More Cuts, More Clarity

As spring starts to wind down, the 2026 Cardinals roster becomes clearer

The Cardinals played two games this weekend—at least that’s what we were told because neither one of them was actually televised, which should be against some sort of law really, because the weekend games are when I can actually watch—and then sent down another batch of players. The cuts (from the major league roster, not the organization—you know this, I know this, but as David said last week on Gateway, you gotta be careful with some folks) were fairly expected in all aspects but they are still worth discussing. So let’s do roster post 4.0 and see how things look.

Catcher (3): Ivan Herrera, Pedro Pages, Yohel Pozo

Herrera is supposed to be back behind the plate on Tuesday, I believe, but that means there are only seven more games before the bell sounds on Opening Day, including the game in Springfield. I’d guess, at most, Herrera catches four of those games unless there has been news to the contrary. It’s going to be a while before Herrera is the “regular” catcher, though he’ll be behind the plate regularly and the early off days (every Thursday until the end of April) will help him get some rest as well. Pozo’s got a chance to prove his worth until Herrera can show he’ll catch more than 50% of the time.

Infield (5): Alec Burleson, Nolan Gorman, Ramon Urias, JJ Wetherholt, Masyn Winn

Utility (1): Jose Fermin

With Urias getting back on the field this week, it doesn’t feel like he’ll be a IL candidate to start the season, though that’s still a possibility. It’s also not likely they are going to just outright cut him even though they’ve not seen much of him. Gorman has done better this spring than expected, but we have to 1) wait to see if that holds and 2) still need insurance at third anyway.

The interesting thing, of course, is how do they get Wetherholt onto the 40-man since it is full and he needs a spot. It wouldn’t be too surprising to see them return Matthew Pushard to the Marlins and free up a spot that way. Pushard hasn’t had a ton of success this spring, but he does have seven strikeouts to two walks in his 5.2 innings. Let’s assume that, since they are developing talent this season, they keep him. (It’s also possible that they work out a trade for his rights so he could go to Memphis, but that isn’t terribly likely.)

My guess here is that Cesar Prieto, who has already been demoted and doesn’t have a clear path to the big leagues, probably gets the short stick. It’s very possible he’d clear waivers and wind up in Memphis, but hopefully someone that has a potential need would grab him.

You’ll note no Thomas Saggese. After listening to Oli Marmol Friday about how to deal with people coming back from the WBC and Italy’s deeper run (and less use of Sags) than expected, I believe they’ll send him to Memphis for at least a couple of weeks to let him get back into regular rhythm.

Outfield (4): Nathan Church, Victor Scott II, Nelson Velazquez, Jordan Walker

We’re going to talk about spring stats even though we shouldn’t talk about spring stats. Church has been one of the more consistent hitters in the spring and he always felt like at least the backup to VS2. Now he may have played himself into a lot of time in left field as well, at least in the early going.

Velazquez has been the big threat of camp. He leads the team in home runs and hits (and is third in at bats, which plays a part), and has an OPS closing in on 1.200. Given the need for right-handed power, putting him on the roster makes sense.

But how? Like Wetherholt, a 40-man spot needs to be cleared for him. Given the fact that Lars Nootbaar still hasn’t even really started baseball activities (or at least not many of them), I’m wondering if they don’t put him on the 60-day IL to start the season and create that 40-man spot that way. You’d have to think that Noot needs at least a week or more in the minors on a rehab assignment, so it depends on how close he really is to being in game shape and cleared for those kind of situations. Alternatively, someone like Tekoah Roby, who might be in a similar situation, could go on there. Otherwise, it’s probably someone like Nick Raquet, Patron Pitcher of the Blog, who would get the ax.

There’s a lot of talk about Jordan Walker starting in the minors, which is an understandable thought. However, similarly it seems like there’s not much good that can come of it. He’ll either crush not-ready-for-prime-time pitching and then struggle again on a callup or struggle there and really cause problems. With the demotion of Joshua Baez, a move that is wise and helps avoid some of the “fall in love in spring” issues that might have detoured Walker’s career, there’s not a clear replacement either. Hopefully these couple of days in the hitting lab will help and I wonder if that might be something that they do a lot of during the season, giving him extra days here and there to work with the coaches, video, etc. to try to keep him on track.

