The pitching prospects that could be Cardinal surprises in 2026
The St. Louis Cardinals were remarkably healthy from a pitching perspective in 2025, with only Zack Thompson (during spring training) and John King being placed on the major league injured list at any point during the season.
That health contributed to an unusually stable staff; only 22 pitchers (and two position players) took the mound, including three who were traded at mid-season.
With stability came limited opportunities for surprises, and yet some still emerged.
Matt Svanson, an afterthought for much of spring training, led all Cardinals pitchers with 1.8 wins above replacement, and tossed the third-most innings out of the bullpen behind Kyle Leahy and JoJo Romero. Svanson had never pitched above Double-A entering the season, and he entered the offseason as a presumptive favorite to challenge for looks at the back end of the 2026 bullpen.
Looking through the team’s system can reveal some clues as to who might follow in his footsteps in 2026. With a team that is continuing to build more than it is seeking to push in all its chips, there will likely be ample opportunity for each of these three pitchers to go from obscurity to prominence in the coming season.
RHP Luis Gastelum, 24, Double-A Springfield
Gastelum was a rare, older free agent signing from Mexico in early 2023, and it immediately became clear that he had developed the sort of pitch that the Cardinals might broadly refer to as a superpower. Despite not being gifted with the sort of overwhelming velocity that is currently in vogue throughout baseball, Gastelum throws an absurd changeup that has dominated hitters at the lower levels.
With 92 strikeouts in 62 ⅔ innings for Springfield in 2025, Gastelum now has 191 in 140 minor league innings. That’s a small sample, but a big impact. He is not eligible for the Rule 5 draft until next winter, so there are some roster mechanics that will work against him. He’ll certainly be a non-roster invite for spring training, and his particular skillset represents the precise kind of arm the Cardinals have prioritized for looks against big league hitters in the past.
One interesting point of comparison is Andre Pallante, whose ascension to the majors was accelerated by virtue of the unique movement profile on his fastball. That profile has since seen big league hitters adjust, especially as he’s piled up innings as a starter, but it provides intrigue as a reliever. While his ERA of 4.02 was decidedly middle of the road, he was second on the S-Cards in strikeout to walk ratio. He trailed only Nick Raquet, who made his own unconventional rise to the big leagues by the end of the season.
RHP Austin Love, 26, Double-A Springfield
A third-round pick in the 2021 draft, Love came into the organization by perfectly typical means, and also suffered a perfectly typical fate for pitching prospects – he got hurt. He pitched only eight professional innings in his draft year after a full season at North Carolina, struggled to throw strikes as a 23-year-old at High-A Peoria in 2022, and then made just two starts in 2023 before that year and the next were wiped out by Tommy John surgery.
Healthy again last season and converted to a reliever, Love allowed just 15 earned runs in 56 bullpen innings for Springfield, making him their most durable pure reliever outside of Gastelum. His strikeout rate wasn’t nearly as impressive, but he too features a standout pitch – a wipeout slider that absolutely befuddled righties all season long. Same-handed hitters put up just a .106 batting average against Love in 2025, which draws attention.
Given his relatively advanced age and injury history, there’s little to lose in giving him an opportunity to be a contributor. One thing working against him, however, is roster rules; Love is Rule 5 eligible this winter, and the Cardinals will have fierce competition for protection spots. If they opt to gamble on floating him, there’s a chance he could end up in another organization.
LHP Oddanier Mosqueda, 26, Triple-A Memphis
As the Cardinals sought out support for the left side of the bullpen as the season wore on, there was some surprise that Mosqueda didn’t make his major league debut. Selected from the New York Yankees in the minor league phase of the 2024 Rule 5 draft, Mosqueda put up steady results for Memphis, albeit with a slight dip in his strikeout rate.
Mosqueda, though, spent the first seven seasons of his professional career in the Boston Red Sox organization, several of which saw Chaim Bloom at the helm. That the Cardinals snapped him up as minor league depth last winter came as little surprise; he was one of several players in the last two seasons with a Boston pedigree acquired in the same way.
Where Mosqueda stands out as an option is his pitch mix; he has two fastballs and two breaking balls that he uses in relatively equal proportion, which can be a benefit given the penalties which can attach when a reliever is seen multiple times by a hitter over a short stretch. The Redbirds doubled his curveball usage year over year and also introduced a changeup which took the place of some sinkers in his mix. That suggests they have an eye on how he can be deployed to help them against big league hitters, and familiarity with the decision makers never hurts.
