St. Louis Cardinals Send Top Prospect Back to Minor League Camp

During Spring Training, Sundays are usually the days that the rosters get trimmed a little bit. As pitchers begin to build up, the starters in the projected rotation can begin eating more than just a couple of innings, and with too many players on the roster, those innings wouldn't be available. The same goes for position players, who will start playing more innings themselves.

According to MLB.com's John Denton, St. Louis trimmed their roster after their game against the Miami Marlins today.

#STLCards optioned LHP Bailey Horn to the Memphis roster and reassigned pitchers Ian Bedell, Alex Cornwell, Cooper Hjerpe, Quinn Mathews and Edwin Nunez and catchers Sammy Hernandez and Carlos Linarez to Minor League camp, per the club.
— John Denton (@JohnDenton555) March 2, 2025

His tweet reads, "St. Louis Cardinals optioned LHP Bailey Horn to the Memphis roster and reassigned pitchers Ian Bedell, Alex Cornwell, Cooper Hjerpe, Quinn Mathews and Edwin Nunez and catchers Sammy Hernandez and Carlos Linarez to Minor League camp, per the club."

The name that stands out in that group is No. 3 overall prospect in their system, Quinn Mathews. The left-hander was selected out of Stanford in the fourth round of the 2023 MLB Draft, and made his pro debut last season, rocketing through the minor leagues en route to what should be a role in the Cardinals' rotation at some point in 2025.

Mathews made one start for the Red Birds in camp, tossing two scoreless innings, giving up two hits and a walk, while striking out three against the Toronto Blue Jays.

Between the four levels of affiliated ball that he reached last season, Mathews totaled an 8-5 record with a 2.76 ERA and a 0.98 WHIP across 143.1 innings. He did struggle a little when he reached Triple-A, holding a 6.48 ERA in four starts with Memphis.

In his brief stint in Double-A, Mathews posted a 2.41 ERA and struck out 33.8% of the batters he faced while walking 7.2% of them in nine starts. In Triple-A, his strikeout rate dipped a touch to 27.8%, which is still solid, but his walk rate skyrocketed to 17.7%. Granted, this is a small sample size, but it's presumably a big reason for his struggles.

According to Denton, the Cardinals moved Mathews to Minor League camp so that he can stay on schedule and pitch every fifth day. St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol was very impressed with Mathews in his outing, and told Denton he loved what the big left-hander learned from his time in big-league camp.

"Even in his exit meeting to transition into Minor League camp, it was awesome. You listen to him verbalize what he took out of camp and, from a routine standpoint, it's always good when these young guys can see it modeled here. Their immediate reaction is [realizing], 'Man, there's another whole level to preparation that I need to tap into.'"

If St. Louis keeps up with their trend of promoting Mathews to the next level quickly, then it could be just a few weeks into the season before Mathews is in the rotation, if there is an opening. St. Louis wants to let the kids play this season to get a sense of where they are long-term.

Mathews has performed thus far, and should be ready for his own MLB debut around June.