MLB · CF · St. Louis Cardinals
Nathan Church
B/T L/L · 5' 10" · 180 lb · born Newport Beach, CA, USA · age 26 · draft 2022 rd 11 · played CF 88, LF 36, RF 3 · MLB debut 2025-08-17
Last 14 days (through 2026-09-01): 12 G · .290 AVG · 1 HR · 6 RBI · .808 OPS
395 plate appearances scored this season His season card →
Scout’s note
Nathan Church is a 26-year-old center fielder from Newport Beach, an 11th-round pick in 2022, hitting .243 with 5 RBI and just 4 strikeouts over his last 12 games.
Note written · FVR scout (GLM-5.2)
Where he stands
throughAgainst the 382 qualified major-league hitters — 100+ balls in play this season, the same field the boards are chosen out of. Right is better on every row.
- EV95104.937
- Deserved (xVal)0.32319
- Got (aVal)0.32022
- Luck gap (park-adjusted)flipped0.01528
today · 30 days ago, against the 341 men who qualified then · the tick is the midpoint · the number at the right is the percentile, the number beside it the measurement itself.
What he’s paid
Pre-arbitrationA market fact, not an engine read: what a club decided about him, on the season before this one. Figures from Cot’s, as of .
- 2026 salary
- $0.78Mest
- Tax hit
- $0.78M
- Service time
- 0 yr 43 d
- Options left
- 3 / 3
The deal 1 year $0.8M (2026)
On the sheet: 1 y/$782,150 (26)
Regime read from his service time, not from the sheet — it does not project him past this season. Super Two eligibility is the top 22% of a class and can move this line in a way service time alone cannot see.
Cash and the tax hit are two different rulebooks and are never subtracted from one another — see the payroll board for his club, St. Louis Cardinals.
A second set of books
The same contract, read by MLB Spreadsheets (Ethan Hullihen), as of . We keep two sources on this because one source cannot check itself.
- Tax AAV
- $0.78M
- Guaranteed
- $0.78M
- Term
- 1 yr
- His class
- Pre-Arb
What the sheet prices each season at
| Season | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 | 2030 | 2031 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salary | Minimum | Minimum | Minimum | Arb 1 | Arb 2 | Arb 3 |
A base salary under his own reading, and never subtracted from the cash figure above: a signing bonus lands in one and not the other, so the two disagree on most men without either being wrong. And the sheet does not mark which future seasons are GUARANTEED — a club option and a projected arbitration award are both just a number here, so read past the end of the deal as his forecast rather than as money owed.
Two sources, read a month apart, put this guarantee at the same dollar. That is the check, and it passed.
The tax AAV above is his number under the CBA’s own rulebook, not the average we work out from Cot’s total. On a contract with deferred money the two come apart on purpose — and neither is subtracted from the other.
Collect Nathan Church
If the signal is right, the cardboard usually finds out later. Current listings:
Nathan Church cards on eBay →Paid link — as an eBay Partner, FVR earns from qualifying purchases.
Not financial advice. We take positions only after publication — never before. Misses stay on the record.
Umpire favor
+1.0 net runs over 42 graded games — the zone was kind to the umpire on balance.
The line
Bio & season lines: MLB StatsAPI · refreshed nightly · abbreviations →