The Cardinals are taking a calculated swing on right-hander Dustin May, signing the 28-year-old to a one-year deal with a mutual option for 2027. It’s a move that speaks to both need and upside for a St. Louis club that’s been reshuffling its rotation after a flurry of departures.
May, once one of the most electric young arms in the Dodgers' system, is coming off a rollercoaster 2025 season that saw him split time between Los Angeles and Boston. He set career highs in both innings pitched (132 1/3) and appearances (25), but the results weren’t exactly pretty. A 4.96 ERA tells part of the story, and while his underlying metrics - xFIP and SIERA - hovered in the mid-4.00s, they didn’t offer much comfort.
Still, for a Cardinals team that lost Sonny Gray via trade and saw Miles Mikolas walk in free agency, May represents a much-needed arm with some untapped potential. Steven Matz also left for Tampa Bay, leaving St.
Louis scrambling to piece together a rotation. May joins a group that currently includes Andre Pallante and Michael McGreevy, with Richard Fitts - acquired in the Gray deal - likely in the mix.
The club is also weighing a possible conversion of Kyle Leahy into a starter.
May’s path to this point has been anything but straightforward. Drafted by the Dodgers in the third round back in 2016, he quickly rose through the ranks as one of the more intriguing arms in a loaded farm system.
He debuted in 2019, mostly working out of the bullpen, and showed flashes of brilliance during the shortened 2020 season, when he made 10 starts and posted a sub-3.00 ERA. But injuries became a recurring theme.
From 2021 to 2023, he logged just 20 games combined, and he missed all of 2024 recovering from flexor tendon surgery.
This past season marked his first real stretch of sustained health, and while the results didn’t always pop, the workload was a step forward. Before 2025, May had never thrown more than 56 innings in a season.
This year, he more than doubled that. It’s a sign that his body might finally be ready to handle the demands of a full season - something that’s been missing from his profile since his debut.
May’s stuff has never been in question. He features a high-octane fastball that sits in the mid-to-upper 90s and a high-spin sweeper that has made its rounds on pitching highlight reels.
The issue? The results don’t always match the eye test.
Despite his arsenal, May has never consistently missed bats. His career swinging-strike rate sits at just 8.8%, and none of his five pitches has stood out as a true strikeout weapon.
He did flash elite strikeout upside in a brief 2021 stint, posting a 37.6% K-rate over five games, but outside of that, he’s hovered around league average. In 2025, he posted a 21.1% strikeout rate between the Dodgers and Red Sox.
The Cardinals are clearly banking on a few things breaking right: improved health, a full offseason of recovery, and perhaps a tweak or two to unlock more swing-and-miss from a pitch mix that looks better than it performs. If they hit on even two of those three, May could be a valuable mid-rotation arm - or better.
This signing also fits a broader pattern for St. Louis this offseason: adding arms with upside and something to prove. May doesn’t come without risk - his injury history and inconsistent results are well-documented - but for a team in transition, he offers a blend of experience, potential, and affordability that makes him a worthwhile gamble.
At 28, May still has time to rewrite the narrative. The Cardinals are giving him that chance - and if he can finally pair his raw stuff with consistent execution, this could be one of the more intriguing low-cost moves of the winter.