6 realistic starting pitchers who could be home run signings for the Cardinals

Dustin May

Speaking of starters who have struggled with injuries, Dustin May feels like one of the poster children for bad injury luck. Throughout his big league career, May has missed significant time with elbow injuries, forearm issues, back ailments, and even a crazy and life-threatening esophagus tear.

Even so, since his debut in 2019, he has had tantalizing stuff that the Los Angeles Dodgers always hoped would translate into stardom, and other organizations dreamed of getting their hands on. In 2021, it felt like the stars were finally aligning, as May posted a 2.74 ERA and 13.7 K/9 over his first five starts, just to have his season ended once again by injury.

May lost some velocity on his fastball in 2025, which is certainly concerning. For some reason, he's never really been a guy who has been able to create much swing and miss despite how nasty his stuff looks and short spurts where the bats were missing, but when he's been at his best, May has generated ground balls at a very high level.

May's stuff is pretty electric, though, and even in a weird 2025 season where he posted a career high in innings pitched (132.1) with bad results (4.96 ERA), his sweeper had the highest spin rate of any breaking ball in baseball last year, and his sinker still has incredible horizontal movement.

If you want to bet on stuff, there are going to be very few starters available in free agency that won't cost an arm and a leg to acquire that have that. Now, because of that, May comes with a ton of risk, both in terms of his ability to stay on the field as well as his actual performance on the bump, but that is the kind of risk that is worth taking for the Cardinals in 2026.

While acquiring quality rotation arms is at the top of their list, betting on upside with those additions could benefit the Cardinals massively in the long term. Sure, stability from those spots would be nice long-term, but it doesn't exactly offer a rebuilding club a ton other than that. But betting on upside could mean they find a future stud for their rotation, or someone they can flip at the deadline later for valuable prospects.