Offspring of Cardinals legend making headlines with rival organization

The St. Louis Cardinals have been a national story so far in the 2026 season, outperforming the low preseason expectations to be over .500 through the season's first month. This year came with the promise of minor league development, and while Memphis has been off to a strong start as well, another prospect with Cardinal ties has been making his way through the social media space thanks to his own solid beginning to the campaign.

Mason McGwire, son of St. Louis home run king, is making waves in the Cubs minor league system

Mark "Big Mac" McGwire revitalized baseball during a dark time for the league, and Busch Stadium has a section renamed after the landing spot of many of his 220 home runs. McGwire, along with Cubs great Sammy Sosa, provided summer highlights in 1998 during the "Race for the Record" that eventually ended with McGwire first beating Roger Maris' homerun record before finishing with a stunning 70 long balls that season. Regardless of the potential scandals that revolved around those two, there is little doubt the Summer of '98 helped the game get back in good graces with fans and now, the next era of McGwire is moving up the ladder in hopes of making his own headlines.

Mason McGwire, Mark's son, has been a member of the Chicago Cubs organization when the north siders selected him in the 8th round of the 2022 draft. Unlike his father, McGwire is a pitcher so his success will be keeping the ball in the ballpark rather than watching them fly over the wall. Coming out of high school, McGwire did not make his professional debut until the following season and struggled to keep the ball in play, giving up over a homer per game while putting up a 9.42 ERA over 11 games and 35 innings. He was able to strike out slightly over a batter an inning, but his command was atrocious, totaling a 7.39 BB/9 and driving his season-long WHIP to 2.18.

The struggles continued into 2024 with McGwire at least trimming his ERA to 5.71 over 15 games, but the command issues remained and his strikeout rate dropped to an alarming 6.59 K/9. The righty missed the entire 2025 season due to injury, and the time off to rebuild his strength and mechanics has actually paid dividends. So far in 2026, McGwire has a minuscule 0.90 ERA, doubled his strikeout rate from the year before, and improved his command to a still high but more serviceable 4.50 BB/9.

Encouraging for McGwire is the fact that he has not yet allowed a homer over his first 10 innings and is allowing less than one batter per inning. While the ERA under 1.00 looks great, he has still walked five batters and hit another while allowing three total runs, but two were unearned. McGwire is still just in Single-A for the Cubs, but now at the age of 22, it will be interesting to see the next step the Cubs take in his development in the eventual hope of seeing him in the majors.

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