photo: Thomas Saggese (Springfield Cardinals)
The second-half division winning Springfield Cardinals have three Texas League All-Stars in awards announced by the league on Tuesday, September 26.
Catcher Pedro Pagés, first baseman Chandler Redmond and second baseman Thomas Saggese were named to the 16-member 2023 Texas League All-Star Team. Saggese was also selected as the Double-A league’s Most Valuable Player.
Overall, at Double-A in 2023, Saggese slashed .318/.385/.551/.936 with 25 home runs and 107 RBI. The 21-year-old led the Texas League in batting average, RBI, OPS, hits (158), extra base hits (60) and total bases (274).
In his 33 games after joining Springfield, the second baseman was even better, batting .331 with an OPS of 1.065 and earning Cardinals system-wide Player of the Month honors for August.
Saggese, The Cardinal Nation’s eighth-ranked prospect, was originally selected in the fifth round of the 2020 Draft by the Texas Rangers. The Cardinals acquired Saggese with others in a trade with Texas just before the July 31st deadline for Jordan Montgomery and Chris Stratton.
After five weeks with Springfield, on September 8, Saggese was promoted to Triple-A Memphis, where he finished the season.
Saggese is the S-Cards’ third Texas League MVP in the last four seasons, following outfielders Moises Gomez (2022) and Dylan Carlson (2019). (The 2020 season was not played.)
The California native is also the Cardinals organization’s third league “best of ” player for 2023, joining Midwest League Pitcher of the Year Ian Bedell and Florida State League Pitcher of the Year Max Rajcic.
The 25-year-old Pages was first among Texas League qualified catchers in batting average (.267), hits (113), RBI (72), doubles (23), walks (59), on-base percentage (.362), slugging (.443) and OPS (.805), and was second in home runs (16).
Playing in 117 of Springfield’s 138 games, Pages had a league-best .992 fielding percentage and a league-high 47 runners caught stealing in 123 attempts (38.2% rate). The native of Venezuela caught the most innings in the league at 731, 51 innings more than the next closest catcher.
Pages is The Cardinal Nation’s 36th-ranked prospect.
In 2023, Redmond led all of Double-A with 31 home runs. The 26-year-old ranked among league leaders in eight categories, including home runs (1st), RBI (3rd, 92), total bases (2nd, 228), extra-base hits (3rd, 50), walks (3rd, 81), runs (3rd, 88), slugging percentage (6th, .503) and OPS (6th, .878).
Redmond helped drive the S-Cards into the playoffs by finishing the regular season strongly. The Maryland native was named the Texas League Player of the Week for the period ending August 27.
The left-handed slugger is only the second player in Springfield history with more than 30 home runs in a single season and is second on the team’s all-time long ball list with 57. Late in the season, he also became the franchise’s all-time leader in RBI with 196.
Redmond is The Cardinal Nation’s 43rd-ranked prospect.
(A tip of the cap to the Springfield Cardinals for player stat rankings listed above.)
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