The Cardinals’ rotation picture has gotten shaky fast, and the club may need to keep digging into its depth to get through the stretch.
St. Louis is already without two starters.
Andre Pallante is on the Injured List with elbow inflammation, while Hunter Dobbins is sidelined because of forearm tightness. Pallante is expected to be out for at least 15 days, but Dobbins’ timeline is still unclear.
Quinn Mathews has already been promoted to help cover innings, but the Cardinals may not be done there. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch pointed to 2022 first-round pick Cooper Hjerpe as another possible option to step in and make his major league debut.
"One candidate to help cover some of the innings, lefty Cooper Hjerpe, started Saturday night for Class AAA Memphis," Goold wrote. "That would make his next availability Thursday at the earliest. The Cardinals also have lefty Brycen Mautz as an internal option to offer length, or they could look outside the organization to the handful of veteran starters available as free agents or looking for a major-league spot while in the minors with another organization."
Hjerpe is currently the Cardinals’ No. 18 overall prospect, a sign of how much the organization’s farm system has shifted. He ranked No. 6 in 2025 and checked in at No. 7 in both 2023 and 2024.
The left-hander has given the Cardinals a reason to at least consider a look before the year is over. In 14 starts this season, he has posted a 3.08 ERA while working his way through the FCL Cardinals, Class-A Palm Beach, Double-A Springfield and Triple-A Memphis. This is the first season he has reached Triple-A.
Hjerpe missed the entire 2025 season, which helps explain why the Cardinals eased him back in and why his prospect stock has taken a hit. Even so, his track record is still solid: 39 professional appearances, 37 of them starts, and a 3.29 ERA overall.
No one wants to see injuries pile up, but for a team trying to sort out what it has, a brief Hjerpe cameo could matter. The Cardinals are already treating 2026 as a development year, and Jordan Walker is the clearest example after showing what he can do this season and putting himself in position as a long-term piece.
A late-season look at Hjerpe could help the same way, giving St. Louis another data point as it tries to figure out who can be part of the next wave.
In Other News...
Cardinals Suddenly Have An Outfield Opening After Pereira Setback
The Cardinals had barely gotten a look at Everson Pereira before the latest interruption hit. St. Louis claimed the outfielder off waivers from the White Sox in early August, and he gave them a useful early glimpse in 11 games with a strong on-base presence before a pitch left him dealing with a left hand contusion. His absence created a fresh roster shuffle for a club that has been trying to sort out the edges of its outfield mix as the season moves into its late stages.
Pereira went on the 10-day injured list retroactive to Aug. 22, and in a corresponding move the Cardinals activated infielder Ramn Uras from the 60-day IL. For a team that needed Pereira to keep building momentum after arriving in St. Louis, the setback leaves another opening for playing time and another question about how long the Cardinals will have to wait before they can really evaluate what he might bring. [Read more 🡒]
Cardinals Fans May Revisit The Randal Grichuk Trade After This Surge
Randal Grichuk is back in the conversation for Cardinals fans, only now it is because of what he is doing at 35 with the White Sox. Mostly used as a designated hitter and as a pinch-hitter against left-handed pitching, Grichuk has been turning those matchups into real production, hitting .299 with a .937 OPS. It is the kind of late-career surge that naturally sends St. Louis back to a familiar question about the player it once developed, then moved on from after the 2017 season.
Grichuks Cardinals tenure always came with a split opinion: the power was real, but the plate discipline never fully caught up, and the reverse-split profile made him a tricky everyday fit. St. Louis sent him to Toronto after 2017, hoping the return would help elsewhere, but that deal never really delivered much for the Cardinals. So as Grichuk keeps carving out value in a narrower role, it is hard not to revisit how different things might have looked if the original investment had been handled another way. [Read more 🡒]
Former Cardinals Are Already Making St. Louis Deadline Look Smarter
The Cardinals made a clear deadline decision when they moved veteran pitchers Dustin May and JoJo Romero, along with outfielder Lars Nootbaar, in exchange for four top-25 organizational prospects. It was the kind of deal that signaled a longer view, one aimed at replenishing a farm system and reshaping the organizations future rather than chasing a short-term push.
For St. Louis, the early returns have only sharpened that logic. May and Nootbaar have both struggled to produce since landing with their new clubs, while Romero has yet to get into a game because of injury, though a rehab assignment could be next. None of that changes the price the Cardinals paid, but it does make the early snapshot of the deal look a little better in St. Louis. [Read more 🡒]