By Rob Rains
JUPITER, Fla. – It was 11 years ago when Rob Kaminsky first walked into the Cardinals’ minor-league clubhouse at spring training with all the hopes and dreams a first-round selection in the baseball draft should have.
He was 19 then, one year out of high school, with no idea how his baseball journey would unfold, or how the career twists and turns would eventually bring him back to the place where it all began.
Now 30 years old, Kaminsky returned this spring, beginning his third stint with the Cardinals, after signing as a minor-league free agent two weeks ago.
“I think I’ve crossed off every transaction possible,” said Kaminsky, one of several minor leaguers participating in the early spring camp. “Optioned a bunch, designated for assignment, released during rehab, that stunk. Promoted, demoted, you name it, I’ve done it.”
Through all of it, however, the quest has never changed.
“I never lost faith that I would get to the big leagues,” Kaminsky said. “I never thought I wasn’t good enough … If I didn’t think I could pitch in the big leagues now I would probably hang them up. I’m not doing this for any other reason. Baseball is all I really know, the only job I’ve ever had.
“Until I can’t get a job I’m going to be playing. I’m lucky to have the support of a very good family. A lot of people don’t have that privilege or whatever you want to call it. I have it. I’m running with this. I’m excited. I’m proud of what I’ve done, but I think there’s a lot left in me.”
“Career hasn’t played out how I thought”
The Cardinals used their second of two first-round picks in 2013 to select Kaminsky, a lefthander from New Jersey with a stellar high school career. Kaminsky admits that back then, he didn’t know much about the minor leagues, but he has had quite an education since.
“My career to this point definitely hasn’t played out how I thought it was going to (back then),” Kaminsky said. “It’s definitely different being 30 and being on the minor-league side. My body has definiekly changed. I’m not 18 anymore.”
Still, Kaminsky believes that he is healthier now than he was for many of the years during his career, one that threw him his first detour in 2015, when the Cardinals traded him, pitching for Class A Palm Beach at the time, to Cleveland in a deadline deal that brought Brandon Moss to St. Louis.
After a good Double A season in 2016, Kaminsky only pitched in one game the following year because of a sprained elbow. Recovered from that injury, he tore his abdomen in 2018. He split 2019 between Double A and Triple A, then become a minor-league free agent and re-signed with the Cardinals before the 2020 season.
He was in the major-league spring camp on a non-roster basis when Covid shut down the camps, then wiped out the minor-league season. Kaminsky was working out at the alternate site camp when he was called up to the majors in August, making his major-league debut on Aug. 16 at Wrigley Field, albeit with no fans in the stands.
Kaminsky appeared in four more games the final two months of the season, but was designated for assignment and in April 2021 signed with the Philliesm but pitched in only one game before missing the rest of that season because of bone chips.
Released by the Phillies, Kaminsky signed with the Mariners, got healthy, and just kept working to try to get better, something that impressed the Mariners’ pitching coordinator, Matt Pierpont.
Pierpont was hired by the Cardinals in December as part of their reorganization of their minor-league staff, and is now the director of pitching. He is one of the reasons why Kaminsky has re-joined the Cardinals for a third time.
“The one thing about Rob is he is always looking for ways to improve,” Pierpont said. “He loves this game; he loves to compete. We had a great relationship from my two years in Seattle working with him so we always stayed in touch. When I first took this job I didn’t know what opportunities would exist here but as I got accustomed to the organization, looking at the roster numbers and things like that, I was very comfortable asking Rob to come and be part of the organization again.
“There’s a lot of great qualities about Rob but I would say the competitiveness is number one for me … He is going to go out there and compete, no matter what, no matter how he’s feeling, no matter what he did the day before. He just wants to go out and play the game that he loves.”
It is the love of the game that keeps driving Kaminsky despite all of the obstacles he has had to face, moments when it would have been easy for someone less-determined to just walk away and be satisfied that he did pitch in the majors, even if only for a short period.
“It’s kind of do it or get off the pot,” Kaminsky said. “That’s kind of the position I’m in. I’m lucky to have a jersey. I’m hoping to prolong this as long as I can and get better and learn and help people along the way.
