The Cardinals announced Tuesday that they’ve selected the contracts of outfielder Matt Koperniak and right-handers Tink Hence, Tekoah Roby and Matt Svanson. The team added that left-hander Drew Rom went unclaimed on waivers and has been assigned outright to Triple-A Memphis. The Cardinals now have 39 players on their 40-man roster.
Of today’s additions, Hence is the most highly regarded. The 22-year-old finished the season as a consensus top-100 prospect, placing as high as 30th on Baseball America’s rankings and also landing 46th at FanGraphs and 61st at MLB.com. He spent 2024, his age-21 season, pitching at the Double-A level, where he logged a 2.71 ERA in an abbreviated workload.
Hence started just 20 games on the season, tallying 79 2/3 innings while missing nearly all of June and July. The Cardinals didn’t specify the nature of his injury, but Hence departed his June 5 start after two innings, returned to pitch one inning on June 23, and then didn’t return to the mound until July 27. Hence’s season came to an end after he was lifted from a Sept. 11 start following just 1 1/3 innings.
Even with the truncated year, Hence remains one of the minor leagues’ most promising young arms. He set down a whopping 34.1% of hitters on strikes in 2024 and showed average or better command, with an 8.1% walk rate. Hence sits mid-90s with a heater that can climb to 98-99 mph, rounding out his repertoire with one of the best changeups in the minors and a solid slider. There are some durability concerns even beyond this past summer, as he’s yet to reach 100 frames in any season of his professional career. Still, he’s teeming with upside, and his Double-A success could open the door for a big league debut later in 2025 if he can stay healthy.
Roby, 23, has drawn his share of top-100 fanfare as well, though his stock dipped amid shaky results and injury troubles of his own in 2024. FanGraphs ranked him 91th in the game at season’s end, but he’d fallen off most other prominent rankings. The 2020 third-rounder, selected by the Rangers and traded to the Cards in the Jordan Montgomery swap, pitched just 38 1/3 innings with a 6.57 ERA between High-A and Double-A in ’24.
Roby has posted middling ERA numbers in his career but regularly logged impressive rate stats and garnered attention from scouts due to plus raw stuff across the board — headlined by his curveball. Roby needs to improve his command and prove he can handle a starter’s workload, as he’s a bit undersized at 6’1″ and has never reached 105 innings in a pro season.
The 26-year-old Koperniak signed with the Cards as an undrafted free agent in the summer of 2020, following that year’s five-round amateur draft. He spent the whole 2024 season in Triple-A, where he hit .309/.370/.512 with 20 homers, 28 doubles, three triples, five steals, an 8.4% walk rate and an 18.7% strikeout rate. He played all three outfield spots but spent the bulk of his time in left field.
Svanson, 26 in January, was acquired from the Blue Jays in the trade sending Paul DeJong to Toronto. He spent the 2024 season working out of the Double-A bullpen, where he logged 63 2/3 innings of 2.69 ERA ball with a 20.8% strikeout rate, 8.8% walk rate and 52.7% ground-ball rate. He’ll presumably head to Triple-A early in 2025 and is a candidate for a look in the big leagues as soon as this coming season.
Rom, who’ll turn 25 in a few weeks, was acquired from the Orioles in the ’23 trade sending Jack Flaherty to Baltimore. He struggled through eight starts with the Cardinals in 2023, yielding an 8.02 ERA, but missed the entire 2024 season following arthroscopic shoulder surgery. Since he’s already cleared waivers, Rom will stick with the club as a depth option for the upcoming season. He hasn’t had any big league success yet, but he had the look of a potential back-of-the-rotation starter in the Orioles’ system before the shoulder injury ruined his 2024 season.
