Saggese wins MVP; three Cardinals named All-Stars

SPRINGFIELD, Mo -- Minor League Baseball announced on Tuesday that Springfield Cardinals 2B Thomas Saggese has been named the 2023 Texas League Most Valuable Player, becoming the fifth player in team history to capture the league's MVP/Player of the Year award. Saggese, 1B Chandler Redmond and C Pedro Pages were also selected as 2023 Texas League All-Stars.

Thomas Saggese - MVP and All-Star Second Baseman
Saggese, 21, becomes the second-straight Springfield Cardinal, and third in just the last four seasons, to win the Texas League MVP, joining OF Moises Gomez (2022) and OF Dylan Carlson (2019) in this recent surge. It marks the second time in team history that a pair of Cardinals have won the league's top honors in consecutive seasons, with 1B Matt Adams (2011) and OF Oscar Taveras (2012) being the first pair of Cardinals to win the award.

Saggese authored one of the best offensive seasons of any player in Minor League Baseball, leading all of MiLB with 170 hits and 294 total bases, while ranking t-2nd with 111 RBIs and t-5th with 60 extra-base hits. The Carlsbad, CA native became just the third Springfield Cardinal in team history to win the Texas League Batting Title with a .318 average. While also leading the league and Double-A in RBIs, Saggese was 2nd in the league and 4th in Double-A with 25 home runs, narrowly missing winning the league and level Triple Crown Award. All told, Saggese ranked among Double-A leaders in 10 total categories and Texas League leaders in 12 total categories, separating himself as the top all-around offensive force in both.

Acquired by St. Louis on 7/30/23 from Texas in exchange for LHP Jordan Montgomery and RHP Chris Stratton, Saggese opened the season with Frisco as one of the youngest players in Double-A. He hit .313 with 15 homers and 78 RBIs in 93 games before the trade, and then elevated his production even higher after joining Springfield on 8/1/23 with a .331 average, 10 homers and 29 RBIs in just 33 games as a Cardinal. Saggese was named the St. Louis Cardinals Minor League Player of the Month for August, before being promoted to AAA-Memphis on 9/8/23 to finish the campaign. He is currently ranked as the #9 prospect in the Cardinals system by MLB.com.

Chandler Redmond - All-Star First Baseman
Few players in Minor League Baseball did more damage than 1B Chandler Redmond, who led the Texas League and all of Double-A with 31 home runs en route to his first-career All-Star selection. The slugger ranked among league leaders in an impressive nine categories, including homers (1st), RBIs (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).

In fact, the 26 year old not only had one of the most powerful seasons in MiLB, he swung himself into the Springfield Cardinals record books as just the second player in team history to ever hit 30+ home runs in a single season, finishing just one behind 1B Matt Adams' single-season record of 32 blasts from 2011. With 57 career home runs as a Springfield Cardinal, Redmond is 2nd on the club's all-time homer list, just two behind 1B Xavier Scruggs' 59 round-trippers. Redmond did dramatically swing into the all-time franchise lead for most RBIs by a Springfield Cardinal with 196, breaking the record with a go-ahead three-run home run in the 2nd-Half Title clinching win on 9/17 in San Antonio, the last Regular Season game of the year.

Already the only player in team history to hit four home runs in a game from his historic Home Run Cycle on 8/10/22, Redmond notched his second-career game with at least three home runs on 8/23/23 when he belted three bombs against Corpus Christi. Just the third player in team history to ever hit at least three long-balls in a Regular Season game, Redmond is now the only player to ever accomplish the feat twice. INF Nolan Gorman and OF Nick Plummer are the only other players to hit three out of the park in a Regular Season game for Springfield.

Pedro Pages - All-Star Catcher
Pages, 25, put together both the best offensive season of his career and the top overall performance of any catcher in the league this year to claim his first All-Star honors. He led the league's qualified catchers in batting average (.267), hits (113), RBIs (72), doubles (23), walks (59), on-base percentage (.362), slugging (.443) and OPS (.805), while ranking 2nd in home runs (16). He set career-highs in homers, RBIs, doubles, hits, slugging percentage, runs and games played, suiting up in an impressive 117 of the club's 138 contests.

In addition to all the work with his bat, Pages was the circuit's top defensive catcher with a league-best .992 fielding percentage and a league-high 47 caught-stealings, all while catching the most innings in the league at 731.0, 51.0 innings more than the next highest total.

The Maracay, Venezuela native becomes the first Springfield catcher to earn a Texas League All-Star nod since C Carson Kelly was a Midseason All-Star in 2016. Pages joins an even more selective group as just the sixth all-time Springfield Cardinal to be named a Texas League Postseason All-Star, along with Michael Ohlman (2015), Cody Stanley (2014), Steven Hill (2010), Fernando Salas (2008) and Bryan Anderson (2007).