Cardinals first injury of camp strikes one of last season's breakout prospects

Injuries are a part of the game, and unfortunately, the St. Louis Cardinals aren't immune to them. While they were able to keep their arms healthy at the Major League level in 2025, they had a whole lot of prospects bitten by the injury bug instead.

Well, unfortunately, another one of their prospects is dealing with an arm injury, and this time, it was a breakout performer from last year.

Brian Walton, who brings excellent coverage to the Cardinals' farm system for TheCardinalsNation.com, reported on Friday that left-hander Ixan Henderson has been shut down from throwing due to a left flexor strain. While the extent of the injury and what it will do for his season is unknown, it certainly is a bummer for the Cardinals at the beginning of camp.

Cardinals' breakout prospect Ixan Henderson is the first reported injury from camp this year

Henderson, who turned 24 at the end of January, really impressed talent evaluators in 2025, posting a 2.59 ERA and 25.2 K% in 25 starts at Double-A Springfield. Had it not been for Brycen Mautz's own breakout for Springfield last year, Henderson may have won the Cardinals' Minor League Pitcher of the Year.

Henderson's big year vaulted him into Baseball America's top 10 Cardinals prospects going into the 2026 season, as he's looking more and more like a steady back-of-the-rotation starter for the future.

2026 is going to be a big year for Henderson, as he's Rule 5 eligible come December and was slated to begin the season at Triple-A, where some of the concerns regarding his fastball quality and ability to get advanced batters out were going to be put to the test.

Henderson joins a long list of Cardinals' prospects already on the mend entering camp, including Tekaoh Roby, Cooper Hjerpe, Sem Robberse, Brandon Clarke, and Brian Holliday. That doesn't even include arms like Quinn Mathews or Tink Hence, who missed their own share of time with injuries last season.

Part of the difficulty of targeting higher upside pitchers like the Cardinals have begun to do is the increased risk of injuries they tend to bring to the table. Again, that's necessary for evolving in today's game, but it does mean the Cardinals need to continue to collect as many arms as they can in order to hit on as many as they can.