The St. Louis Cardinals – How well did they develop players in 2025?

Warning: This is not a prospect list. It is, however, a list of young minor league players that I think had the best seasons this year and could arguably be on a list of the guys who improved/developed/advanced the most over the course of this year. It is an accumulation of writing “Tonight on the Farm” reports and is heavily influenced by how many times I mentioned a player. So, assuredly, there is no bias here. Ok, maybe a little.

So, more than a prospect list, I intend this to be a development list. Who developed?

I do have a couple of rules for my list. One is, if the player played any meaningful baseball at the MLB level, they are disqualified from this list. Someone like Saggese is who I have in mind. Two is, I’m interested in prospects, so the old guys are left off the list. 28-year-old Bryan Torres is who I have in mind. Had a really nice AAA season. Has a nice backstory. Not on my list.

AAA Memphis

Quinn Mathews – Had a bit of an up-and-down year, struggling with control and velocity issues and with shoulder inflammation mid-season. In my view, he has settled in and started to make the final adjustments he needs to advance to MLB.

His not-quite-final line for 2025:

20 starts, 85 IP, 27.6% K-rate, 16.4% BB rate, 3.60 ERA, 4.08 FIP

I think it helps to put his performance in context of International League averages, where the average team scores 5 runs a game (vs. 4.5 in MLB) and the average OPS is 30 points higher in AAA (.752 vs. .722 in MLB).

The shape of his Curveball and Command are the two things that fall below 50 FV grade on his scouting report and these are the things he has made incremental progress on this year. He is not quite ready for MLB, but he is close. Fix the walk rate and that’s a pretty good pitcher.

JJ Wetherholt – Of course! I won’t belabor you with the details. He is still a work in progress defensively, but he had an outstanding season, playing mostly at Shortstop, notably still playing mostly at SS as the season draws nigh.

His not-quite-final line for 2025 can be succinctly summed as: .942 OPS, 155 wRC+.

His advancement has more to do with 40-man roster issues (discussed in more depth below) and future controllability than anything on the diamond. His bat sure looks ready.

AA Springfield

As I talk to people around this part of the organization, there is a belief based on observation that the Cardinals view AA as the last step in player development, and that AAA is a staging area for guys that are ready but blocked or are seen as depth pieces. Given that, I’d expect this to be where the prospects are. Darn near everyone had a good season, which explains why they finished almost 40 games over .500. Here is who showed up the most in the recaps:

Ramon Mendoza – An almost too old 25-years-old at AA player, Ramon Mendoza had a nice season as their third baseman. An .840 OPS will do that. On his age…he is one of those guys hit hard by the 2020 COVID season. He played 33 games of Rookie ball in 2019, then lost 2020 and then gets hurt and only gets 12 games stateside in 2021. Basically, he lost 2 years.

Joshua Baez – Came up mid-season from Peoria (A+) and still finished near the top in most offensive categories. 1 behind Mendoza in HR. Top in SB with 39 (so far). Fourth in RBI. Pretty good for half a season.

Leonardo Bernal – A full-season at AA, where he is apparently viewed as the best defensive catcher in the league. His offensive stats are league average, while showing a propensity to drive in runs. If you stand next to him, you gain appreciation for why I expect his nickname to be “Bear”.

Ixan Henderson – This 23-year-old lefty has started 24 games at AA. For a guy listed as a 40+ FV grade pitcher, he did well. 2.54 ERA/3.14 FIP/3.92 xFIP. His FB grades out between 50 and 60, depending on who you read. 25.5% K-rate, 9.6% walk rate.

Brycen Mautz – This 24-year-old lefty also has started 24 games at AA. 3.04 ERA/3.67 FIP/3.01 xFIP. His FB grades out about a 45. K-rate of 28.3% with a 7.1% walk rate, putting his K-BB rate over 20% (very good). This season is the extension of a surprise turn in the AFL at the end of 2024.

