The Cardinals announced that they have acquired right-hander Brian Curley from the Diamondbacks as the played to be named later in the Lars Nootbaar trade. At this year’s deadline, the Cards sent Nootbaar to Arizona for prospects Daniel Eagen, left-hander Sandro Santana and a PTBNL.
Curley, 23, was a third-round pick in last year’s draft. The Diamondbacks took him out of Georgia and gave him a $700K signing bonus. He didn’t make his professional debut last year. Here in 2026, he started at High-A and got promoted to Double-A in July. Between those two levels, he made 25 appearances. Only 23 were officially starts but he pitched bulk innings in the two relief appearances he made. On the whole, he logged 116 innings, allowing 5.28 earned runs per nine.
That’s not an impressive ERA but the numbers under the hood are more intriguing. Curley struck out 25.3% of batters faced this year. He only issued walks to 6.6% of them. He induced grounders on 43.2% of balls in play. Those are all strong figures. The ERA was likely inflated by a .381 batting average on balls in play. He also saw 21.4% of his fly balls leave the yard, about double a normal rate. Sometimes, a home run spike can be related to what a pitcher is doing but it can also be fluky in small samples.
Baseball America lists Curley as the #19 prospect in Arizona’s system. Their report notes that his fastball sits in the mid-90s and can touch triple digits. His arsenal also features a slider, curveball, sweeper and changeup. BA isn’t sure if his stuff can be consistent enough to stick as a major league starter but they feel the fastball and slider could play up if he eventually moves to the bullpen.
Time will tell if the Cards view him more as a starter or a reliever. For now, he adds another arm to their pipeline. He won’t be eligible for the Rule 5 draft until after the 2028 season, so there’s some time for the club to try things out.
Photo courtesy of Joshua L. Jones, Imagn Images.