Guardians minor leaguer working his way into big league picture with red-hot start

For the better part of the past 12 months, Guardians minor league catcher Cooper Ingle has been slugging his way through the minor leagues. 

And while his performance last year clearly caught the eye of some of the league’s talent evaluators (he made his official debut in both MLB Pipeline and Baseball Prospectus’ list of the top 100 prospects), his performance at the start of 2026 is starting to turn him into a household name in Northeast Ohio. 

The 24-year-old Ingle entered play on Tuesday with a .357/.617/.786 slashline with four home runs and 12 RBI in 13 games. That statline was buoyed by a 3-for-4 showing on Sunday that included two homers, three RBI and four runs scored. 

It’s the exact kind of stat-stuffing performance that’s made Ingle one of the biggest risers in the Guardians’ minor league system, and part of the reason why he could end up making his debut at Progressive Field sooner rather than later. 

Cooper Ingle has become one of the top prospects in the Guardians’ minor league system 

Ingle made his Triple-A debut last season, where he posted a .712 OPS with one home run and six RBI in 28 games after spending most of the season at Double-A, where he had a .273 batting average in 92 games. 

But all of those numbers pale in comparison to how things have gone for him at the start of 2026. 

Although Ingle went 1-for-10 in spring training (with the one hit being a home run), it looked like there could be a chance he’d break camp with the Guardians after Austin Hedges was hit on the hand by a pitch at the end of spring training.  

Hedges ended up healing just in time, which led to Ingle starting the season in Triple-A. 

After going 2-for-10 across his first four games, Ingle’s reached base in eight straight games in a span highlighted by that multi-homer game on Sunday. 

While the Guardians’ catching situation isn’t as dire as it was at the start of the decade, a catching prospect with Ingle’s pop is always going to jump off the page given how little production teams can get from the position. 

This season, the Guardians’ catching trio of Bo Naylor, Austin Hedges and David Fry have combined for a .541 OPS, which is 24th in baseball). While we’re still in small sample size territory, their production has been a bit lacking (even if Hedges is providing the most offense of his career). 

While Ingle’s likely a year away from being an everyday option for the Guardians, all it takes is one injury. That happened last year when Dom Núñez got called up after Hedges went on the concussion injured list, and there’s at least a chance that Ingle could get called up. 

And, as Sunday showed, it seems like he’s going to be ready to meet the moment whenever that happens.

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