One Pitcher at Each Cardinals Affiliate Deserving a Promotion
Credit: Larry Larson
The Cardinals have started their first major round of promotions throughout the organization before the second full week of May begins, as they promoted the top position prospect, Rainiel Rodriguez, to Double-A Springfield, as well as 2025 3rd-round pick Jack Gurevitch to High-A Peoria. Both prospects had very impressive surface and underlying stats, with both prospects boasting an OPS above .930 at their respective levels. This begins what is likely a busy stretch of promotions for the organization, as top performers at each level continue to move up and are faced with new levels and new challenges. Today, I will go over six players, one at each active level besides FCL, who I believe deserve to get a chance to move up the ladder.
FCL Cardinals (ROK): RHP Payton Graham, RHP Brian Holiday
I’m already breaking my rule of selecting one guy from each level, but for good reason. Both of these guys are college arms who are coming off surgery and will likely be promoted to the Palm Beach level very soon. For that reason, I figured I’d throw them in the same bucket. Both Graham and Holiday have begun their pro careers down at the FCL as they both look to build back up to starter-type workloads for the upcoming season. Graham, the Cardinals’ 7th-round pick last year, has thrown six innings across two games to the tune of a 1.50 ERA with nine strikeouts. Holiday, who had surgery early in the 2025 season, is a little bit further behind in his ramp-up, only throwing 3.2 innings across two games while posting a 2.45 ERA with four strikeouts. I imagine we will see Graham get promoted within the next couple of weeks, as he already looks to be built up to a solid pitch count and has the stuff to be a contributor for Palm Beach. Holiday, on the other hand, might take a little bit longer, especially considering his 3rd-round status, making him a likely rotation candidate vs. a bullpen arm.
Palm Beach Cardinals (Single-A): RHP Ty Van Dyke
One of the most obvious near promotions in the system is Ty Van Dyke, who has dominated the Florida State League this year, posting a 1.24 ERA across 29 innings, striking out 31 batters while walking only six. The 22-year-old righty has been one of the top starters in the system, being inside my Redbird Farmhands power rankings top five every week since the start of the season. While the strikeout and walk rates are impressive, Van Dyke has also been elite at generating weak contact, being in the 94th percentile with a 2.4% barrel rate and in the 75th percentile in hard-hit percentage at 36.6%. Van Dyke, being a college arm, looks ready to have a new challenge, and with his command and solid enough pitches, I’d imagine that Peoria won’t pose much of a challenge to his style of pitching either. It will be at the Double-A level where I believe he will get his first real challenge.
Peoria Chiefs (High-A): RHP Yhoiker Fajardo
Rainiel Rodriguez isn’t the only 19-year-old who has performed at the High-A level. Yhoiker Fajardo, who was acquired during the Wilson Contreras trade, has dominated the Midwest League so far at the age of 19, posting a 1.46 ERA across 24.2 innings with an elite 33.3% strikeout rate to a 2.9% walk rate, good for a 30.4% K-BB%, which ranks first among all Cardinals minor leaguers by an almost 3% margin, min. 10 IP. Fajardo has used his elite changeup/slider combo to strike out plenty of hitters who are three-plus years older than him. While his fastball doesn’t have elite characteristics, an uptick in velocity, sitting more mid-90s now, has allowed the pitch to be a solid bridge to his elite secondaries, especially with his ability to command the fastball. It is crazy to think a pitcher in their age-19 season is ready for Double-A, but I see very few reasons why Fajardo won’t follow Rodriguez to the Double-A level sometime in the coming weeks.
Springfield Cardinals (Double-A): LHP Michael Watson
Watson has been one of the most consistent and dominant relief pitching prospects in the system since his signing as an undrafted free agent in 2024. A career 2.76 ERA pitcher, Watson has actually become more dominant the higher the level he’s reached, which includes Springfield. Between 2025 and 2026, Watson pitched 39.2 innings at the AA level to a 1.82 ERA with 54 strikeouts to 20 walks. Watson is a low launch lefty who continues to rely on a good heater and sweeper combo, which has kept hitters at bay, posting a .154 BAA in 2025 and a .222 BAA this season. Watson has seen his walk rate tick up from 10.5% at the AA level last year to 14.9% this season, but he has offset that by increasing his strikeout rate from 30.5% last year in Springfield to a dominate 37.3% this season, meaning that his K-BB% actually went up despite a relatively large jump in his walk rate. With the Cardinals’ lack of left-handed relief pitching depth and Watson’s continued dominance, a promotion to the AAA level so that he can start to get used to the MLB ball should be right around the corner for what looks to be a future MLB arm.
Memphis Redbirds (Triple-A): RHP Max Rajcic
If you follow me on X, you have probably seen me continue to harp on Max Rajcic’s name over the past few days as a name that I want to see in the St. Louis bullpen, and that is for good reason. The 2023 Cardinals Pitcher of the Year has posted a 1.78 ERA for the Redbirds across 25.1 innings, striking out 29 batters while walking only eight. Check out my post below for specifics, but just to give you an idea, his fastball velocity has increased in his new role, and he has swapped out his more traditional slider for a sweeper, which gets more whiffs while limiting hard contact better. That goes well with his already good but improving curveball and a solid changeup. Max has been elite this year at limiting hard contact, posting a hard-hit percentage that is in the 100th percentile among all AAA pitchers, and his 84.1 mph average exit velocity ranks in the 98th percentile in AAA. With Rajcic being a former starter, he also can go multiple innings, as he has done in 11 of his 13 appearances so far this season. Max’s ability to limit hard contact while finding more whiffs and strikeout stuff in a multi-inning role makes him an intriguing call-up option for the big league club in the near future.
