photo: Nathan Church (Brian Walton/The Cardinal Nation)
In a FREE article, at no. 20 in The Cardinal Nation’s Top 50 prospect countdown for 2026 is an outfielder who had a career season before joining St. Louis in August. Can Nathan Church sustain his newly found power in the majors?
Position: Outfielder
Age: 25 years old
Bats/Throws: L/L
Height/Weight: 5’10, 180 pounds
Acquired: Selected in the 11th round of the 2022 First-Year Player Draft, 337th overall
Hometown: Coto de Caza, CA
College: Cal Irvine
Opened 2025: Springfield Cardinals injured list (Double-A)
Primary team in 2025: Memphis Redbirds (Triple-A)
Finished 2025: St. Louis Cardinals (MLB)
Prior Top 50 rankings – not ranked
Click on the above photo to be taken to Church’s player page at The Cardinal Nation, with additional biography and history information.
2025 highlights
| Tm | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS | HR | SB | CS | BB% | K% | BABIP | wRC+ |
| Mem/Spr/PB | 385 | 0.329 | 0.386 | 0.524 | 0.911 | 13 | 16 | 5 | 8.6% | 9.6% | 0.338 | 144 |
| StL | 65 | 0.179 | 0.254 | 0.250 | 0.504 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4.6% | 27.7% | 0.237 | 46 |
Kyle Reis’ scouting report
Kyle’s ranking – no. 24
You guys, Brian is making me rank and write about Nathan Church. Anyone who follows me on social media knows that this is the last thing that I want to do, so I apologize ahead of time for however pithy I come across. I am trying to do everything that I can to contain it.
More and more, I find myself annoyed with prospects like Church. I blame the old Cardinals front office for this. It’s because players like him are really terrific depth pieces for an organization, but players like him have also been the type to be oversold to the fanbase about what they can do or the potential they have. Also, in modern scouting and terms, Church offers a warning for those that still slash line scout. Heck, even people who invest solely in strikeout rates and walk rates should heed some warning with Church and players like him.
But before we get to that, let’s emphasize that Church is 100% deserving of a Top 20 spot in any organization. Church patrols the outfield and runs the bases with plus vigor and skill. His ability to play all three outfield positions at a plus level and display his speed and baseball IQ on the basepaths are the exact tools that every team covets in their fourth or fifth outfielder, even if stolen bases aren’t a part of the speed package.
Sometimes his reads are a little weird as are his jumps especially in a corner, but there’s a reason why he led the minors in nearly every advanced defensive analytic for outfielders during the 2024 season. Add his plus arm to the equation and you have something fun to cook with. When you are an organization that’s getting a fourth or fifth outfielder from your 20th overall prospect, things are going OK for you. This sentiment goes double when you are talking about a former 11th rounder.
Another must-know Church tidbit is that he is a very likeable young man. He has a high motor, and he leaves everything out on the field. If you were a coach, this is the player that you would get to lead drills and push their teammates.
Adding to Church’s intrigue is that he never struck out much in the minors. He took walks at a slightly above average clip and well within the margin that you’d want when comparing it to his strikeout rate. As we know, balls in play rock about 99% of the time as compared to the alternative and this is the “loud” tool for Church (notice how I made a point to not call it his contact tool. We’ll get back to that in a second).
Another thing to like about Church is how easy his swing is. Hands held slightly higher than his shoulders with a slight rock, he employs an open stance with good balance and very little wasted motion. It’s not hard to envision a situation in which Church manages to get to a little power, maybe even scraping double digits in 450 plate appearances or so.
But this is where the questions get louder about Church, regarding the kind of contact he’s making. He has put up some good exit velocities here and there, but never in the way that you know will matter at the toughest league in all of the land. As is well documented at this point, and not having accessible in-game power is an issue. And not just for me, but for Major League Baseball as an entity. In addition, we’ve seen Church’s gap-to-gap power lag when facing pitchers with major league caliber stuff. This is the norm for most hitters, naturally, but it has the potential to be problematic for a player who must live gap-to-gap to have any chance at being an impact bat.