“I think the last three years I’ve probably been the most appreciative and grateful. I’ve always been grateful because I know how hard it is to play this game. I think my appreciation and that sense of gratitude has helped me a lot behind the scene to keep going and busting my ass, not letting it bother me not getting a job or not getting back to the big leagues.
“Day by day, just enjoy this. Learning from my mistakes and my failures. Anynway you can help … That’s what has changed me the most. You want to take a role of getting people to buy into the system. Kind of my role here is anything I can do to help, including getting outs on the field.
“You see older guys who were sour or bitter and thought the world was out to get them and I promised myself I would never be that guy. That’s now how I was raised. Knowing how hard the game is now, if you don’t walk to the field really grateful every day you are not doing this right. I wake up really excited every day to come here as cliché as that sounds. I’ve been on the other side and it sucks. I like coming here, I like the work. I like throwing a baseball. It’s an environment where you try to make it as great as you possibly can.”
Kaminsky knows part of the reason for his positive attitude the last three years is that the time period coincides with him getting married. His wife Meg works for a law firm in New Jersey.
“She is a saint,” Kaminsky said. “This definitely would not be possible without her. The sacrifices she makes, the love and support. It’s everything you could ask for in a wife.”
“Trying to find ways to get better”
It was Pierpont who helped Kaminsky develop a sinker last year that helped him against lefthanded batters. Now, Pierpont has him working on a cutter that should help him against righthanders.
“That’s what I love about him, just trying to find ways to get better,” Pierpont said. “That’s what I value in pitchers, really in the organization is just a culture of how can I continue to improve and iterate on myself and Rob is that to a T. I think the cutter could be a potential weapon for him.
“He sees the top end of him and knows what he can do. I definitely believe there’s a major-league upside. The top end portion of Rob can pitch in the big leagues and get big-league hitters out. It’s up to him to go out and do it.”
Back when he was first with the Cardinals a dozen years ago, pitching in the big leagues was what Kaminsky expected of himself. What he didn’t know was how hard that it would be to achieve that goal.
He has a better understanding of that now.
“All you can ask for is people you can trust, who you can have hard conversations with and you’ve got to know yourself well enough to know that ‘I’ve got to switch something up and get better results.’ That’s what we’re doing now,” Kaminsky said.
“When what you are doing isn’t working you kind of have to look in the mirror and say, ‘How do I get better?’ I pound the zone but you don’t really want to pound the zone with average stuff. You get hit if you do that. That was the focus this winter.”
Kaminsky not only has a goal of pitching again in the majors, but he wants to make a second trip to the World Baseball Classic in 2026 for team Israel, after getting a chance to pitch, in front of fans, in a game against the Dominican Republic in Miami in 2023.
As he looks back on how his career has unfolded, if he had the chance to give his 18-year-old self some advice, what would Kaminsky tell him?
“I’m proud of still being able to perform at the higher levels,” Kaminsky said. “I would tell him to be proud. I’m proud of how I went about it. I would tell him that he needs to evolve faster. Don’t be so thick-headed with, ‘This is who I am and I’m not going to make changes.’ That’s bit me in the ass before.
“Learn to trust the right people and continue to learn and evolve. Become a good learner. Ask questions. Everyone works hard, everyone is really good at baseball. You need to evolve and learn.
“I’m not like some old wizard having all of this wisdom. I’ve lived through a lot in baseball terms. I’ve had a lot of breaks, had a lot of battles. I’m not special in that regard.”
He is special to Pierpont.
“He’s one of one,” Pierpont said. “I say that to him all the time. He’s played this game for a really long time. It looks different for everybody, there’s too many external factors to really understand or have an expectation of what it might have looked like.
“But the fact that he’s still playing and playing at a high level, and getting better, it just shows a lot about him as a human being and the kind of character he has … Hopefully that continues to drive Rob to find that best version of himself.”
That’s all Kaminsky is trying to do.
“I owe the Cardinals everything I’ve got,” he said. “I’m a competitor first. I’m going to give everything I can to get back to the big leagues.”
Follow Rob Rains on X @RobRains
