Evaluating the Cardinals’ 2026 Trade Deadline Return
The Redbirds had plenty to boast about regarding their deadline deals. Here’s a deeper look at the prospects they added to the organization.
In the midst of a surprising campaign that has seen the club teeter around the .500 mark, the St. Louis Cardinals entered the trade deadline prepared to capitalize on a seller’s market.
President of baseball operations Chaim Bloom and his staff engineered one of the more successful deadlines across Major League Baseball, turning short- and long-term rentals into pieces that further bolster what is already a very impressive farm system.
Let’s dig into the Cardinals’ newest additions, what makes each of them interesting, and what their paths to the bigs could look like.
Alexander Frias – OF – (Low-A)
The left-handed hitting toolshed takes the cake as the crown jewel of both return packages. After hitting an other-worldly .441 for the Brewers’ complex squad, Milwaukee’s player development staff decided to challenge him at Low-A Wilson, where he held his own with a 93 wRC+ in 125 PA.
Any conversation about Frias must begin with his thunderous raw power. He’s been clocked as high as 117.0 mph off the bat, while also notching a 105.3 mph EV90 during his time in the Arizona Complex League. For reference, the average MLB right fielder has logged a 105.2 mph EV90 in 2026, so the Dominican import already boasts average big-league exit velocity while barely being a legal adult.
He also showed a nifty feel for the barrel by posting a 15.8 PullAir% and a 26.1 SweetSpot% in CPX Statcast-tracked games, good for the 62nd percentile and 45th percentile, respectively. Being able to optimize his elite power in the air will drive his profile as he progresses toward the big leagues.
Frias’s bat-to-ball skills and swing decisions are solid, too. His 74.3% contact rate and 29.6% chase rate at the complex are more than respectable for someone his age, especially considering how much thump he has in his bat.
A dependable athlete, Frias has recorded a maximum sprint speed of 29.0 ft/sec, as well as a maximum home-to-first time of 4.17 seconds. As a result, there’s enough mobility and feel for the position to patrol center field for now, though he likely won’t be the best defensive outfielder on his team the higher he climbs the minor-league ladder. Should he slide down the defensive spectrum, he’ll slot in perfectly in right field with an arm topping out at 97.0 mph on a recorded throw earlier this year.
Of any player moved this deadline, Frias arguably possesses the highest ceiling of them all. He’s not quite a top-100 prospect just yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he eventually becomes a top-15 guy in the sport.
Prospects this young rarely display this kind of power, and with no true glaring weakness to his game, there’s a lot to be excited about going forward. His current 50th-percentile outcome is a fringe starter on a championship-caliber team with legitimate superstar potential.
Josiah Ragsdale – OF – (Double-A)
Another product of Milwaukee’s ever-churning position player factory, Josiah Ragsdale has a case to be the highest-rising prospect in baseball this year.
The former Boston College Eagle has done nothing but rake as a professional after being selected in the seventh round of the 2024 MLB Draft. After posting a 151 wRC+ at High-A Wisconsin, Ragsdale hit the ground running at Double-A Biloxi, registering an eye-watering 183 wRC+ in 119 PAs before the trade.
At the dish, Ragsdale brings a solid, all-around blend of tools, though he doesn’t quite excel at any one skill.
His exit velocity has topped out at 111 mph this year, impressive when you consider he maxed out at 104.9 mph in 2025. Even with average raw thump, he does a great job of getting to his higher-end EVs often, as shown by his 50% HardHit% in 2026.
Arguably the most impressive part of his offensive game is his swing decisions. His 23.2% chase rate at Double-A ranks in the 82nd percentile league-wide. It will have to make up for a worrisome bat-to-ball ability, as even with a 74th-percentile zone-contact rate this year, he’s punching out 27.4% of the time in 2026. Though not a detrimental number, it’s something to keep an eye on going forward.
A noteworthy point is that Ragsdale has completely changed his offensive profile this year to prioritize pop over contact, so if he needs to put lumber onto leather, he’s more than capable of doing so when he needs to protect the plate.
A nice consolation is his ability to optimize in the air pull-side. His 18.8% AirPull% at Double-A ranks in the 81st percentile in 2026. In the absence of pure contact ability, he’ll make efficient use of whatever he does put lumber on toward a shorter field with respectable power.
Ragsdale is one of the more athletic prospects in the sport, and is a legitimate 20-20 threat should he reach his full potential as a big leaguer. Defensively, he has a chance to stay up the middle with a solid arm, though his feel for playing the outfield is still a bit crude.
Even if he’s the de facto secondary return piece in the May/Romero trade, Ragsdale is still one of the more fascinating prospects acquired by any seller this deadline cycle, and some make the case that he has more upside than Frias.
Aside from the bat-to-ball ability (and even this isn’t a ruby-red flag), there isn’t really a true weakness to his overall game. His current 50th-percentile outcome is a fourth outfielder on a championship-caliber team, with swing factors including better power, contact skills, and glovework.
Daniel Eagen – RHP – (Double-A)
Eagen represents the key return piece in the Lars Nootbaar trade, and is a chip off the John Mozeliak/Gary LaRocque block of pitching archetypes.
