Minors 2026 rotations

I believe there’s going to be a lot more tandems/piggybacking so the name of the starter doesn’t really matter as he will be paired with someone else who goes just as many innings. The organization is in a situation where both it almost has to do this and probably should do it to try to gain a competitive advantage. 2 piggybackers going 4-5 innings every 5 days and then a few true firemen relievers and 1 inning absorber reliever is as good of path forward as any when you look at the combination of stuff and injury history that we have collected. I’d still expect a hand selected few guys to remain true 5-8 inning starting pitchers. In our minor’s system, those are likely to be Matthews, Doyle, Henderson, and Lin (and perhaps a few others).

This is what I believe should happen. And I think there’s a good chance now it finally will happen.

It does open up more options when you only have to go 4 innings. Guys like Bedell and Saladin come back into play plus you could stretch out more relief-only guys who have 3 pitches or more. The advantage to doing this is you plan to just face a lineup a maximum of 2 times through the order. Almost all pitchers do their best the first or second time through an order. In this way you protect your “starter” from the curse of the third time through a lineup. The disadvantage is you may be forced into having someone like Bedell taking 4 innings. But heck, he’s probably pitching that anyway out of the bullpen across a 5-game stretch, but now it is all at one time.

If you find guys who can effectively make this work well, especially 2 guys who play well off each other, then you eventually move this to the Major Leagues with 1 or 2 tandems to start.

I understand, but there are only so many rotation spots and sometimes deserving guys have to wait. Otherwise, McGreevy would have been in the Cardinals starting five all year long instead of repeating Memphis for the first half of his third year at Triple-A.

I don’t agree that if Hence is ready to start for Memphis, that Hansen should take priority. Then again, if you had said that it is time to move Hence to the pen and try to get something out of him, I probably would have agreed. But with what we know right now, Hence is still a starter and his 40-man option years clock is ticking. They have to make it a priority to get him going somehow.

The Cardinals placed Hence on the Memphis roster coming into 2025, so they clearly thought he was ready. But then he was hurt in spring camp and when he came back just before Memorial Day, he worked his way into form at all four levels below Memphis (which was a first in my memory). He only logged 10 2/3 innings with Springfield before his season ended early (on July 3).

In 2026, will he be ready to go with no restrictions when camp opens? Even if we are told yes, would we believe it? I was at his last spring start, when he was pulled after one inning. The next day, a Cardinals official assured me that Hence was just “under the weather”. From there, he didn’t throw in a game again for almost 2 1/2 months!

Based on his 40-man roster status, he will report to big league camp. That is about all we can count on.

STL starting 5 guesses anyone?

1) Gavin Williams – Donnie, Jojo, Noot trade, controlled 4 more years
2) Cody Ponce -3/24M, 7/10/7 with 2M B/O or $12m option for 2029)
3) Dustin May -2/24, 10/14 and 1m B/O or 15M option for 2028
4) Libby
5) McGreevy
6) Leahy
7) Mathews/Mautz/Henderson
154) Nelly
155) Pugs
156) Brian Walton
157) Larry the cable Guy
158) Pallante

Joking there at the end, but that could be a non-embarrassing rotation.

Mud and all, are you thinking Thompson is still a starter? I was almost certain because of the truncated time table for him he would be in the Springfield or Memphis bullpen. Literally just curious.

I could be way off on that though and hadn’t put much thought into it.