JJ Wetherholt, Brycen Mautz named 2025 St. Louis Cardinals Minor League Player and Pitcher of the Year
SPRINGFIELD, MO (November 19, 2025) – The St. Louis Cardinals have announced that INF JJ Wetherholt and LHP Brycen Mautz have been named the organization’s Minor League Player and Pitcher of the Year, respectively. This marks the fourth consecutive season in which one or both honorees played for Springfield in
SPRINGFIELD, MO (November 19, 2025) – The St. Louis Cardinals have announced that INF JJ Wetherholt and LHP Brycen Mautz have been named the organization’s Minor League Player and Pitcher of the Year, respectively. This marks the fourth consecutive season in which one or both honorees played for Springfield in the season in which they were awarded.
INF JJ Wetherholt
In addition to a Texas League MVP and All-Star season, Wetherholt becomes the twelfth Springfield Cardinal all-time to be named St. Louis Cardinals Minor League Player of the Year. He follows Jimmy Crooks, who was awarded in 2024, as the second consecutive honoree from Springfield. In September, Wetherholt became the fourth straight Springfield Cardinal to be named Texas League Most Valuable Player, joining Crooks (2024), Thomas Saggese (2023), Moisés Gómez (2022), Dylan Carlson (2019), Oscar Taveras (2012) and Matt Adams (2011) as all-time winners of the prestigious award.
The organization’s consensus top-ranked prospect began his first full season in professional baseball with Double-A Springfield in 2025, playing in 62 games and slashing .300/.425/.466 while swatting seven home runs, driving in 34 runs and stealing 14 bases. His Springfield career was highlighted by multiple dazzling defensive plays and a pair of walk-off singles on June 12 against the Tulsa Drillers and July 1 against the Northwest Arkansas Naturals. His final game in Double-A on July 6, Wetherholt tallied his first multi-home run game as a professional, launching a pair of homers against Northwest Arkansas. This summer, the first rounder became the 27th Future’s Game Selection in team history, although he was already with Triple-A Memphis by the time of the All-Star Break, earning his call-up to the highest level of Minor League Baseball on July 7. He finished 2025 as the sixth-best prospect in all of baseball.
LHP Brycen Mautz
A 2025 All-Star, Mautz is the fourth straight Springfield pitcher to be named St. Louis Cardinals Minor League Pitcher of the Year, joining Quinn Mathews (2024), Max Rajcic (2023) and Gordon Graceffo (2022), and the sixteenth all-time.
The lefty spent the entire season at Double-A and excelled in his first year at the level. Mautz led the Texas League among qualified pitchers with a 1.11 WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) and a .727 win percentage. He finished second in ERA (2.98) and opponent batting average (.219), both right behind fellow Cardinal starter Ixan Henderson. Mautz, in his third season of professional baseball, enjoyed the most successful season of his young career, marking career bests in ERA, WHIP, opponent batting average and walks issued (33). He also enjoyed two crucial postseason starts on September 18 against Tulsa in what became a Championship Series clinching victory, and on September 24 in Midland when Springfield secured their second-ever Texas League Title.
Minor League Baseball named Mautz the Texas League’s July Pitcher of the Month after a stellar stretch, going 2-0 with a 1.57 ERA while striking out 28 batters in 23.0 innings of work. He followed up that award with a 10-strikeout performance on August 8 against the San Antonio Missions, allowing just one hit in six shutout innings. That started earned him Texas League Pitcher of the Week. Of his 25 regular season starts in 2025, Mautz surrendered one or zero runs (earned or otherwise) 16 times. He finished the year as the number 21 ranked prospect in the system, according to MLB Pipeline. He was recently added to the 40-Man roster for the first time on November 18.