Pete Hansen – This 25-year-old lefty has started 25 games at AA, so he is the Ironman of the group. I threw the Ironman thing in so you didn’t think I was just copy/paste on the intros of lefty pitchers going well at AA. 21.3% K-rate, 6.3% BB-rate. FB grades out at 35 (not good) but his command grades out at 60 (very, very good). 3.91 ERA/3.67 FIP/3.36 xFIP.

Austin Love – This 26-year-old righty was a prospect darling years ago. Drafted in 2021, he lost almost 3 full seasons to injury (2021, 2023, 2024) totaling 9 games in those years. So he is 3 years behind in development. A healthy season in the bullpen has netted a 27.3% K-rate and a 12% BB-rate, almost the prototypical high-octane reliever these days. His slider grades out at 70! Don’t see a lot of those around. He is a multi-inning guy, too. 51 IP in 38 appearances.

High-A Peoria

Zach Levenson – This 23-year-old right-handed OF was drafted as a power prospect with middling 30/40 FV hit tool. He was recently promoted to AA, but played the majority of his games at High-A. He has put up a wRC+ of 122 at two levels, with the better part at AA. All this with having started the season (April and May) with an OPS ~.625. Something clicked, he took off and hasn’t stopped hitting. His 2^nd half SLG is .478 with an .878 OPS.

Won-Bin Cho – This 22-year-old left-handed hitting OFer was signed as a long-term project out of South Korea, having skipped the KBO. In a similar story to Levenson, he had a horrid April/May and then just hit until slowing (just a bit) in September. His 2^nd half SLG is .429 and OPS is .802. Overall, including the bad start, his wRC+ is above league average. He stole 28 bases, to boot.

I will give an honorable mention to Travis Honeyman. He didn’t appear in many recaps, but his season line was not too bad. That he played almost the whole season is an accomplishment by itself. He ended the Peoria part of his season with an wRC+ of 114.

Mason Burns - This 23-year-old righthander split time between Palm Beach and Peoria. He racked up 75 K in 55 IP, so apparently he misses bats. He served as closer periodically, with 11 save opportunities, converting 7 of them. In a late breaking update, he was promoted to Springfield earlier this week, so he may get some experience at AA, too.

From my perspective, no one else pitched all that well for Peoria. A couple of guys started good but were quickly moved to Springfield. A couple of other guys did well in Palm Beach and finished at Peoria. They are included below.

Low-A Palm Beach

Rainel Rodriguez - What can I say? This one might be one of the special ones. At 18-years-old. Played at 3 levels (So far. Who knows?). He hit a ton. Offensive profile not seen since…Pujols? All at levels where offensive production is suppressed. 164 wRC+. Walk and K-rates are about the same. What is not to like? He runs like a catcher. FG has him as a FV of 50.

Deniel Ortiz – Who is his guy? 16^th round 2024 Draft Choice out of Puerto Rico played his first professional ball this year as a 21-year-old. Finished the season at High-A, but played more at Low-A. Ended the year with a wRC+ of 152. The A+ was higher than the A- performance. He is listed as a third baseman, by the way, although he seems to split time with first base. Finally, a corner infield prospect. Been a while….

Braden Davis – This 22-year-old lefty was a 5^th round draft choice in 2024 that made his professional debut this year. He posted a 2.85 ERA/3.37 FIP/3.59 xFIP. He carried a 33.8% K-rate and a 16.6% walk rate across 2 levels. Command is an issue, but his K-rate seems inconsistent with his 40 grade fastball grade and 35+ overall FV. He was promoted late to High-A and his stats held up across 8 starts (SSS, I know).

An honorable mention goes to Andrew Dutkanych IV, who didn’t get a lot of mentions because he didn’t start pitching until August. A 7^th round pick in 2024, he was a premium prospect out of high school that chose the college route, then got hurt and had TJ. He fell to the Cardinals because of injury. He posted a 32.5% K-rate and a 14.3% walk rate in his 9 starts. He will be on the watch list of possible fast risers in 2026.

