{"id":95491,"date":"2025-02-12T10:41:31","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T15:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=95491"},"modified":"2025-02-12T10:41:31","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T15:41:31","slug":"cardinals-top-pitching-prospect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/02\/12\/cardinals-top-pitching-prospect\/","title":{"rendered":"Promising Pitcher in the Cardinals’ Farm System on the Verge of Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

St. Louis Cardinals top pitching prospect Quinn Mathews<\/a> rose through four Minor League levels in 2024 before finishing the year in Triple A. Now, as Spring Training begins, he is a non-roster invitee to the big-league warmup. Mathews is poised to break into the Majors in 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Promising Pitcher in the Cardinals’ Farm System on the Verge of Success<\/h2>\n

A Stellar 2024 Campaign<\/h3>\n

Mathews was named the 2024 pitching prospect of the year in the Minor League’s postseason awards.<\/a> The left-handed pitcher finished the season with a 2.76 ERA in 143 1\/3 innings across four levels. He was the second pitcher since 2011 to break the 200-strikeout plateau in the minor leagues. Brandon Pfaadt accomplished it in 2022.<\/p>\n

Mathews finished second in strikeout rate (35.4 percent), fourth in average-against (.179), and seventh in WHIP (0.98) across the minor leagues. The performance earned him the Cardinals organization’s top minor league pitching award for 2024. The 24-year-old is 45th in the MLB’s Top 100<\/a> prospects and the fourth-ranked left-handed pitcher.<\/p>\n

While Mathews acknowledged that the awards honored him, he said they didn’t do much for him. He insisted that excellent catching play in the minors and good defense helped him shine. Mathews told reporters at the Cardinals “Winter Warmup” press conference that he was far more focused on his struggles in his final four starts of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was pretty fresh on the mind that I\u2019m not as good as I think I am, and I need to get back to work,” Mathews said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Working Towards Improving in the Offseason<\/h3>\n

In the 2023 offseason, Mathews focused on his velocity. He told reporters he is more focused on building his body up to withstand a long MLB season. The 2023 fourth-round pick said it was an adjustment for him from the shorter college season. He felt like he lost steam when September came around. His workouts this offseason have focused on gaining steam at the end of the season rather than losing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do I get seven or eight more weeks out of my body. Not only at the level I was maintaining, but at a higher level. Because that time of year is when the most important baseball is being played,” Mathews told reporters last month.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mathews has also homed in on one of his secondary pitches. He’s worked on his curveball this offseason. Mathews told reporters he felt it lost something towards the end of the season. He keeps it sharp to add the necessary fourth pitch to his arsenal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t need it to be my best pitch, but I need it to be competitive and usable to get strikes,” Mathews said. “Especially early in counts, so I don\u2019t have to throw one of my better secondaries or even my fastball as often. Just because you have an offering with a little more depth, that can also help the fastball play off of it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mathews Pathway to the Show<\/h3>\n

For Mathews to get to St. Louis in 2025, he needs to move up the depth chart or take an opportunity if it opens by trade or injury. Ahead of him on the Cardinals roster are four veteran starters returning in 2025. Sonny Gray, Miles Mikolas, Erick Fedde, and Steven Matz<\/a> are still on the team. However, there is a good chance one or both of the latter two gets traded<\/a> at some point during the season.<\/p>\n

Also ahead of Mathews are young pitchers who appear to have earned a spot on the rotation. Andre Pallante<\/a> filled in very well as a starter in 2024 and is poised to keep that spot. Michael McGreevy<\/a> flashed brilliance in his limited run towards the end of last season. At best, Mathews appears to be seventh in line for a chance at five starting spots. However, Mathews insists he’s not focused on how he can pass the others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe expectation is to go out this season and hopefully help the St. Louis Cardinals win as many games as possible. If that\u2019s out of spring training or at the end of the season when they need me as a fresh arm to come up,” Mathews said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Cardinals are focused on giving youth a chance<\/a> in 2025. They cleared the way in their pitching staff by letting several veterans hit free agency<\/a> this offseason. Mathews, though, is focused on pitching the best he can, regardless of the level of the organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe expectation for myself is to go out there and throw as many good innings as I can that day or whatever\u2019s expected of me. And that\u2019s the same approach this year,” Mathews said. “You can\u2019t make the game any bigger than it is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Photo Credits: Steven Branscombe-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

St. Louis Cardinals top pitching prospect Quinn Mathews rose through four Minor League levels in 2024 before finishing the year in Triple A. Now, as Spring Training begins, he is a non-roster invitee to the big-league warmup. Mathews is poised to break into the Majors in 2025. Promising Pitcher in the Cardinals’ Farm System on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5111,"featured_media":95496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1071],"tags":[6421,3826,391,4913,1800,28546,650,895,168,684],"class_list":["post-95491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardinals","category-mlb","tag-andre-pallante","tag-brandon-pfaadt","tag-erick-fedde","tag-michael-mcgreevy","tag-miles-mikolas","tag-quinn-mathews","tag-sonny-gray","tag-spring-training","tag-st-louis-cardinals","tag-steven-matz"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95491"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95497,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95491\/revisions\/95497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}