Ranking the 10 most valuable young players in the St. Louis Cardinals organization

#8 - Quinn Mathews

The second-best prospect in the Cardinals' farm system, according to most publications, Quinn Mathews, broke out in a huge way for the Cardinals last year, winning minor league pitcher of the year honors from most of those same prospect outlets.

A fourth-round pick in the 2023 MLB Draft out of Stanford, Mathews added significant velocity to his repertoire, and it paid off in a major way. Across four minor league levels and 26 starts, Mathews posted a 2.76 ERA with 202 strikeouts in just 143.1 innings of work. He looked every bit like a top 50 prospect in baseball, and that's where he finds himself ranked now.

The lefty revealed at Winter Warm-Up this year that baseball really wasn't his plan until he was drafted. Mathews wanted to be an investment banker and was equally invested in developing that side of his future while at Stanford. Since becoming a pro, he's poured his full self into baseball, revealing gears he could get to that he was unable to before.

Mathews has front-line upside while also having the strength and endurance to be an innings-eater on the mound. He's only the second minor league pitcher since 2012 to strike out over 200 batters in a season, and a major reason for why is because of how many innings he was able to cover while dominating on the mound.

The Cardinals have struggled to develop starting pitching for years now, and while the tide is turning in that department, Mathews blossoming at the Major League level would be a massive piece of truly changing the narrative.

Mathews has missed significant time already this year due to a shoulder injury, but appears to be returning to action in the near future. While he struggled quite a bit to begin the year at Triple-A, it would make sense that the shoulder played a big role in that, but he'll need to prove he's back to his form when he's on the mound again. If he can do so, Mathews should make his MLB debut sometime this year.