One of the St. Louis Cardinals’ biggest pitching names is suddenly on the way out, and the move came as the club made room for Quinn Mathews’ big-league debut.
Mathews is set to start Aug. 1 against the Toronto Blue Jays, and the Cardinals had to open a spot on the 40-man roster to get him there. The choice they made stunned Cardinals fans: STLtoday’s Derrick Goold reported that St. Louis designated Tink Hence for assignment.
#stlcards have DFA’d Tink Hence to clear a spot for Quinn Mathews on the 40.
Matt Svanson optioned to clear a spot on active roster, per team. Mathews debuts today in Toronto.
- Derrick Goold (@dgoold) August 1, 2026
Hence has been a familiar name in the organization for years. Drafted in the second round in 2020, he spent the past six seasons near the top of Cardinals prospect rankings and reached as high as No. 2 in Baseball America’s system rankings in 2023. He was once viewed as a promising starter thanks to a mid-90s fastball with above-average hop and a strong curveball.
That picture has changed sharply. Injuries have followed Hence over the last three seasons, and his stuff has backed up along with it.
In eight starts in 2025, his average fastball velocity was down by 2 mph, and the pitch lost break, extension and plane. He didn’t throw his curveball at all.
His slider also lost velocity and sharpness. The one pitch that still looked like a real weapon was his changeup.
The Cardinals had already seemed to move on from the idea of Hence as a starter, but scouts before 2026 still believed he could potentially fit in a bullpen role as a high-leverage arm. That optimism has taken a hit, too. Hence has posted a 6.64 ERA and has walked 18 batters in 20.1 innings.
What makes the decision even harder to understand is that the Cardinals kept Peter Strzelecki, who they signed off the scrap heap on July 25 to help the relief group during a rough stretch. Strzelecki has allowed three earned runs in three innings, and at 31, he looks more like a finished product than a long-term answer.
There is still a narrow path for Hence to stay in the organization if he clears waivers and is neither claimed nor traded, but that seems like a long shot. Chaim Bloom was not in the Cardinals’ front office when Hence was drafted, and the move suggests he may not share the same belief in the right-hander’s upside. Even so, it is a surprising call with real risk attached if Hence gets healthy and ends up helping another team out of the bullpen.
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