It has been a fun year for Cardinals prospect watchers. With one of the deepest farm systems in baseball, there is something exciting happening almost every day. Sadly, we only have six to eight weeks left of minor league baseball to enjoy. Today I want to highlight the handful of prospects that will have the opportunity to further cement themselves in the Cardinals’ future plans as we reach the stretch run. Just for fun, I will highlight the players I am betting on to finish the season with a flourish.
Please note: The statistics in this article do not include games played Friday night.
Waiting for the Call
The Cardinals have six rookies on the active roster, including JJ Wetherholt, Bryan Torres, Blaze Jordan, Jimmy Crooks, Luis Gastelum, and Nathan Church. Despite the influx of youth, there are still four legitimate prospects I would expect to debut in some capacity. We have talked a lot about these guys already, so I will keep this brief, but this group of players will keep the remainder of the season interesting, even if the Cardinals’ playoff chances fizzle.
Joshua Baez and Leonardo Bernal are already on the 40-man roster and a phone call away. They might not be 100% ready, but the Cardinals need to see what they have going into 2027. Cade Winquest has flown under the radar since being returned by the Yankees. His ERA of 5.74, more than two runs higher than his xFIP of 3.50, has obscured the fact that he has been dominant in Memphis. With Luis Gastelum promoted to St. Louis, Winquest is the most exciting reliever on the farm with a chance to make a real impact this season.
Player to Bet On
Quinn Mathews has gone from one of the hottest prospects in baseball in 2024 to a huge question mark thanks to his continued struggles with command. He is one of the most fun guys to watch when he is on, and one of the most frustrating when his control abandons him. Well, he may have finally turned the corner. Mathews has an 18/3 strikeout-to-walk ratio over his last three starts. Over his last eight starts, he has pitched 45.1 innings and walked only 16 batters. This improvement in walk rate is no fluke. Over his first ten starts, Mathews threw only 40.6% of his pitches in the strike zone (MLB average is 47.6%). In the following eight starts, his Zone% was 48.3%. Most of this improvement has come from a four-seam fastball that he is now landing in the zone 55.1% of the time. He has improved his command without sacrificing velocity or allowing harder contact. Quinn is ready.
Making up for Lost Time
The guys in this group will all have incomplete grades for their 2026 campaigns due to time missed. However, they are all back now, and there is still enough time to turn the season into a positive.
Brandon Clarke has thrown the loudest three innings of any pitcher I can remember thanks to topping out at 103.1 mph in his first inning at Palm Beach. With some of the best pure stuff in minor league baseball, he will rocket into national top-100 prospect lists if he finishes the season strong and healthy. Cooper Hjerpe is striking out 44.1% of Double-A batters through his first seven innings pitched. His fastball velocity has fully returned as he averaged 92.1 mph in Statcast-tracked games. If he irons out the command, he could get a shot in St. Louis late this season. Ixan Henderson is finally back and has already ramped up to 48 pitches in his Low-A rehab start earlier this week. Henderson is Rule 5 eligible this fall, so hopefully he can finish out the year flashing the stuff that made him one of the biggest risers in the system last year.
Players to Bet On
Yairo Padilla has only 51 plate appearances at Low-A due to a shoulder injury this spring, but he has been fantastic thus far with a 157 wRC+. To get the negatives out of the way, the concern with Padilla’s offensive game is his difficulty in elevating the baseball. This trend has held in his first taste of full-season ball. His groundball rate of 53.6% and his Launch Angle Sweet Spot of 21% would both rank as some of the worst in baseball.
The rest of his offensive game has been extremely impressive for a player who is just barely 19. His max exit velocity of 109.3 mph and his 90th-percentile EV of 105.7 are both close to major-league average. He is also running an elite 96% contact rate on pitches in the strike zone. If he keeps up his current rate of production for the last six weeks of the season, he will start to make noise on national top-prospect lists. Sure, the sample size has been tiny, but the results have been extremely exciting so far.
Deniel Ortiz is flying under the radar a bit with the Springfield Cardinals. Rainiel Rodriguez (rightfully) gets most of the attention, and Won-Bin Cho and Jesus Baez have grabbed headlines with incredible power binges. Ortiz carries a 99 wRC+ through his first 97 Double-A plate appearances, but there are still extremely positive signs in the early going. Ortiz’s plate discipline was excellent last season, and that has carried over to Springfield as he has maintained a 91st-percentile Chase%. The biggest concern for Ortiz coming into the season was his contact ability. So far, he has increased his contact rate from 71.8% to 79.1% while moving up a level.
His power has not shown up yet, but he is recovering from a hand injury, so that is not surprising. I am not worried about the power. Ortiz posted a max exit velocity of 110.1 mph with a 90th-percentile EV of 105.3 mph at Palm Beach. Like Rainiel Rodriguez, he makes his money getting the ball in the air to the pull side. Despite the overall lack of pop, he still ranks in the 86th percentile in Pull Air% so far this year.
If the contact rate gains hold through the end of the season, Ortiz may be the second-most-complete hitting prospect in the system after Rodriguez.
Finishing the Breakout
Tanner Franklin and Yoiker Fajardo came out of the gates hot for Peoria and have put together impressive seasons. Could either of them be in line for a few starts in Springfield to close out the year? Franklin may be getting close to his innings limit as he has already set a career high with 62.1, so that may be a factor. Fajardo threw 72 innings last year and just passed that total in his last start. He has been incredible in his last five starts, striking out 39.1%(!) of the batters he has faced across 22.1 innings. If he is promoted, he will be the youngest pitcher to appear in a Double-A game this season.
Player to Bet On
Sebastian Dos Santos was one of my favorite prospects entering the season, and he has done nothing but deliver in 2026. The switch-hitting shortstop laid waste to the Florida Complex League with six home runs in 27 games to earn a promotion to Palm Beach. Dos Santos has held his own in Low-A as one of just 22 18-year-olds to play in full-season ball this year. His 99 wRC+ is seventh among the group. He has been a bit passive with a 38th-percentile Swing%, but his average exit velocity, Chase%, and Contact% are all above average for the league. Dos Santos has already popped a 109.5 mph max exit velocity, which is incredible for a player his age. Unlike Padilla, Dos Santos excels at hitting the ball in the air with a 38% Launch Angle Sweet Spot.
Conclusion
All these players are fun and extremely important to the Cardinals’ future, but if I were forced to pick one to make waves down the stretch, give me Sebastian Dos Santos. I think we are a little spoiled by the Rainiel Rodriguez experience last season. Dos Santos is not quite on that level yet, but he is one of the most impressive teenage performers the Cardinals have had in some time. His blend of power, discipline, and contact ability at such a young age is extremely rare. He has a chance to be the next big thing in the Cardinals’ system, and I am betting he finishes 2026 with a bang.
