Devastating injury to Cardinals top pitching prospect is massive blow to their future

As if things couldn't be any more frustrating for St. Louis Cardinals fans right now, one of the club's top pitching prospects won't be seeing action on the mound again until the 2027 season.

The Athletic's Katie Woo and Keith Law broke the news today that one of the Cardinals' top pitching prospects, Tekoah Roby, underwent Tommy John surgery on Friday and likely will not pitch until the 2027 season due to the long road toward recovery ahead of Roby.

Tekoah Roby's Tommy John surgery is a massive blow to the Cardinals' future.

Roby is the third high-level Cardinals pitching prospect to see his season ended by Tommy John surgery this year, joining Cooper Hjerpe and Sem Robberse with that devastating fate. On top of those injuries, their 2024 third-round pick, Brian Holiday, had an undisclosed season-ending surgery as well, and both Quinn Mathews and Tink Hence have battled injuries all year as well.

While there is more upside in the Cardinals' farm system pitching-wise than there has been in a number of years and many pitching prospects have taken steps forward in their development this year, the injury bug has been brutal toward the Cardinals' farmhands in 2025. As Chaim Bloom takes over running the show over the next few months, he will have a tall task on his hands in figuring out how to manage what they currently have while adding new arms to the mix.

According to Keith Law, he was considering having Roby in his recent updated top 60 prospects in baseball due to how great Roby has been this year, his middle-of-the-rotation upside, and how close he was to making his MLB debut, but decided not to when he heard rumblings that this surgery may be coming for Roby.

In 16 starts this year between Double-A and Triple-A, Roby posted a 3.10 ERA with 87 strikeouts in 78.1 innings of work, displaying the kind of upside the Cardinals saw in him when they acquired him from the Texas Rangers at the 2023 MLB Trade Deadline in the Jordan Montgomery trade.

The Cardinals did add a new top pitching prospect, Liam Doyle, to their organization with the fifth overall pick in the 2025 MLB Draft, whom Baseball America already has as a top 70 prospect, and Law had within his top 30. As I mentioned earlier, arms like Michael McGreevy, Ixan Henderson, Braden Davis, and Brycen Mautz have had very good years with St. Louis so far, and they did add other upside arms like Tanner Franklin and Cade Crossland to their system through the draft as well.

According to John Mozeliak last week, the Cardinals don't plan on targeting a specific type of player in their selling moves this week, other than possibly preferring players who do not need added to the 40-man roster this offseason with plenty of other Cardinals prospects already facing that same dilema, but don't be surprised if the club does target a lot of arms in these deals. You can never have enough pitching in today's game for this very reason. While the Cardinals have avoided injuries at the big league level, their minor league system can't catch a break.

How this shapes the Cardinals' pitching plans in 2026 is yet to be determined, but it certainly complicates things since Roby was a clear candidate to take on a rotation spot.