Cardinals prospect Ian Bedell was driving toward Springfield, Missouri, this past December at the same time his career trajectory and status in the Cardinals farm system could change direction if his name was called.
At the same time the 24-year-old was making his way across the Midwest, the Rule 5 draft was going on from Nashville, Tennessee, at Major League Baseball’s annual winter meetings. Bedell, coming off his most successful minor league season since getting drafted in 2020, was not added to the Cardinals’ 40-man roster ahead of the Rule 5 draft, leaving him unprotected from getting plucked by another organization.
The process was one the Mizzou product said came with limited information, one in which he knew there was a chance he could get taken.
Despite the possibility, Bedell didn’t tune in to listen for updates during his drive. But his father did.
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“I got a text from my dad saying, “Draft is over, you didn’t get taken.’ I was like, ‘OK, cool,’†Bedell said during a phone interview in December.
By going unselected in the Rule 5 draft, Bedell is set to open the 2024 season with the same organization that drafted him. He’ll look to build upon a successful 2023 during which he was named Midwest League pitcher of the year and did not face injury setbacks for the first time as a professional.
“I’m more than happy to still be a Cardinal,†Bedell said. “I grew up a Cardinals fan. This is the organization I want to be in.â€
It’s still “business as usual†for the former fourth-round pick.
“I’d love to make a debut at Busch for the Cardinals,†he said. “There’s no giant emotional swing. ... I’m still in the same position. I’m trying to make my way up through the Cardinals system, and I couldn’t be happier about that.â€
In his third season since getting selected out of Mizzou during the pandemic-shortened draft in 2020, Bedell posted a 2.44 ERA and collected 106 strikeouts over 96 innings, all with Class High-A Peoria. The 96-inning season gave Bedell his first real workload as a pro after minor league baseball was canceled in 2020 and Tommy John surgery plus setbacks in 2021 and 2022 limited Bedell to 8 1/3 total professional innings before the start of 2023.
Fully healthy and with a new slider in his arsenal, Bedell began the past season with a 1.13 ERA and 31 strikeouts in 16 innings out of Peoria’s bullpen. He moved into a starting role in early May, giving the 24-year-old his first crack at the rotation since he filled one during his final collegiate season at Mizzou in 2020. He maintained a 2.81 ERA over 19 starts through the end of the regular season for a playoff-bound Peoria club.
“I thought it went about as well as possible,†he said of his season. “It was a really good year. The first year was obviously not how we wanted it to go with getting surgery, and then trying to get back after having surgery in May doesn’t make it ideal for a quick recovery because you’re trying to make it back for the middle of the year when realistically it should take longer.
“But it was nice to finally get back out and play and then also prove to myself that I can still withhold the innings, the workload and everything like that and be healthy.â€
After spending his past offseasons training in Jupiter, Florida, and doing homework to complete his schooling at Mizzou, the college graduate spent most of this winter in Scottsdale, Arizona, free of classwork. The location switch was a first for Bedell. It’s allowed him to try a new facility, spend time with his former college roommate, who is now in the Phillies organization, and even coach an 11-under youth baseball team alongside his college pal.
When it comes to his training, Bedell has used the winter to make his mechanics more “efficient.†He said he’ll get a better idea of how those changes feel as the intensity of his workouts builds up through January.
Along with mechanical changes, he hopes to add more velocity behind the slider he developed last spring with the help of former Cardinals minor leaguer Griffin Roberts. The slider, a “gyro slider,†as he described it, ranged from 81 mph to 84 mph over the year with Peoria. It helped the righty produce a 27.2% strikeout rate that ranked fifth in the Cardinals system for pitchers with a minimum of 60 innings, per FanGraphs.
He hopes to get it into the 83 mph to 86 mph range as a way to “make it a little bit harder to hit.â€
And along with the extra zip for a breaking pitch he found to be a “very useful tool,†the right-hander hopes this winter sets him up to build off his strongest minor league season yet.
“The whole goal of the offseason is to try and put myself in as good of a position at spring training to make some noise and then hopefully move up through the minor leagues quickly,†Bedell said. “I think just the whole goal is to, again, be healthy going into spring training and then trying to earn possibly big league camp innings or more minor league camp innings and put myself in a better position to move up through the organization.â€