The St. Louis Cardinals made the difficult decision to ship their veteran players to begin their full-blown plunge into the youth movement. Among the players they traded was veteran slugger Willson Contreras, who, like Sonny Gray, went to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for a few prospects. The Cardinals got pitching prospect Hunter Dobbins, who missed the final few months of the 2025 season with a torn ACL, as the main piece in the Contreras trade.

Dobbins reached the big leagues in 2025 and pitched in a total of 13 games for the Red Sox (11 starts), recording an ERA of 4.13. He underwent surgery to repair the torn ACL he sustained back in July, and he’s not all the way back yet for the Cardinals as Spring Training begins.

The good news is that his arm appears to be fine and that he’s making good progress in his recovery. The bad news is that there is still plenty of uncertainty in the Cardinals pitcher’s mobility considering that his knee is still recuperating.

“Hunter Dobbins recently saw a specialist as he recovers from his ACL tear. He’s pitched in lives and appears on track with his arm, but has been limited with the other in-game aspects like fielding his position. If he progresses fine, he will also be in that starting mix,” Daniel Guerrero of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote.

Cardinals are banking on a huge Hunter Dobbins year

Dobbins is only 26 years of age and he was more than serviceable in his first year in the big leagues. He relies mostly on his fastball and his slider, throwing them around 77 percent of the time, and he induced his fair share of weak contact that helped compensate for his unconvincing strikeout to walk ratio (45:17) in 61 innings of work in the majors.

The Cardinals will be hoping to unlock a higher level from Dobbins, as they look to transform his healthy fastball that he throws over 95 mph into a more dangerous weapon, especially when playing off of that slider.