Cardinals' 6-5 Right-Hander Piled Up 143 Ks, Named Top Pitching Prospect

Quite possibly, no player in the St. Louis Cardinals’ Minor League system has improved their personal stock more over the last year than hard-throwing, 6-foot-5 right-hander Jacob Odle.

Out all of 2024 following Tommy John surgery and coming off a disappointing 2025 where he went 0-6 with a 5.92 ERA, Odle turned his career around in dramatic fashion this past season while piling up the strikeouts at Class-A Palm Beach and High-A Peoria.

Odle, 22, struck out 143 batters in 96 innings this past season while appearing in 24 games (22 starts). He ended his season with a flourish, striking out 12 hitters over a scoreless, five-inning outing for Peoria on Sept. 3. Over his last three outings of the season, Odle allowed just two earned runs over 14 innings, while stacking 26 strikeouts.

Not bad for a former 14th-round pick of the 2023 MLB Draft following a circuitous college career that saw him pitch at Division II Palm Beach (Fla.) State College and JUCO program Orange Coast (Calif.) College in Costa Mesa, Calif. Now, Odle is looking at the Cardinals likely adding him to their 40-man roster this offseason so as to not expose him to the Rule 5 Draft in December. Spots on the 40-man roster are usually uncommon for hurlers who have never thrown above High-A, but the 210-pounder has the look of a late bloomer who suddenly has a bright future ahead of him as a high-leverage reliever or a starter with an unusually high walk rate (15.5 percent) to go with his big strikeout numbers.

Odle’s transformative 2026 season allowed him to become the Cardinals’ pitching prospect of the year as selected by MLB Pipeline. The team’s hitting prospect of 2026, Rainiel Rodriguez, was far more of a straight-forward pick with the sweet-swinging catcher/first baseman recently moving into the top 10 prospects in all the Minor Leagues.

Rodriguez earned his climb into the Top 10 by slashing .324/.413/.574/.987 with 30 doubles, 27 homers, 87 RBI and 11 stolen bases in 115 games split between High-A Peoria (28 games) and Double-A Springfield (87 games). Rodriguez, a 5-foot-10, 197-pounder, led Springfield to a Double-A-best second-half record of 47-22, a 2-0 sweep of Tulsa (Dodgers) in the North Division playoff series and a spot opposite Amarillo (Dbacks) in the Texas League championship series. He crushed a two-run homer in the third inning of the deciding Game 3.

Cardinals Outfield Prospect Leading Arizona Fall League in Hitting at .439

The second youngest position player in Double-A, Rodriguez hit .328 with 22 doubles, 23 homers and 66 RBI with Springfield after being promoted from High-A Peoria on May 12. He became just fourth teenager to hit at least 23 homers at Double-A joining Delmon Young (26 in 2005) and current MLB superstars Bryce Harper (23 in 2012) and Juan Soto (24 in 2018). Also, he is just the fourth teenager with a wRC+ of at least 150 at Double-A over the past 20 years, joining Vladimir Guerrero, Mike Trout and Justin Upton.

A likely promotion to Triple-A Memphis next season, Rodriguez finished with a flurry in Double-A. Over his final 36 games and 168 plate appearances of the regular season, Rodriguez slashed .417/.482/.806/1.288 with 14 homers and 16 walks.   

Using a four-seam fastball that routinely sits between 96-98 mph, a curveball at 82-86 and a wicked sinker, Odle held foes to .199 hitting this season. After striking out 31 over an 18-inning stretch in early May, Odle earned a promotion to High-A Peoria.

He struck out at least eight batters three times in June and then had strikeout games of seven and nine in July. A solid August set the stage for Odle’s final start on Sept. 3. Over five innings of work, he struck out at least two hitters every inning and fanned the side swinging in the fifth frame.