While this article highlights these individual seasons as Cardinals development successes, they are also a tribute to the players themselves, who throw the pitches and swing the bats that produce the results described herein.

For some, this success matters. A lot. Six players: Mautz, Bernal, Love, Mendoza, Baez, Torres and Hansen are eligible for the Rule V Draft this winter if they aren’t protected by being added to the 40-man roster. A spot on the 40-man roster is their goal, one that comes with a high probability of getting an MLB debut, and major league money. Really, that is what these guys toil for.

On the Cardinals side, they needed to see these performance improvements to know whether or not to invest a highly coveted 40-man spot in any of these players. 40-man spots are some of the most scarce and difficult to manage resources in the industry. They are not assigned willy-nilly. Complicating the Cardinals situation, they have what seems like an unusually large assortment of pitchers with long-term injuries that are either are on the 40-man or likewise need a spot to protect the Cardinals continuing interest. This list includes another 8 players (all pitchers): Z. Thompson, T. Hence, S. Robberse, T. Roby, C. Hjerpe, D. Rom, V. Santos, H. Rincon.

Although there are other players coming up for Rule V eligibility decisions, I think these 15 players are where the tough decisions will come up. Four have 40-man spots. Do they keep them? The other eleven need spots, or they could be lost. Do they add them?

As one looks at the currently full 40-man roster (with the 41st player being Z. Thompson, who’s 60-day IL assignment clears a 40-man spot until the 2025 season ends), it isn’t clear that there are eleven obvious openings. Mikolas will clear as a Free Agent (don’t count him out to be back in spring, though). Seems like one of Koperniak, Siani or Church will go. Seems like at least one catcher will go. One of Fermin and Prieto may go. Veneziano will move on. That creates five spots to which five of these eleven guys that can be added. But which five? And after those five get decided, you will have six others listed here you have to either pick another player off the 40-man or let this player go. Tough choices.

As an aside, does this little soliloquy help anyone get better understanding on why they didn’t want to add Wetherholt’s name to this conundrum by promoting him for September, 2025? In effect, promoting Wetherholt would force them to not protect one of these 15 young players (plus Torres) this winter and likely lose them. Which one would you pick to cast-off? Medicals might push out Santos or Thompson, but healthy, those guys are the closest thing to MLB pitching depth they would have. Tough call with those two. Who else should go? Put another way, who else would you tolerate coming into St. Louis as a successful Rule V draftee and playing in front of you? Think Fernandez from last year and how easy it must have been for Red Sox fans to realize he got away for nothing.

Come next spring (I’m not sure the exact date, but it is before Opening Day), the Cardinals will be able to re-utilize the 60-day IL to effectively expand their 40-man roster for a period of time. Roby, Hjerpe, and Robberse (at least) will go 60-day IL and free up three more spots, allowing the Cardinals to option 3 players at the end of Spring Training without having to expose them to waivers. If you put it in money terms, these prospects likely have an FV of between $2m and $12m each. That would be the premium for promoting Wetherholt early. Would that have been worth 1 month of MLB exposure for JJW this year? By waiting until spring to decide what to do with JJ, they can protect an asset and retain that potential future value.

The dollar value of those three spots opening up this coming spring then is between $6m and $36m, as the guys that get protected or not are going to be guys in the 40 to 45 FV range. The 50/55 guys will always be safe. The decisions come with the guys down the pecking order a bit. The challenge with FV 40/45 guys is, while on average they have a value of $2m - $12m, in reality they are a group and 1 or 2 in that group will turn out to be worth way more than $2m and the rest will be zero. But we don’t get to know now which of these eleven guys is THAT guy. Back in 2019, Adolis Garcia was one of these guys and they left him off the 40-man. And regretted it. So they play the averages and protect as many as possible. We’ve all been advocating for the Cardinals to spend their budget more wisely and harbor young talent. This is part of what that looks like.

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