Quinn Mathews is being slept on as impact arm for Cardinals rotation

Prospect fatigue is a real thing. After Quinn Mathews dominated minor league baseball in 2024, his rough 2025 campaign seemed to pour cold water on the excitement surrounding him. And even as Mathews excelled at Triple-A this season, it also felt like people didn't have much of a vision for what he could become.

The start to Mathews' big league career has been underplayed compared to the success we've seen from fellow rookies JJ Wetherholt, Leo Bernal, and Joshua Baez. Through Mathews first seven starts, he has a 3.62 ERA in 37.1 innings of work, and if you remove the start against the Phillies, where he had to "wear it" to help their bullpen, his ERA is just 2.77 in those 26 innings.

Mathews is set to toe the rubber for St. Louis again today, and it is hard to argue against him having the highest upside of any starter in their rotation right now. Even as more exciting arms start debuting, Mathews has all the talent necessary to be an impact starter for years to come.

Quinn Mathews could be a huge part of the Cardinals future

For as set as the Cardinals' lineup feels right now, the rotation has a lot more flux. There are plenty of arms who could end up being in that group, but few that you can confidently say will be "the guys" moving forward.

Mathews has legit strikeout stuff that the Cardinals rotation has missed in recent years. While that hasn't shown itself a ton at the Major League level yet (22.2 K% thus far), three of his seven starts so far have come with more strikeouts than innings pitched. As Mathews settles in more, those strikeouts will likely begin to stack up more like they did in the minors.

Mathews does struggle with walking batters, but in general, he's the type of arm who could consistently give the Cardinals 6+ innings of work while striking out enough hitters to keep opposing lineups honest. Mathews' slider and changeup have been his best pitches so far, and they have the ability to create a lot of swing-and-miss moving forward.

Mathews seems to have been pigeonholed into a back-of-the-rotation mold pitcher, and while that certainly could be his future production-wise, his talent says he could be a really good number three starter or even a number two starter. Cardinals fans know firsthand how incredibly hard that is to find.

That's why I am confused as to why Mathews has not received more fanfare so far. That's not to say that other young players shouldn't have received more, but Mathews kind of seems like an afterthought at times, when his production has actually been a revelation. The Cardinals need more high-end pitching as they move forward,

Don't get me wrong, Michael McGreevy and Andre Pallante are nice pieces, plus Leahy and Cooper Hjerpe have high upside, but Mathews may be the surest bet right now to be a higher-end starter, and that's a huge deal for where the Cardinals are heading.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow