Cardinals buy Lancaster reliever Andrew Schultz, assign him to Springfield

The Atlantic League’s pipeline to affiliated baseball kept moving when the St. Louis Cardinals bought right-hander Andrew Schultz from the Lancaster Stormers and assigned him to Double-A Springfield. Schultz’s leap came after he overpowered league hitters in 16 appearances, posting a 1.69 ERA with a league-leading 17.4 strikeouts per nine innings and allowing just 2.3 hits per nine, the kind of run-prevention profile that makes an independent reliever hard to ignore.

For Lancaster, the move was another reminder that the Stormers are functioning as a proving ground for overlooked arms. The club said Schultz was the fourth member of its 2026 roster to have his contract purchased since spring training began, a striking number that shows how often the Atlantic League is feeding talent into affiliated ball. Schultz had handled the closer’s role for Lancaster and was dominant out of the bullpen before the Cardinals moved quickly to secure him.

The 28-year-old arrives in Springfield with a résumé that traces back to the 2019 MLB Draft, when the Philadelphia Phillies selected him in the sixth round, 180th overall, out of the University of Tennessee. Baseball-reference and MLB and MiLB records list Schultz as a 6-foot-4, 195-pound right-hander born July 31, 1997, in Alpharetta, Georgia. He spent nearly seven years in the Phillies’ system, including a brief stop at Triple-A Lehigh Valley, before resurfacing in Lancaster and pushing himself back onto the affiliated radar.

What likely pushed the Cardinals to act was not just the ERA, but the combination of missing bats and suppressing contact. A strikeout rate of 17.4 per nine innings suggests Schultz was overpowering hitters rather than surviving on batted-ball luck, while the 2.3 hits per nine innings figure points to a reliever who was keeping traffic off the bases at a remarkable level. That mix, paired with his size, right-handed power profile and prior draft pedigree, gave St. Louis a ready-made arm worth moving straight into Double-A.

Lancaster announced the purchase on June 5, and transaction records showed Schultz assigned to Springfield on June 9. For the Stormers, it was another transaction that validated their role in the league’s wider baseball economy. For Schultz, it was the next step back into organized baseball, and a chance to turn an Atlantic League breakout into a longer run in the Cardinals system.