 35
IP G GS ERA WHIP K% BB% HR/9 K-BB% FIP xFIP GB% BABIP
119.2 23 22 3.69 1.14 21.1% 5.2% 0.83 15.9% 3.70 3.94 37.4% .282

Trent Baker is a complicated pitcher to analyze. On one hand he’s been a very successful starter for each of the past two seasons but on the other hand he’s always been old for his level and the Cardinals haven’t promoted him in-season even after he’s shown that he deserved to move up.

That tells me that the Cardinals may not be super high on him. When I look at the profile, I understand that perspective. But I also think that Baker is an interesting pitcher. I’m very curious to see how he adapts to upper-level hitters so I would have loved to see him reach Double-A sooner.

There are some serious issues with the profile that limit his upside but there are also some things that I really like about Baker. I’ll start with the changeup because it’s clearly his best pitch.

Baker trusts his changeup so much that he uses it against lefties and righties, and as his go-to strikeout pitch. Part of the reason he uses it against righties is also because he doesn’t have an effective breaking ball, but I will get to that later.

The changeup is a thing of beauty that really fades away from lefty hitters and shows a lot of run. Hitters have a tough time with it and are prone to expanding the zone. I feel comfortable projecting it as a plus pitch. His command is solid as he generally likes to keep it on his arm side and does so effectively.

The changeup is an especially important pitch to Baker’s arsenal because it’s his only good secondary offering. His slider just isn’t all that effective. He’ll occasionally use it to steal first pitch strikes against both lefties and righties and he’ll sometimes use it in two-strike counts. But his command of the pitch is below that of his other offerings and the pitch just doesn’t profile all that well.

From a pure stuff perspective, his slider is a below average offering and we can think about it two ways. It either doesn’t move enough when compared to its velocity or it isn’t hard enough when compared to its movement.

I suspect that the main problem is that Baker’s natural motor preferences favor pronation as opposed to supination. This is why he’s able to generate good run on his sinker and his changeup (pronation) but why he isn’t able to throw a good breaking ball (supination).

He doesn’t have a great feel for spin with the pitch and, because of that, he might be better off throwing a cutter and trying to throw it hard. He could also experiment with a spike slider. Either way, Baker needs some kind of effective glove side offering to help him neutralize his reverse platoon splits.

That’s right. Righties hit the right-hander better than lefties do and that’s been true for his entire professional career. That’s uncommon but it’s because Baker lacks a quality offering to use in same-sided matchups. That’s going to be the biggest point of development for him. I wouldn’t be shocked to see righties really get the better of him in the higher levels of the minor leagues if he doesn’t improve his glove side breaking pitch.

So that’s the negative, and it’s a big one, but Baker has other things going for him. The changeup, for starters, but also his command, and, specifically, his command of his fastball.

His fastball as a whole is interesting from a stuff, command, and usage perspective.

Baker’s fastball is a sinker that sits about 93-95 mph but has been clocked as high as 97 mph and shows good arm side run. What’s different about it is that it has riding life, so it doesn’t sink all that much and he likes to throw it up in the zone.

The riding life helps the pitch stay effective up but so does Baker’s lower than normal arm slot. The pitch doesn’t miss a ton of bats, but it does miss some and it does a good job of staying off the barrel. It also doesn’t get a ton of groundballs, likely due to the lack of sink. That gives him the potential to be a bit more homer prone than the average sinkerballer, but because of his ability to create weak contact, it hasn’t hurt him yet. It’s a bit of a tightrope but Baker has navigated it successfully so far.

With that said, the righty is too fastball heavy for my liking, which is probably a result of him not having a consistent breaking pitch. That concern will remain when he gets to Double-A and Triple-A. The pitch isn’t a bad offering by any means, though. His good command of it allows him to attack hitters in a variety of ways. He commands it to both his glove side and his arm side and can go up and down with it.

It’s not uncommon for Baker to let the pitch run into the hands of a righty, nor is it uncommon to see it run onto the inner half against a lefty. I love his willingness to go inside and his ability to put the pitch where he wants it. That helps it play up a bit. It’s probably an average fastball overall but he uses it exactly how he should and has a diverse plan of attack which should help it stay effective against more advanced hitters.

I wouldn’t be shocked if Baker became a sinker/changeup reliever if he struggles in the upper levels of the system, but I want to see how he does in the rotation against Double-A hitters before seeing him move to the bullpen.

Those two pitches give him an effective base from which to work, but there’s a lot of pressure on his ability to develop at least an average glove side breaking pitch to help keep righties off the rest of his arsenal.

Summary: Improved command and a strong sinker/changeup combination has helped Baker pitch effectively in the rotation, but his arsenal is limited by the lack of an average glove side pitch.

Future Value: 35
Role: AAAA player/middle reliever/spot starter
Risk: High

Brian Walton’s environmental impact report

Brian’s ranking – no. 33

Background

With a look that is reminiscent of a red-haired Lance Lynn, Baker has always been a dependable workhorse. He tossed a relatively heavy 106 2/3 innings for Division II Angelo State University prior to the 2021 draft. Baker finished his fourth year with a 13-1 record, 2.11 ERA and 121 strikeouts. He improved his control every season after 5.1 walks per nine innings as a freshman to 1.5 walks per nine innings in his final spring.

Earlier, he drew attention by performing well in the wood bat Northwoods League in 2019 (2.32 ERA). The next summer, he tossed the first five innings of a combined no-hitter in the Texas Collegiate League.

