5 most surprising first impressions at Cardinals spring training 2025

RHP Tekoah Roby

If you've been keeping up with the site since spring training began, you'll have seen Tekoah Roby's name pop up more and more as camp has gone on. Starting on the backfields with live batting practice and bullpens, Roby's stuff was impressing the Cardinals' coaches, front office, and the media down in camp, and then he translated that success to the mound this past week in his spring debut.

Talent has never been a question mark for Roby. He's up there with Quinn Mathews and Tink Hence in terms of the kind of stuff he has in his arsenal. Health has always been key for Roby, as his four-pitch mix looks big-league-ready when he is feeling right.

Above you'll see a post from Twitter/X that shows Roby's pitch data from his debut. An important caveat that Thomas Nestico noted as well as our friend Kareem Haq from Birds on the Farm is that Statcast was counting Roby's curveballs as sliders during that outing. Haq shared the accurate readings for Roby's curveball and slider, with the curve being thrown 26% of the time at 82MPH, 2703 RPM, -15" IVB, and -6" HB. The slider was thrown 17% of the time and tracked at 90 MPH, 2273 RPM, 4" IVB, and -1" HB.

On one hand, I'm not surprised to see a healthy Roby look so good. But the surprise does come from the fact that so far, he does look 100%, something we have not seen in a while with him, and I've also been surprised at how serious the Cardinals may be about going to Roby early in the 2025 season.

I do not see a path for Roby to make the rotation out of spring training, but I would not be surprised to see him end up in the bullpen early in the season if the Cardinals think he can provide value there. Personally, I'd much rather see him continue to get a starter's workload in Memphis, with the intention of bringing Roby up to be in the rotation at some point this year if he maintains his level of play and health.