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Starting pitchers (5): Kyle Leahy, Matthew Liberatore, Dustin May, Michael McGreevy, Andre Pallante

Richard Fitts is making this still a discussion, but given the fact that the Cards aren’t going to go with a six man rotation early in the season, it’s hard to see how any of these guys fall out. I’ve been notoriously skeptical about the transition of Leahy to the rotation, but he’s shown enough in spring and the powers that be are very interested in seeing if this will work. Pallante is looking much more like the pitcher we saw in 2024 than the one we saw in 2025. Throw in all your spring caveats, because that’s fair, but it’s at least something and given everything, he’s going to get the chance to prove it’s a real change or show that it’s not.

There’s a real chance we’re going to be really fired up about Dustin May, especially in the early going. I’m excited to get to see him pitch.

Relievers (8): Justin Bruhil, Riley O’Brien, Matt Pushard, JoJo Romero, Chris Roycroft, George Soriano, Ryne Stanek, Matt Svanson

With Gordon Graceffo having options, I feel like they’ll run this to start. It’s just as likely, though, that they flip him and Roycroft. Marmol had some good things to say about Roycroft but that doesn’t mean that he’s on the roster. The six scoreless innings this spring, with six strikeouts, for Roycroft while Graceffo has only had two innings might have more weight. Either way, they’ll both find plenty of travel time between Memphis and St. Louis.

I still believe they keep Soriano after making the deal to bring him in, especially with the spring he is having. Pushard, the numbers would indicate that he’s still worth keeping around and this winter has been all about talent acquisition. Until push comes to shove, I think they keep him.

Of course, that does mean that there’s only two, maybe three spots (if Svanson doesn’t look like the guy we saw last year) that have any flexibility. There won’t be a lot of churn in the bullpen this year, I don’t think. There’s just going to be a lot of opportunities to find out what these guys are made of.

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At the end of January, I had a goal to reach 350 subscribers by Opening Day. We reached that about a week or so ago, which made me pretty happy. Then Friday’s post happened and suddenly we are now over 420. My thanks to all of you that are clicked the subscribe button over the last couple of days. I hope that, now that you’ve gotten a real post from me rather than the excellent info from Oli Marmol, that you won’t actually unsubscribe, but I would understand if so.

While I do miss talking it over with my good friend Allen Medlock each week on Musial, it’s been a lot of fun getting to talk with the great run of guests that have been on since January. The last couple were fellow Substacker Dayn Perry, who you should be reading already, and Fangraphs writer Ben Clemens, who started off our run of Bens with style. Both of those guys are Cardinals fans that have jobs that have them focusing on all 30 teams, so it’s a bit of an outsider view on the team, which is good to have. This coming week we have the Cardinals Off Day crew (Ben, Ben, and Dan, so it’ll at least be even up with names) and the week after the Talking About Birds guys will have me on the day before Opening Day and then they’ll join me the day after. Gateway continues to roll along, as David and I just finished recording this week’s show.

Also, mainly for the new folks that haven’t seen me mention this regularly, the Lenten Star Wars devotionals are still coming out daily. We’re just over halfway to Easter!

The reading pile continues to grow. I’m making slow but steady progress on the Prospect Guide from Brian Walton and Kyle Reis, not because of the writing but because I haven’t just sat down and plowed through it. What I have read is wonderful.

Joe Sheehan recommended The Gods of New York in his newsletter recently, so I downloaded that and the author’s previous work, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning. Both look very interesting but I haven’t actually cracked them open yet. They join like about 40 other unread books on my Kindle. I really need to set aside like a week to do nothing but read.

Not really watching any shows right now. With tax season and everything else, there’s not just a lot of time in the day. I started Poker Face and it was pretty interesting, so I hope to get back to it maybe after April 15.

We are just over three weeks away from the first episodes of Maul: Shadow Lord, the next Star Wars Animation offering. That should be a lot of fun, because Sam Witwer really does a great job with Maul and it will be interesting to see them fill in a few of the years between his loss to Darth Sidious in The Clone Wars and his cameo in Solo.

We’re also about two months from The Mandalorian and Grogu and the newest trailers make that look more like a movie and less like TV characters on a biggers screen. If nothing else, it will be good to go back to the theater for Star Wars again.