photo: Rainiel Rodriguez (Brian Walton/The Cardinal Nation)
Two of the hottest hitting players in 2026 in the St. Louis Cardinals have been promoted upward.
On Monday, May 11, the organization announced that catcher Rainiel Rodriguez is moving from High-A Peoria to Double-A Springfield and corner infielder Jack Gurevitch from Low-A Palm Beach is replacing him on the Chiefs roster.
In 128 Midwest League plate appearances, the 5-foot-9, 210-pound Rodriguez slashed .311/.430/.519/.949. His batting average and OPS were tops among Chiefs. He had hits in 21 of 28 games and has an active seven-game hitting streak. With Peoria, his strikeout rate was 18.8% and his walk rate was 14.4%.
At 19.2 years old, Rodriguez was the youngest player to open the season at High-A. With his promotion to Springfield, he will be the second-youngest player at Double-A behind Jesús Made of the Brewers system.
Rodriguez is The Cardinal Nation’s no. 1 prospect in the Cardinals organization and is ranked among the top 35 across baseball by national concerns.
Springfield will have to make a roster move to accommodate the addition of Rodriguez, which we will report here once it is announced. Considering the Double-A Cards had four active catchers already, a return of Chase Adkison to the Development List is a possibility.
Update
On Tuesday morning, the Cardinals announced the corresponding Springfield roster move.
To accommodate the addition of C Rainiel Rodriguez at Double-A Springfield, the #stlcards released C Carlos Linarez.
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) May 12, 2026
Monday was a big day for the 22-year-old Gurevitch as he was also named the organization’s co-Player of the Month for April. You can read all about his standout month here.
Currently, the first/third baseman leads all Cardinals minor leaguers with 28 RBI and is third with 16 extra-base hits. Gurevitch’s slash line for Palm Beach is .274/.398/.538/.936 in 128 plate appearances. The left-handed hitter’s strikeout rate was high at 30.5% but his walk rate was very good at 15.6%.
In the new May prospect rankings here at The Cardinal Nation, Gurevitch is ranked 22nd in the system.
For roster and player information
The team rosters here at The Cardinal Nation are kept up to date daily. To access them, click on “ROSTERS/PLAYERS/MOVES” located on the red menu bar on the left of the page beneath The Cardinal Nation site logo.
To see the Cardinals’ entire system by level and position on one page along with every player transaction for every club all year long, check out the always current Roster Matrix at The Cardinal Nation. It is kept updated daily and is accessible from the same menu as team rosters.
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