Former top prospects now have to prove their worth to the Cardinals organization

The St. Louis Cardinals have seen early positive returns on their rebuild, with multiple major outlets praising the quality players at the top of the St. Louis minor league system. With MLB Pipeline, FanGraphs, and Baseball America all complementing the work that Chaim Bloom has done to reload the organization, the Cardinals look to be on the way to an effective start to a rebuild.

Quinn Mathews and Tink Hence were left off of all Top 100 prospect lists

Since Bloom has come into power, player development has taken over as priority for the organization, and he has made good on his promise to revamp the Cardinals' development system. The main target for Bloom has been to change the typical pitcher profile that the team typically targeted and turn into more of a high-octane, but riskier, prospect makeup. Those strikeout arms were mostly chosen in the draft, while Bloom used the trade market to get more depth to support the question mark arms at the big league level.

Those trades removed costly, experienced veterans from the lineup and the rotation, paving the way for the younger players on the roster to get everyday playing time, but also to take on a variety of leadership roles for the future of the team. Players like Alec Burleson will have to take more charge of a young clubhouse, while rotation holdovers Andre Pallante, Michael McGreevy, and Matthew Liberatore show the new guys the ropes. Even with that big league roster turnover, though, some players find themselves being cast aside briefly while initially being seen as the future for the next great Cardinals team.

Since 2023, former second-round draft pick Tink Hence has seen his name across many of the league's top 100 prospect lists, reaching as high as #38 by Baseball Prospectus, #47 by Baseball America, and #64 by MLB. This year, though, the injuries and question marks on Hence's future have caught up to him and he was left off the list entirely. That is not to say none of these outlets see Hence as a viable major league piece anymore, it is more so pointing out that he still has yet to crack 100 professional innings in a season or crack Triple-A Memphis. Hence was seen as someone with reliever "risk", and that prediction could become a reality as soon as this season as long as he is healthy after being shut down again at the end of last year.

Also left off the national rankings was lefty Quinn Mathews, who is just a season removed from being the organization's Minor League Pitcher of the Year. His 2024 campaign pushed him into the top half of the league's prospect ranks, with Mathews also getting some time in major league spring training heading into last year. After a down season by his standards in 2025, Mathews fell out of the top 100 but looks to be in a competition for the big league rotation again this spring. Out of all the names in the competition, Mathews is probably the least likely to crack the starting staff for Opening Day, but he should be able to stick around camp longer this season.

Both guys will have interesting storylines to follow, with Hence looking to build up his workload as the team decides if he is a starter or reliever, and Mathews getting back to his dominant 2024 self after battling shoulder and consistency issues.