The Cardinals kept leaning into pitching in the draft, and their latest addition is drawing some loud praise right out of the gate.
St. Louis used its Competitive Balance Round A pick at No. 32 overall on right-hander Tegan Kuhns, adding another arm to a draft haul that already included University of Tennessee pitchers LHP Liam Doyle and RHP Tanner Franklin. And the early reactions around Kuhns were strong enough to make Cardinals fans take notice.
On MLB Network’s draft coverage, former big league lefty Cole Hamels drew a comparison between Kuhns and Seattle Mariners starter Bryan Woo. Pitching analyst Lance Brozdowski went another direction, likening Kuhns to Toronto Blue Jays starter Shane Bieber. Bieber won the Cy Young in 2020, while Woo has the look of a future award contender himself.
There’s also a neat layer to those comps. Both Woo and Bieber came up through organizations with ties to people now in the Cardinals’ front office. Assistant general manager Rob Cerfolio, who oversees player development and performance, arrived from the Cleveland Guardians, and he brought in Matt Pierpont from Seattle to lead pitching development.
The buzz didn’t stop with MLB Network. Baseball America’s instant reaction to Day 1 of the draft called Kuhns a player who could have fit in the mid-teens of the first round, noting that St.
Louis got him at No. 32 while still landing a pitcher with both present ability and room to keep growing. Joe Doyle of Over-Slot also liked the pick, along with what the Cardinals did across the board in the draft.
Kuhns now joins a deep and crowded Cardinals pitching group that already features his Tennessee teammates Doyle and Franklin, plus Jurrangelo Cijntje, Quinn Mathews, Brandon Clarke, Jacob Odle, Cooper Hjerpe, Yhoiker Fajardo, Tekoah Roby, Xavier Cruz, Mason Molina, Brycen Mautz, Cade Crossland, Braden Davis, Ixan Henderson, and Dawson Montesa, who was also added on Day 1.
That matters for a club that has taken plenty of heat for letting its pitching pipeline get thin in recent years. The front office has spent real time restocking it, and Kuhns is just the newest name in that wave. He’s also one of the more intriguing ones.
Even with Doyle, Franklin, and Mathews ahead of him for now, Kuhns has a case to sit fourth among the system’s arms. More importantly, he gives St. Louis another high-upside pitcher to add to a group that could start feeding the big-league club over the next two to three seasons.
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