Ranking the 10 most valuable Cardinals who will define their future

#10 - LHP Quinn Mathews

Previous Rankings: Sept. '25 - #8, May '25 - #8

It's been a rollercoaster ride with Quinn Mathews, and while he's not as exciting as someone like Franklin or has the Major League track record of a McGreevy, he is a good mix of close to MLB-ready and having real swing-and-miss upside that the Cardinals' rotation is currently missing.

The Cardinals' big league rotation currently ranks 29th in baseball with a 16.7 K%, just 0.1% better than the last-place Colorado Rockies. Their K-BB% ratio is also in the bottom five in baseball, and when it comes to generating swinging strikes in general, they are historically bad for this century.

Mathews has command issues that he needs to get under control (no pun intended) before he can step foot on a big league mound, but once he does, he has that swing and miss the Cardinals are craving.

Through his first five starts in Memphis entering Saturday, Mathews has struck out 32.2% of the batters he has faced, and while he hasn't been getting them to expand the zone all that often, they are whiffing on 33.8% of the pitches he throws. Opposing hitters are posting just a .163 xBA and .285 xSLG, so they really aren't hitting the ball well off him either. He just needs to quit giving up the free passes, as he's walked 19.5% of the batters he has faced in 2026.

On Saturday, Mathews made his fourth start of the year, striking out seven batters across five innings, allowing just one run on a leadoff homer while walking another three batters and surrendering just two hits.

Mathews throws a fastball that sits around 94 MPH and mixes in a sinker as well as the same velocity, with his go-to off-speed and breaking ball offerings being his whipe out change up and his slider. The change-up is his best pitch, with his slider also grading out as an above-average offering.

While 2025 was a rough year for Mathews, he did win Minor League Pitcher of the Year in 2024 for practically every major outlet due to his rise across four minor league levels and striking out over 200 batters in the process. It won't be too long before Mathews can start striking big league hitters out for the Cardinals' rotation, and he'll mark the first in a wave of exciting arms that the Cardinals can build around long-term.

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