Rincon was three months shy of his 17th birthday when he signed with the Cardinals for $70,000 out of the Dominican Republic in January 2019. His stateside debut didn’t come until three years later, and while he looked like a workhorse with back-to-back seasons of 132 2/3 innings in ’23 and ’24, he didn’t become a breakout arm with swing-and-miss stuff until this past season, in which he posted a 3.92 ERA with 108 strikeouts in 96 1/3 frames at High-A and Double-A. Despite that, he went unprotected and unselected in the Rule 5 Draft when eligible in the offseason.
The 6-foot-2 right-hander bumped up his velocity just a bit to sit 91-94 mph with his fastball, but the pitch only gets ordinary ride and doesn’t come with big extension. While it doesn’t produce whiffs, he can spot it well to get ahead in counts and bring in his more dangerous weapons. Rincon tinkered with his changeup grip and clearly found something that worked because the mid-80s pitch shows a lot of armside run and generated a ton of whiffs. (Lefties pounded the heater though, making splits still an issue.) He’d also work in a low-80s gyro slider with nice drop versus righties, who’d often lunge at breakers low and away from them.
Rincon throws free and easy from a fluid delivery, and he’ll even use a bounce in his right knee when he gets into the windup that gives him a throwback look from a different era. He was better at limiting walks in his climb to Double-A Springfield, something Cardinals officials credit for better sequencing rather than any overhaul in mechanics. Entering his age-24 season, Rincon may need to rely even more on his secondaries if he’s going to break through to the Majors because they are the moneymakers.
