A look at top Cardinals prospects selected for Arizona Fall League
With the first significant transition in baseball operations leadership for the St. Louis Cardinals in nearly two decades will come some changes to how business is typically done.
Things that have been second nature and fair assumptions are bound to shift, and the collection of players sent to get work in at the Arizona Fall League represents one of those changes.
The league in general has seen a gradual shift which mirrors that of the Cardinals’ philosophy. Once considered the premiere “finishing school” for some of baseball’s top prospects, the AFL now is seemingly used more often by teams as an opportunity for extra work for players who might have had their seasons cut short by injury or about whom a parent club has some questions about where a player fits moving forward.
In 2022, the Cardinals sent all of Jordan Walker, Masyn Winn and Tink Hence to Arizona, as well as Kyle Leahy and Pedro Pagés, among others. That group represented a collection of top-notch talent with high hopes for the futures of all involved; Leahy, Walker and Winn would all debut the following season.
It would be somewhat of a surprise if any of the players who the Cardinals opted to send to the Glendale Desert Dogs this season made their way to St. Louis in 2026.
Pitchers Tyler Bradt, D.J. Carpenter, Randel Clemente, Chin-Wei Lin and Darlin Saladin were joined by catcher Graysen Tarlow and outfielders Travis Honeyman and Miguel Ugueto. None of the eight have yet reached as high in the system as Triple-A Memphis, and together they comprise a solid portion of the core of the 2025 High-A Peoria Chiefs.
Lin is the highest-ranked prospect of the bunch, currently listed 16th on the Cardinals’ Top 30 by MLB Pipeline. Signed two years ago as a free agent from Taiwan – one high ranking Cardinals official was pulled off the team’s trip to London to finalize the acquisition – the 6-foot, 7-inch, 23-year-old righty has leaned on an overpowering fastball to push up his strikeout rate.
Like so many other young pitchers, he has paired that with a ballooning walk rate that has to be controlled if he’s going to be a solid contributor at the big league level. He’s made three starts in the Fall League, though a typically conservative innings oversight regimen has limited him to just 7 ⅓ innings pitched, in which he’s struck out 11 and also walked five.
There will certainly be opportunities available in the Memphis rotation in 2026, given the pitching injuries at the minor league level throughout the season and the Triple-A club’s reliance on veterans in 2025. If Lin is able to pitch his way into that picture, it’s a good sign of what the future holds.
Perhaps the most impressive pitcher of the bunch has been Saladin, who has yet to allow a run and struck out 10 in his seven innings of relief work. His walk rate, as well, is somewhat high, and he struggled with that in his first full season at Peoria.
Like many other pitchers before him who have flashed strong stuff but also shown control issues, it’s possible that an adjustment from starting to relieving will allow him to truly thrive. That was tested in the minors last season, and given the preference to keep Lin in his starting routine, it’s possible the Cardinals seek to continue the same path.
None of Bradt, Carpenter and Clemente have posted much by way of exciting results, simply putting in their work and getting occasionally touched up, though in a hitters’ environment and with exceedingly small sample sizes.
Of the three position players, Travis Honeyman is by far the most interesting of the bunch.
Drafted in the third round in 2023, a significant shoulder injury wiped out all but 20 games of his first full pro season and saw him get a delayed start in 2025. He posted strong batting average and on base percentage totals for Low-A Palm Beach before a promotion to Peoria, and while he continued some of that trend at the higher level, he also displayed almost no power.
He tallied just seven extra base hits in 228 plate appearances for Peoria, and has followed that with a single Fall League homer. That homer is one of just two hits for Honeyman in 24 AFL at bats, as he’s been limited to part time duty.
Tarlow, a depth catcher who was also drafted in 2023, has shared time with two other backstops. That has resulted in just 23 plate appearances, though he flashed enough at the plate as high as Springfield in 2025 that he’s certain to receive his first invite to big league spring training.
Ugueto was selected from the Boston system in the minor league portion of last year’s Rule 5 draft, representing yet another prospect who slid over to St. Louis in the wake of Chaim Bloom’s ascension. He struggled at the plate across three levels this summer, though the fact that he was promoted so frequently is an indication of the tools the team believes he can display.
He has thus far validated that belief, tallying a .341 batting average as a full-time outfielder who’s been shuffled between right and left. He is also, crucially, a right-handed hitter. If he can carry over any of that success into the upper minors in 2026, he might find himself with a much faster path to the big leagues than his history might suggest.
