News Cardinals Team Notes

[St. Louis Cardinals]

Cardinals Moving Steven Matz Back Into Rotation

Steven Matz makes his return to the Cardinals’ rotation tomorrow afternoon. The lefty is scheduled for his first start of the season against the Astros. Matz had opened the season in the bullpen because the Cards had off days in each of the first three weeks. They’re now going into their sixth game of a stretch of 13 consecutive game days, so they’ll move to a six-man rotation.

This has been the plan since Opening Day. St. Louis wanted to give Matthew Liberatore another rotation opportunity after he’d spent most of last season in long relief. Sonny Gray, Erick Fedde and Miles Mikolas were rotation locks, while Andre Pallante has maintained his hold on the fourth starter role. Matz temporarily kicked into relief since it didn’t make much sense to use a six-man rotation when they had so many off days.

Matz has found success over his first five appearances. He has tossed 11 2/3 innings, allowing four runs (three earned). His six strikeouts and 9% swinging strike rate haven’t been overpowering, but he’s throwing a lot of strikes and has gotten grounders at a solid 46.2% rate. Matz’s most recent appearance came on Sunday. He threw 46 pitches in 2 1/3 innings against Philadelphia. He’ll be working on three days rest and hasn’t had a full rotation workload, so he’ll be on a tighter pitch limit tomorrow. Daniel Guerrero of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes that Matz will be capped around 65 pitches.

The 33-year-old Matz is in the final season of his four-year free agent deal. His Cardinals tenure has mostly been marred by inconsistency and injury, though he did manage a 3.86 ERA in 105 innings two seasons ago. A back injury kept him to 44 1/3 frames over 12 appearances (seven starts) last year. He allowed 5.08 earned runs per nine with a below-average 17.4% strikeout rate. Matz is making $12MM and could net the Cardinals some salary relief and/or a modest return closer to the trade deadline if he has a solid first half.

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/04/cardinals-moving-steven-matz-back-into-rotation.html

 

[St. Louis Cardinals]

Cardinals Recall Matt Svanson For MLB Debut

The Cardinals announced Wednesday that they’ve recalled right-hander Matt Svanson from Triple-A Memphis. His first appearance will be the first of his big league career. Right-hander Roddery Muñoz was optioned to Memphis in his place.

Svanson, 26, was the Blue Jays’ 13th-round pick in 2021. He joined the Cardinals by way of the 2023 Paul DeJong trade and entered the season ranked 22nd among St. Louis farmhands, per Baseball America. Their scouting report praises Svanson’s mid-90s sinker and above-average slider, both of which have helped the righty pile up grounders throughout his minor league career. Svanson has regularly sat north of 60% in that regard, though he dipped to “only” 52.7% last year in Double-A (still about 10 percentage points north of average).

Svanson opened the 2025 season in Triple-A Memphis — his first experience at that level. He’s started the season by holding opponents to one run on five hits and a pair of walks with four punchouts. Nearly two-thirds of the batted balls against him have been grounders in the season’s first couple weeks.

In parts of five minor league seasons, the 6’5″ righty has pitched to a 2.98 earned run average with a 25% strikeout rate and 7.9% walk rate. Svanson’s strikeout rate dipped to 20.8% last year, but he’s been better than average in terms of strikeout, walk and ground-ball rate in every other season of his young professional career. He’ll hope to cement himself in the bullpen alongside Ryan Helsley, Ryan Fernandez, JoJo Romero and Phil Maton. Svanson was just added to the 40-man roster back in November, so he has a full slate of minor league option years remaining.

Source: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/04/cardinals-recall-matt-svanson-for-mlb-debut.html