St. Louis Cardinals Prospect Drops in Rankings

To begin the week, MLB Pipeline updated their rankings, both on the top-100 and the top-30 for all 30 teams. The St. Louis Cardinals top-5 ended up getting a bit of a shake-up, with the addition of No. 5 overall pick in this year's draft, Liam Doyle out of Tennessee being slotted as the second-ranked Cards prospect, behind last year's top pick, JJ Wetherholt, who went seventh overall in the draft.

Sliding into the third and fourth spots in the St. Louis system are catchers Leonardo Bernal and Rainiel Rodriguez after some impressive seasons thus far. That fifth spot in the system is now held by former Stanford Cardinal Quinn Mathews, who zipped through the Cardinals' system in 2024, going from A Ball to Triple-A in his first pro season.

Mathews missed about five weeks from April to May this season and began the year struggling quite a bit. When he landed on the IL after three outings, he held a 6.10 ERA. Since his return, the highest ERA he's held in a given month was a 3.86, which is perfectly acceptable for a developing starter in his first real taste of the upper minors.

He was still rehabbing in the lower levels of the minors is May, but in June he held a 3.32 ERA, followed by that 3.86 in July, and in two August starts it's sitting at 1.32. In his most recent start on August 7, Mathews went seven scoreless innings, giving up two hits and a walk, he hit a batter, and struck out nine.

This month he has collected 18 strikeouts in 13 2/3 innings of work, walking two and giving up seven hits. While he hasn't had a long run of these types of starts this season, it does appear as though he's getting back to where he was last season. After missing some time earlier in the year, it makes sense that it might take a minute for him to get right.

Pipeline had this to say about his future outlook: "Some believed Mathews to have some of the best pitchability among prospects entering 2025, but his control has regressed in a major way this summer -- a trend that technically began during his first Triple-A stint in '24.

"Mathews still flashes mid-rotation upside, and optimistic evaluators believe he's still finding himself after being sidelined so early in the year. What's clear is that getting Mathews to Major League readiness is going to be more of a process than it appeared coming off his breakout first full season."

Mathews struggled with walks before his stint on the IL, and that kind of comes with the territory when a pitcher makes it to the upper minors. There's a learning curve with figuring out where to spot pitches so that hitters offer at them, but they don't get crushed.

Big-league pitchers that go on rehab assignments have said that going down to the lower minors can be difficult to get their work in since those hitters will swing at anything. That could be one reason why Mathews walked a total of 49 batters in 143 1/3 innings last year, largely in the lower minors. It could also be a reason why he's walked 50 batters in 67 innings in Triple-A this season where hitters are more selective.

Over his last five starts, he has combined to give up five earned runs across 25 1/3 innings of work, good for a 1.79 ERA. He has also walked 13 in that span (just two total in his two most recent starts), while striking out 34. There's a certain point when the strikeouts are piling up like this where the walks don't tend to matter as much.

Obviously you don't want to walk everybody, but if the free pass rate is closer to 10-11% rather than 6-7%, those strikeouts help. He's currently at a 18% walk rate on the year.

That said, Mathews should be very much in the mix for a spot in the St. Louis Cardinals rotation at the beginning of 2026.