He punched out 29.3% of hitters with Double-A Amarillo this year, and while he had a 4.95 ERA, the former Presbyterian Blue Horse, like many others across Minor League Baseball this year, has fallen victim to the high-octane run-scoring environments, especially in the Texas League.
Daniel’s fastball is pedestrian at best, sitting in the low-to-mid 90s with a steeper approach angle and solid extension. He’s a higher-release guy, and he only generates about 18-19 inches of induced vertical break with his heater.
It varies greatly from the modern Cardinals pitching archetype, which is built around heavy velocity and a flat approach angle, but it’s still effective in that he throws it for strikes and allows his secondaries to play well off the heater.
His calling card includes a pair of above-average breaking balls. Eagen’s gyro slider is arguably his most effective secondary. It sits in the mid-to-high 80s and features a true bullet shape, hovering around 0 vertical and 0 horizontal.
The other is a power hammer that sits in the low-to-mid 80s and generates almost 10 inches of drop. It has more depth than a deathball, but offers very little horizontal movement, at around 2-3 inches of armside movement.
Eagen’s changeup is arguably his least-effective secondary. He kills spin down to around 1,400-1,500 RPMs, but the pitch doesn’t get much velocity or movement off the heater.
His command this year has been solid, given his 8.8% BB%, but nothing special, with a 63.0% strike rate.
There’s a solid foundation for a starter here, and his slender frame suggests that, as he adds weight, he’ll also add additional velocity onto the fastball. The two above-average breakers are the selling point here and help make up for a below-average offspeed offering. If he continues refining his command, the Cardinals may have themselves a quality back-end rotation starter in a couple of years.
He currently projects as a fifth/sixth starter on a championship-caliber team.
Sandro Santana – LHP – (Double-A)
Don’t be fooled by his meager 5-foot-10 frame: Sandro Santana is one of the premier left-handed relief prospects in all of baseball.
He possesses a lethal fastball/sweeper combination, which has allowed him to fan an astonishing 39% of hitters this year while allowing just one earned run at Double-A.
Santana’s go-to fastball of choice is a flat-approach mid-90s sinker that he releases from a sub-5.0-foot slot. It gets below-average extension, but given that the average MLB left-handed reliever sits around 93-94 mph on their fastball, Sandro has some breathing room to work with.
His signature offering is a low-to-mid-80s sweeper that generates 11-12 inches of gloveside movement. Combined with how well he gets hitters to chase with it, it’s arguably one of the more effective breaking balls of any relief prospect in the game.
Sandro’s command is decent at best, walking 10% of hitters this year to go along with a 63.4% overall strike rate. Still, he’s just 21 years old at Double-A, and given how he’s been completely overpowering a hitter-friendly Texas League so far, I’m not concerned in the slightest.
The sinker/sweeper combination should give Santana enough to be a fairly effective reliever at the big league level. He throws hard and misses plenty of bats with the breaker, and both grade out as above-average offerings despite his fringy command.
His current 50th-percentile outcome is a solid middle-relief pitcher with high-leverage upside the more he refines his strike-throwing ability.
Final Takeaways
Chaim Bloom and his staff have to be popping champagne after what they were able to pull off this year.
Frias is the headliner from an upside standpoint. There simply aren’t many hitters his age with this kind of raw power, and that alone gives him one of the more exciting ceilings of any hitting prospect in the sport. There’s obviously a long developmental runway ahead of him, but if the hit tool progresses enough to consistently access that power in games, there’s legitimate middle-of-the-order upside here.
Ragsdale is almost the inverse. He doesn’t offer quite the same dream-on-the-tools ceiling, but there’s considerably more polish to his game, an intriguing all-around offensive skill set, and a track record of producing against upper-minors pitching. The swing-and-miss is the obvious concern and gives the profile some real bust risk, but there are enough secondary skills here to make him much more than a one-trick pony.
Eagen gives the Cardinals another legitimate starting-pitching prospect, largely because he already owns two breaking balls capable of overpowering hitters. Both generate whiffs at a high level and give him the foundation of a starter’s arsenal. The fastball needs to become a more effective pitch, and the lack of a refined changeup leaves him without the ability to shift gears effectively. There’s work to do, but the ingredients are there.
While he isn’t technically the sweetener of the Lars Nootbaar deal (the Cardinals will eventually receive a player to be named later to officially cap off the package), it’s hard to think of a better way to round out the deadline-day return than Sandro Santana. It’s a simple yet extremely effective whiff-inducing arsenal, and he’s already doing it against older competition.
There’s a lot to be excited about here for Cardinals fans. The front office has already added a number of high-upside pieces to the farm system over the past 12 months and only reinforced that direction at the deadline. If this is the type of profile Bloom and his staff continue to target, the Cardinals’ next core is beginning to take shape — and August 3, 2026, may ultimately be remembered as one of the days that helped solidify it.
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Written by
Adam Akbani is a writer and analyst from St. Louis, MO. He attended Washington University in St. Louis, double majoring in Economics & Strategy and Political…