Tekoah Roby looks primed to be Cardinals breakout star of 2027 season

Tekoah Roby is on a mission right now in the Arizona Fall League, and with each scoreless outing he spins, it's getting harder and harder not to be very excited about what he can bring to the St. Louis Cardinals in 2027.

In his first game action since July 2025, Roby has spun 9.2 scoreless innings of baseball in the Arizona Fall League, striking out 13 hitters while allowing just a 0.72 WHIP and .171 batting average against in his three appearances. Roby is not only back, but he may be pitching better than he ever has before.

Roby, 25, missed the back half of the 2025 season and the entire 2026 campaign due to his recovery from Tommy John surgery, and I think many people have forgotten just how good Roby was looking prior to the injury. In 16 starts at Memphis, Roby had posted a 3.10 ERA while striking out 87 batters in 78.1 innings of work. In his final four starts before his season ended, Roby had a 0.86 ERA over 21 innings of work. He was pitching so well that The Athletic's Keith Law said he was considering putting Roby in his top 60 prospects in the entire sport.

With the way Roby is pitching right now, he may very well skyrocket up lists this winter ahead of what should be an early season MLB debut with the Cardinals

Tekoah Roby could be a huge difference maker in Cardinals 2027 rotation

In his return to the mound, Roby's fastball has even more life on it, sitting in the mid-to-upper 90s, exploding on hitters in a way that makes it really difficult to react to his hammer curveball when he drops that pick. Along with those two pitches, Roby boasts an above-average to plus slider and a changeup that may now be closer to above-average as well. As his command continues to be refined, he is showing all of the tools to not just start at the big league level, but to be a higher-end starter as well.

Being an "ace" in today's game is such a subjective and lofty term, but Roby really does have the ability to be a front-of-the-rotation starter that the Cardinals haven't had internally in quite some time. Roby, alongside recently debuted arms like Quinn Mathews and Cooper Hjerpe, boasts upside that can truly change the outlook of the Cardinals at the Major League level very quickly.

Roby is likely to have limitations in terms of pitch count and innings in 2027 due to his recovery, but I would imagine the Cardinals still want to push him enough that by 2028, the gloves can come off as much as possible. They could look to integrate some sort of piggyback system, where Roby and Hjerpe pitch together every fifth day to get them both length and give the Cardinals' bullpen a day to rest. They could also just let either or both guys start games like normal for most of the year, and then scale back toward the end of the year as they did with Kyle Leahy.

The point is, the Cardinals have another dynamic arm on his way, and then more following in Liam Doyle, Tanner Franklin, Jurrangelo Cijntje, Brandon Clarke, and Jacob Odle, alongside other potential starters like Mason Molina, Ixan Henderson, Braden Davis, and more.

Back to Roby. If he's able to hit the ground running and impact the Cardinals rotation the way his stuff has the potential to in 2027, he could almost immediately become one of, if not the best, starter in the Cardinals rotation. And pair that with a full season of Mathews, however they utilize Hjerpe, and then the arrival of some of those other arms later in the season, the Cardinals rotation could quickly go from a pretty good unit to one that is pretty scary by the end of the 2027 season.

And that's what makes Roby such an X-factor for the Cardinals. Not just that he can be a major contributor quickly, but that he may be able to help change how we view their upside as a team as soon as next year, and really change how people view the club heading into 2028.

Roby's buzz may feel like it's premature or coming out of nowhere, but I'd argue it's just been on pause and muted because of his injury and so many exciting things happening down on the farm. Had Roby not gone down with his injury, I bet we are all talking about how dynamic he looked for St. Louis this year. Instead, we get to see him debut in 2027, and he will quickly remind fans why the club wanted him all the way back in 2023 in the Jordan Montgomery trade.

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