As I mentioned, we love that Church has a minor league track record of a solid walk rate and an above average (in the good way) strikeout rate. However, this is where the scouting of him becomes ever so important. The first thing that you notice about a minor league Church at-bat is that he is HUNTING early in counts. If it’s near or around the zone, he’s hacking. Then, when he gets into trouble, he just slaps at everything he sees until the ball finds its way between the lines or the pitcher throws enough balls well off the plate for him to take a walk.
In the minors, this works for a couple of reasons. First, even at Triple-A and more so now than ever, defense can be weird. This goes double for infield defense, especially since the shift was banned. Church has 2015 Jason Hayward in his profile, where he manages to just ground the ball through the infield for singles. Unlike Heyward, Church uses the entire field which is an obvious plus. As we saw later with Heyward and his downward career path, this is not a sustainable model for major league success.
These concerns started to play out after his St. Louis debut, albeit in a small sample size. The sample is so small that it probably isn’t worth talking about, but what happened was that pitchers worked ahead of Church. His contact tool is not good enough to get to most above average offerings, especially if velocity is involved (which is also something that’ll follow him from the minors a little bit). My confirmation bias aside, to see these results even in such a small sample seems to jibe with the concerns articulated in the last few paragraphs.
The good news is that Church will work to become the best hitter that he’s capable of being. And there is a foundation for more here. I don’t think he’s going to strike out 27% of the time like he did during that first small major league sample, but it’ll certainly be more than his 10.3% in Triple-A during the 2025 season.
If Church can augment his approach to do more damage, be a little more patient and smarter earlier in counts, and rediscover some of that “slapping the ball around in pitchers counts” magic he had in the minors then he could very easily be a starting center fielder for a decent club. If that never happens, he will be in the majors for years as a left-handed bat off the bench making highlight-reel catches in the outfield.
Brian Walton’s environmental impact report
Brian’s ranking – no. 14
Background
The former Cal Irvine player was a day three selection in the 2022 draft, selected in the 11th round.
Church has never been the flashiest player in the system, but he held his own at every level. He demonstrated an innate ability to make contact at a high rate while hitting left-handed pitching exceptionally well.
H did not tear out of the gates with Palm Beach after signing. In 111 plate appearances, Church slashed just .189/.291/.221/.512 for a wRC+ of 57.
Even so, coming out of 2023 spring training camp, Church was one of the few position players from the 2022 signing class to make the High-A Peoria roster. He joined earlier draft picks Jimmy Crooks and Victor Scott in the Chiefs Opening Day lineup.
Highlights of his year include on-base streaks of 21 and 18 games, a .902 OPS in May and Midwest League Player of the Week honors in June.
As he remained with Peoria all season, Church led his team with 518 plate appearances and 127 hits (the latter also tops in the Midwest League). Among Chiefs, he was second to team Player of the Year and MWL All-Star Jimmy Crooks with 24 doubles, 46 walks and 65 runs scored.
Church’s slash line was a very respectable .279/.364/.360/.724, with power his least prominent component. His wRC+ was 109.
Church’s 52 points of wRC+ improvement from 2022 to 2023 earned him this recognition as The Cardinal Nation’s Emerging Player of the Year.
In 2024, Church moved up to Double-A Springfield, where he remained for the entire season. He posted the second lowest strikeout rate in the system at 11.1%. Church was first in plate appearances (541), fifth in hits (129) and first in runs scored (81). His slash line was .268/.331/.373/.704.
A left-handed hitter with good contact skills, no platoon splits, good speed (24 stolen bases in 2024) and proficiency at all three outfield positions is a valuable player to have in the system. Still, with a distinct shortage of power, Church annually fell short of our Top 50 prospects, with a concern he would become the next Scott Hurst.
One thing that is not debatable is his defense. Following the 2024 season, Church was named as the “Best Defensive Outfielder” in the system and for having the “Best Outfield Arm” by Baseball America.
Following the 2024 season, Church played in the Arizona Fall League. His future Memphis manager Ben Johnson said the following.
“I knew just from the numbers that he was a really good defender, but it is fun to see it in person,” Johnson said. “He is really good out there. He is just one of those scrappy players that stays dirty all the time, likes to slide and steal and run and make good plays. He has really shown me a lot in this Fall League.”