Baker was selected near the end of day two of the 2021 First-Year Player Draft, in the ninth round. The pool amount for his pick was $153,300 and he signed for just $75,000, saving the Cardinals almost $80,000 to help on the overslot signing of seventh-round prep pitcher Alec Willis.

The relatively low signing bonus was because as a senior, Baker had no real leverage with the Cardinals. It is true that he was not drafted as a junior in 2020, but he was far from alone. Remember that the COVID year draft was truncated to just five rounds.  So, Baker was among the many caught in between. A positive for the Cardinals is that they will retain his services a year longer by having signed him in 2021 instead of burning a year in 2020 when he wouldn’t have been able to play, anyway.

Overall, Baker’s rookie debut as a professional against the teen hitters in the Florida Complex League was as uninspiring at it was meaningless. His ERA was 5.87 with a 1.44 WHIP. Baker fanned a strong 11.7 per nine innings and walked 2.3 per nine. However, none of this is particularly telling over just 7 2/3 innings of work.

Yet, as a ninth-rounder, Baker did nothing to push his way onto our Top 50 Prospect List coming into the 2022 season, either.

In a major surprise, Baker scored a non-roster invitation to St. Louis’ spring training camp – before ever having been to minor league camp. This was not based on merit, but because it had been negotiated as part of his signing terms the prior July.

In 2022, Baker delivered, though it was an up and down and back up again year. That kept him on the same squad all season rather than earning him an in-season promotion.

Opening the regular season with Low-A Palm Beach, by the end of the first month Baker was the Florida State League Pitcher of the Week. After a strong April and May, he came crashing down to earth in June and July with ERAs of 5.29 and 5.14, respectively. Given that, it is not surprising that Baker was not promoted upward to Peoria along with fellow rotation member Inohan Paniagua in late July.

To his credit, Baker buckled down and yielded just 10 earned runs over his final seven starts in August and September, logging a 2.41 ERA over those 37 1/3 innings.

For the 2022 season, Baker started 25 games and logged 123 1/3 innings on the mound, both tops on the Beach Birds. Also, team bests were his strikeout total of 138 and his ERA of 3.14.

Sure, one could expect a player who stays on the same team all season long to lead in counting stats, but Baker’s results stacked up well across the organization.

Trent Baker and Leonardo Bernal (Brian Walton/The Cardinal Nation)

Among all starters in the Cardinals system who threw at least 60 innings, Baker was third in ERA, behind only Paniagua and Gordon Graceffo, two prospects who will appear later in this Top 50 countdown. Baker placed first among system qualifying starters in FIP (3.46) and second in xFIP (3.90). He was also second in strikeout rate (10.1 per nine innings), eighth in walk rate (3.5 per nine) and seventh in K/BB rate (2.9).

Baker delivered for his team as well. He tied for fourth in the system with nine wins. Year to year, he improved his ERA from 5.87 to 3.14, which is one reason he joined the rankings at no. 25 after not being ranked in 2021.

2023 recap

To open 2023, Baker earned a promotion to High-A Peoria and remained in the Chiefs rotation through August.

His results were inconsistent, with a subpar April and July wrapped by strong months of May, June and August. Due to spotty offensive support, Baker logged just seven wins to go with nine losses in 23 appearances, 22 starts, despite a good 3.69 ERA and 1.14 WHIP. His FIP of 3.70 and xFIP of 3.94 indicate that wasn’t a fluke. His seven quality starts topped all Chiefs.

Baker lowered his walk rate from 3.5 in 2022 to 1.96 in 2023, but his strikeout rate plummeted from 10.1 in 2022 to just 7.9 in 2023. Even so, from among all the pitching talent on the 2023 Chiefs, it was Baker who had the only double-digit strikeout game, with 10 on July 4. However, his next start was his best, as he spun six no-hit innings on July 14.

For the season, Baker logged 119 2/3 innings, eighth in the Cardinals system. He ranked in the top 10 in starts, seventh in starter ERA and strikeouts and third in starter WHIP. These results are not super exciting but reflect his durability and dependability.

Unfortunately for Baker and the Chiefs, his season ended early, following his 105th strikeout of 2023 and a win in his August 31 start. He missed the final 10 days of the regular season and the playoffs.

2024 outlook

A byproduct of five new starters working at the top levels of the system who were acquired by the organization since the 2023 deadline is increased pressure on rotation spots at Springfield and Memphis.

In a vacuum, Baker seems to have earned a shot at Double-A to open 2024. However, being among the Springfield starting five on Opening Day is far from assured. Not only is there a full house ahead of him, but there may be major competition among a number of his 2023 Chiefs teammates, all of whom must want the very same thing – to move up and keep starting.

Given his late 2023 promotion to Springfield, Max Rajcic already has a clear head start. Then there is Paniagua, Ian Bedell and Cooper Hjerpe, all seemingly in the same boat as Baker. All four are higher ranked in this Top 50 than him.

Future outlook

A Rule 5 protection decision is coming in the fall of 2024, so the preceding season will be very important to Baker’s future. He could move faster as a reliever and for several reasons, it seems quite possible.

In addition to the increasing competition, there is the matter of his incomplete offering portfolio that could perhaps be managed better if he was working in relief.

If Baker is coming out of the bullpen, I could see him debuting with St. Louis in the second half of 2025. As a starter, it could take him longer and perhaps with a different organization to reach the highest level.

MLB debut: 2025
Rule 5 eligible: 2024

Exclusively for members of The Cardinal Nation

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Our 2024 Top 50 series continues

To see the entire list of top Cardinals prospects, grading scales and remaining article schedule, click here. This includes the Top 50 countdown and 12 in-depth, follow-up articles breaking down the list.

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