The Cardinals are finally prepared to end this mind-boggling cycle in 2026

For years now, the St. Louis Cardinals have been relying heavily on veteran arms to patchwork their starting rotation. Whether it's relying too heavily on an aging star like Adam Wainwright, continuing to extend a fading starter in Miles Mikolas, adding free agents like Sonny Gray, Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn, Steven Matz, and Wade LeBlanc, or trading for Jose Quintana, Erick Fedde, Jon Lester, and J.A. Happ, we've seen many veterans arms try to stablize the Cardinals rotation.

In recent years, St. Louis has spent a ton of money on their rotation, but yielded mediocre results at best. Since 2022, the Cardinals rotation ranks 25th in all of baseball in ERA (4.50) but has received 406 starts from arms they traded for or acquired via free agency. That's 63% of their starts coming from arms they have to invest real money into, and they've still been a bottom-five rotation.

Now, I'm confident in saying that the Cardinals didn't want to build their rotation that way. Did they make mistakes along the way? 100%, and they could have handled their growing arms issue in a much better way, but part of the reason they kept going back to the well of veteran starters was because of their lack of reliable young arms in the system. When Andre Pallante is second in games started since 2022 and first among internal arms, that's a major problem.

Jack Flaherty never regained his 2019 form; Dakota Hudson was as flawed as people feared; and top prospects like Alex Reyes and, until recently, Matthew Liberatore didn't live up to expectations. And we all remember the attempts to make guys like Jake Woodford, Drew Rom, and Zack Thompson work in the rotation.

With 2026 just around the corner, though, the Cardinals are finally set to change this frustrating narrative and give ample opportunity to their young arms.

The Cardinals are finally going to rely heavily on young starting pitchers in 2026.

As things currently stand, the Cardinals' Opening Day rotation will likely be made up of some combination of Dustin May, Matthew Liberatore, Michael McGreevy, Richard Fitts, Hunter Dobbins, Kyle Leahy, Andre Pallante, and hopefully, at some point, prospects like Quinn Mathews, Brycen Mautz, Ixan Henderson, Cooper Hjerpe, Sem Robberse, and Tink Hence.

Only one of those starters (May) is on a free-agent contract, and even he is just 28 years old. McGreevy, Fitts, and Dobbins all have five or more years of team control, Leahy is not arbitration eligible until next year, and Liberatore and Pallante are in the early stages of arbitration.

In 2022, the Cardinals spent $57 million on their rotation through arbitration, extensions, and free agent deals.
In 2023, they spent $66 million on their rotation.
In 2024, that spending rose to $71 million,
And in 2025, they still managed to spend $63 million on that group.

In 2026, the Cardinals have just $18 million committed to May, Liberatore, and Pallante through free agency and arbitration, and while they may still add another veteran starter to the mix, that total investment likely won't crack $30 million this year.

Yes, some of this is cost-cutting measures, and no, I'm not advocating for the Cardinals to stop spending on their rotation in the future. But if they want to fix their pitching problem, they have to get back to developing a stable of young arms they can rely on, not filling almost every spot in their rotation with expensive veterans.

Doing so will eventually mean the Cardinals have impact starters on cost-controlled deals, and when they do go to add pitching from the outside, they could actually invest in high-end arms because they aren't having to add three or more free agent starters throughout the year. Those $10 million to $20 million deals for middle- or back-of-the-rotation starters add up, and they restrict the Cardinals' ability to spend on higher-end talent. Unless the Cardinals are going to start spending like the Dodgers or Mets, they have to have young pitching at their disposal.

So the Cardinals' 2026 rotation will feature a ton of cost-controlled, young starting pitching. There will likely be stretches, hopefully not frequent ones, where that group really struggles. But hopefully, we'll also get to see a few of those arms, or maybe even more, step up and produce in a way that is really encouraging.

While 2025 was a "reset" year for the Cardinals' position player group, 2026 will reset the Cardinals' failing cycle of spending on their rotation. There aren't many high-upside options in the group we'll see this year, but they do present Chaim Bloom with a chance to build a base for their rotation moving forward and depth of pitching they can turn to in a long 162-game campaign. And in 2027 and 2028, we'll start to see some of their more exciting arms like Liam Doyle, Brandon Clarke, Tekoah Roby, Tanner Franklin, and more start to make their marks as well.