Church improved during his six weeks in the desert, increasing his batting average from .333 after four weeks to .364 at the close of the AFL. He went 4-for-9 in his last two weeks to conclude with an .815 OPS in 58 plate appearances.
2025 recap
Church opened the regular season on Springfield’s injured list after returning to the Double-A level for the second year. He wasn’t out for long as he rehabbed at Palm Beach starting on April 15 and rejoined the S-Cards on the 21st.
On August 17, after Church experienced a long period of success at two levels, the Cardinals announced that he was added to the 40-man roster and promoted to St. Louis. It was a breath of fresh air as his teammate and MLB veteran Michael Siani was passed over for a return in favor of the first-timer Church.
The left-handed hitting Church was enjoying a breakout season that officially began with Double-A Springfield and continued seamlessly with Triple-A Memphis.
In his Springfield swan song, the 25-year-old was Texas League Player of the Month for May. Church followed that in June with system-leading batting average, slugging and OPS – in his first month at Triple-A. As a result, he was The Cardinal Nation’s Player of the Month.
Overall with Memphis, following his promotion from Springfield on June 3, Church posted a .335 batting average (third in the International League at the time), hit seven home runs with 30 RBI in his first 53 Triple-A games.
Church did not return to Memphis after his original call-up to St. Louis.
Across both minor league stops, Church hit a combined .329 to lead the Cardinals organization while ranking second in slugging at .524 and third with his .911 OPS, along with 13 home runs and 50 RBI. His five triples tied for second in the system, and he tied for fifth with 67 runs scored, despite missing essentially the final month of the Triple-A season while with St. Louis.
Church has the unusual profile of walking very infrequently (8.6%) but also not striking out often (just 9.6%). The latter mark was second lowest in the Cardinals system in 2025. His walk-to-strikeout ratio of 0.89 was fourth in the organization.
However, the most surprising change in Church’s 2025 was his slugging, which had been an unimpressive .354 over his prior three seasons as professional. He was also fifth in the system in isolated power at .196, which removes singles from the equation.
With St. Louis, however, the going was predictably tougher. Church received 65 plate appearances in 27 games with a slash line of .179/.254/.250/.504.
2026 outlook
By giving Church his August 2025 call-up, the organization promoted him 90 days prior to when he would have needed to be added, anyway, for protection from the Rule 5 Draft. The time spent with St. Louis in late 2025 should give him a leg up on 2026.
With the entire Cardinals roster in flux during the off-season, it is difficult to guess what will happen with the outfield. However, in the current state, the likely need for Lars Nootbaar’s rehab to extend into the regular season would seem to give Church an excellent chance to break 2026 spring camp with the big-league club. In fact, even with Nootbaar active, Church should be no lower than the fifth outfielder (depending on how one classifies Alec Burleson).
But if MLB veterans are added via trade or free agency who slot ahead of him, Church still has all three minor league option years remaining, so there is no sense of urgency with him.
In terms of internal competition in the outfield, both Matt Koperniak and Bryan Torres are on the 40-man roster, but neither has appeared in the majors. By the second half of the 2026 season, Joshua Baez could hit himself into the St. Louis picture. Like every other MLB player, Church will need to produce to hold his job.
Future outlook
Future Value: 40
Role: Reserve
Risk: Low
A big question is whether Church should be considered a relatively finished product or instead returning to Memphis would be in everyone’s best interest to give him more time to work on the items Kyle identified.
A professional scout upgraded his view of Church, but not too high.
“I wrote him off as an up and down guy, not an everyday player,” the evaluator said. “He is better all around than (former Cardinals center fielder Michael) Siani, but Siani’s defense is better.”
Since Church has already achieved the role of reserve MLB outfielder, his risk of reaching it is low. But perhaps he can raise his ceiling, which may be needed to hold off the next wave of aspiring outfielders coming up from below.
MLB debut: 2025
Minor League options remaining: 3
Our 2026 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 10 in-depth, follow-up articles breaking down the list.
50 Days, 50 Nights, 50 St. Louis Cardinals Prospects for 2026
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