St. Louis Cardinals use Rule 5 draft to nab reliever from the Marlins
At the conclusion of a week spent working through trade options and seeking to maximize returns for any number of players on their major league roster, the St. Louis Cardinals added around the edges in Wednesday’s Rule 5 draft, selecting right-handed reliever Matt Pushard from the Miami Marlins.
Pushard, 28, is a native of Maine and alumnus of the University of Maine who spent six years pitching for the Black Bears before signing as an amateur free agent with Miami in 2022. He pitched in a multi-inning role for Triple-A Jacksonville in 2025, racking up 73 strikeouts in 62 ⅓ innings spread across 49 appearances.
Under the guidelines of the Rule 5 draft, Pushard must remain with the Cardinals in the big leagues for the duration of the 2026 season, or otherwise be offered back to the Marlins. He follows in the mold of other big-bodied righty relievers the Cardinals have leaned on for multi-inning appearances, joining a group that includes Andre Granillo, Matt Svanson and recent waiver claim Zak Kent.
The selection fills the team’s 40-player roster.
“Felt really good about our prep leading into this,” Cardinals assistant general manager Randy Flores said. “Behind the scenes, we saw a good collaboration across all the departments. Really came together.”
The Cardinals also lost a player in the major league phase of the draft, as the New York Yankees selected righty starter Cade Winquest. An eighth-round pick in 2022, Winquest made 23 starts last season for Double-A Springfield and High-A Peoria, posting a 3.99 ERA in 106 innings pitched.
“There’s a real cost to it in terms of you are devoting a 40-man roster spot to a player all off-season, even if he doesn’t make your club,” president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom said of his philosophy regarding the Rule 5 draft. “That is a commitment. There’s a lot of things you hope to take advantage of with 40-man flexibility, whether it’s even something as simple as the waiver wire, or being able to give a roster spot to somebody else in free agency who otherwise, you could separate yourself from a pack of teams offering a minor league contract.”
Pushard, then, represents a separation who the Cardinals believe could offer an important depth dimension to their current group. With plans to move Kyle Leahy from the bullpen to the starting rotation, depth in that area of the roster is valuable.
There is also the cold reality that the Cardinals are likely to enter 2026 with a largely inexperienced starting rotation, which could leave innings up for grabs on a daily basis. Multi-inning relievers, then, offer the ability to cover some of those innings without putting too much strain on the remainder of the pitching staff.
“When you have some less experienced starters that you’re going to try to support, you can’t just have one inning guys out there,” Bloom said. “Especially when you’re looking at someone in the Rule 5, if you’re going to put them on your team, you need to feel committed to at least trying to keep them, and it’s easier to do that if you have someone who can go multiple ups. Just gives the staff more options to be able to use them.”
In the Triple-A portion of the Rule 5 draft, St. Louis made one selection – another right-handed pitcher, Ryan Murphy, from the San Francisco Giants.
Murphy, 26, was third in all of minor league baseball in 2021 with 164 strikeouts in just 107 ⅓ innings, but has struggled with injuries in the interim. He made just 11 starts at Double-A in 2024 and pitched in only eight games (three starts) in 2025 before being sent to the Arizona Fall League to maximize his innings load.
The Cardinals also lost three players in the minor league phase of the draft – right-handed pitchers Sean Harney (Arizona) and Zane Mills (Chicago Cubs) and first baseman Matt Lloyd (Boston).
Brendan Donovan’s future
Action picked up to an extent as the winter meetings wound down on Wednesday, starting with Joe Buck being honored with the Ford C. Frick Award by the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Buck joins his father, Jack, as the first ever father-son duo to both be inducted to the broadcasting wing of the Hall. Cardinals longtime radio voice John Rooney was also a finalist.
Bloom’s Tuesday prediction was that business around the game would accelerate in earnest following the Rule 5 as teams no longer feel obliged to keep open roster spots for depth selections. The conclusion of the week, too, has historically played a role in pushing teams closer together for trades, laying on just enough extra pressure for the completion of business.
Brendan Donovan continues to be among the most popular players on the trade market, and JoJo Romero’s potential suitors are also beginning to crystallize as similar relievers, such as Gregory Soto, sign free agent deals. Romero, Donovan, Nolan Arenado and others are all likely to play significant roles in the immediate future of Cardinals roster construction, as the depth acquired for those players fills out a minor league system in the process of being reconfigured.
Cardinals executives departed the meetings on Wednesday without having consummated any transactions other than the Rule 5 shuffle, but remained optimistic that the market would soon loosen up. It can always, as the saying goes, happen with one phone call – the culmination of many, many other phone calls establishing a baseline. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman told reporters early Wednesday that the market was moving at a “glacial” pace; that is not a shared opinion in St. Louis.
“That is not how it has felt to me,” Bloom said with a grin. “To some degree, it’s binary. You either have something or you don’t. Right now, we don’t.”
Not yet, anyway.