Cardinals’ Travis Honeyman Feels Good After First Healthy Pro Season
Six innings into his second game in the Arizona Fall League, outfielder Travis Honeyman launched a reminder about what’s possible when he has his health.
He went to the desert this offseason to show it.
Honeyman drilled a 429-foot home run that left his bat at 106.9 mph. In the same game, he scored twice, stole a base and singled while also playing center field.
His production would slow later in the AFL season, but the offseason assignment was more about gaining experience than production. The 2023 third-rounder out of Boston College has been limited to 102 pro games due to injuries.
“This is the most baseball I’ve played in my life,” Honeyman told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “To come out here and just play a little bit more and also test myself.”
Honeyman began his pro career coming back from injury. He damaged his shoulder making a diving play during practice for BC and needed surgery to repair his rotator cuff and also labrum. Then he played just 20 games in 2024.
When he returned from shoulder surgery and began playing regularly in 2025, he had an early-season hamstring injury that twice interrupted his summer.
Honeyman surged from Low-A Palm Beach to High-A Peoria this season, batting .287/.411/.367 in 82 games. He had a .390 on-percentage in the Midwest League.
The hitter the Cardinals drafted and counted on returning from injury was emerging. With health, his speed was there, and he has a knack of contact that comes from a direct righthanded swing and a keen feel for the strike zone.
Honeyman hit three home runs in 2025 and two more in the AFL. The Cardinals believe there’s more slugging to unlock from his swing. He has taken the first steps toward answering that question.
Being healthy and being in the lineup is where it starts.
REDBIRD CHIRPS
— In an unexpected twist of the roster rules, 2019 first-round pick Zack Thompson went from being an expected minor league free agent to, upon further review by MLB, still in the Cardinals’ organization. The Cardinals removed Thompson (shoulder) from the 60-day injured list and from the 40-man roster, seeing his outright assignment as likely to trigger minor league free agency. But, since Thompson spent the entirety of 2025 on the major league IL, a nuance in the rule allowed the Cardinals to maintain his rights.
— The Cardinals added four players to the 40-man roster on Nov. 18 to shield them from the Rule 5 draft: outfielder Joshua Baez, catcher Leonardo Bernal, lefthander Cooper Hjerpe and lefthander Brycen Mautz.
