The fact that one of the St. Louis Cardinals’ best pitching prospects won’t be playing until the 2027 season makes things even more irritating for Cardinals supporters right now.
According to Katie Woo and Keith Law of The Athletic, one of the Cardinals’ best pitching prospects, Tekoah Roby, had Tommy John surgery on Friday and is probably not going to be able to pitch until 2027 because of the lengthy recovery process.
Tekoah Roby’s Tommy John surgery is a massive blow to the Cardinals’ future.
Along with Cooper Hjerpe and Sem Robberse, Roby is the third elite Cardinals pitching prospect to suffer the same terrible fate this season when Tommy John surgery ends his season. In addition to those injuries, Quinn Mathews and Tink Hence have both struggled with injuries during the season, and their 2024 third-round pick, Brian Holiday, underwent an undisclosed season-ending surgery.
The Cardinals’ farm system has shown more promise on the pitching side in 2025 than it has in years, with several prospects making notable strides in their development. However, that progress has been overshadowed by a wave of injuries that have hit many of their young pitchers hard. With Chaim Bloom now stepping in to oversee baseball operations, he faces a major challenge—balancing the current group of arms while also finding ways to bring in more pitching talent.
Keith Law recently shared that he strongly considered including Tekoah Roby in his updated list of the top 60 prospects in baseball. Roby’s performance this year, his potential as a solid mid-rotation starter, and his proximity to a major league call-up all made a strong case. But after hearing reports that Roby might need surgery, Law ultimately left him off the list.
Roby showed the kind of promise the Cardinals saw in him when they acquired him from the Texas Rangers in the Jordan Montgomery trade at the 2023 MLB Trade Deadline, posting a 3.10 ERA with 87 strikeouts in 78.1 innings of work in 16 starts between Double-A and Triple-A this season.
With the fifth overall pick in the 2025 MLB Draft, the Cardinals did add a new elite pitching prospect, Liam Doyle, to their system. Law ranked Doyle in his top 30 and Baseball America already lists him as a top 70 prospect. In addition to adding potential upside guns like Tanner Franklin and Cade Crossland to their system through the draft, St. Louis has had excellent seasons thus far with arms like Michael McGreevy, Ixan Henderson, Braden Davis, and Brycen Mautz.
Other than perhaps preferring players who don’t need to be added to the 40-man roster this offseason, as many other Cardinals prospects are already facing that dilemma, John Mozeliak stated last week that the Cardinals don’t plan on targeting any particular type of player in their selling moves this week. However, don’t be shocked if the team does target a lot of arms in these deals. For this reason, there is never enough pitching in today’s game. The Cardinals have been injury-free in the major leagues, but their minor league system is struggling.
Although it’s unclear how this would affect the Cardinals’ pitching plans in 2026, Roby was a strong contender to take Roby’s place in the rotation, so it surely complicates matters.