J.T. Buchheit

The gap between Triple-A and the major leagues has seemingly grown wider with each passing season. Every year, you hear about players who are dicing up the minor leagues only for them to receive a long-awaited promotion and fall flat on their face. In that sense, Luis Gastélum's brutal introduction to the major leagues shouldn't come as a massive surprise.

When a player is slugging his way through the minor leagues, baseball fans dream on what he could become for the big league club. For St. Louis Cardinals fans, the latest obsession down on the farm is Joshua Báez, who they are hoping will turn into an outfield cornerstone for the team over the next several seasons.

The New York Mets have a long and storied reputation as a laughingstock around baseball, and their front office looks to be contributing to the franchise's sad state of affairs at the hands of Chaim Bloom and the St. Louis Cardinals. At the 2025 trade deadline, the Cardinals and Mets swung a deal sending Ryan Helsley to the Big Apple.