St. Louis Cardinals prospect Ian Bedell moves up to Triple-A Memphis

St. Louis Cardinals pitching prospects have been in the news this month. Cooper Hjerpe reached Double-A Springfield, and Adam Kloffenstein will make his MLB debut. Despite a rocky start to the season, right-handed pitcher Ian Bedell, the 18th-ranked prospect in the Cardinals system, was promoted on Thursday to Triple-A Memphis.

The righty's rise has been incredible after he battled through the minor-league baseball shutdown in 2020 and Tommy John surgery in 2021. Last season, Bedell was the Midwest League Pitcher of the Year. This offseason, Bedell was not picked up by any team in the Rule 5 Draft, which allowed him to stay with the Cardinals organization, much to his delight, as he was a St. Louis Cardinals fan growing up in Davenport, Iowa. 

On May 24th, Bedell sat with a 1-2 record and an ERA over six after he pitched five innings against Tulsa, giving up three home runs and seven earned runs. Since that dreadful start in May, Bedell appears to have found a recipe for success. 

One of the keys to Bedell’s improvement this season has been how he developed a cutter off of his slider. On June 9th against Arkansas, Bedell set a new career-high in strikeouts with 11 Ks. That cutter was in full effect, as Bedell explained in the Springfield Daily-Citizen after his double-digit strikeout performance.

""Over the last month or so it’s been a lot better. I’ve found that I have to treat it more like a slider in my head. There’s a little bit of trial and error with that, but having three or four pitches that I can throw to both sides of the plate has been good.”"

- Ian Bedell

Given the obstacles Bedell faced up to this point in his professional baseball career, this is phenomenal news for him and the Cardinals' Player Development front. The Memphis Redbirds have a talented pitcher coming up with a brilliant arsenal of pitches.