Mason Molina learned to slow the speed and increase the spin of his devastating changeup at the University of Arkansas pitching laboratory in 2024. After a dizzying start to his professional career – the 22-year-old was traded twice last year – Molina is back in the Ozarks and he’s looking to slow the pace.
“It’s a huge blessing to be mentioned in some of the conversations with the guys that I’ve been traded for, you know, two amazing guys in the big leagues that have done it out of the bullpen for a decent amount of time and done it pretty well. Obviously, it’s an honor – it’s a little stressful while trades are happening because there’s the growing pains of learning a new staff and program but apart from that, it’s been really awesome to be here; it was pretty seamless here.”
Molina took the mound at Arvest Ballpark in Springdale, Arkansas Wednesday night as the Springfield Cardinals opened a six-game series against Northwest Arkansas, just up the road from where the former Razorback honed the pitch that’s enticed three MLB organizations (Milwaukee, Texas, St. Louis). Molina threw 51-of-75 pitches for strikes and punched out six batters in 4.2 innings in the Cards’ 4-2 loss. He sports a 3.80 ERA and 30 strikeouts over 23.2 innings (five starts), as he’s worked to build up his workload early in the season.
“The changeup since my junior year at Arkansas is really blossomed into my go-to,” he said. “A glorified mini screwball is kind of the best way to put it. I’m honestly trying to throw almost a slider from the inside of the ball – for me, it works.”
“Our goal when we were building that pitch was being able to make it an outlier…so we were trying to kill some velo and make it consistent, and it ended up a high-spin pitch for me.”
Mason Molina goes to a changeup, throws it right over the heart of the plate, and rings up the strikeout pic.twitter.com/GLHSCzvXdk
— Kyle Reis, 58% Neanderthal (@kyler416) April 23, 2026
Molina is developing secondary pitches to his fastball-changeup profile.
“The change and the fastball are strengths, I’m trying to elevate everything else and take the pressure off those two, so that I’m still able to use them later into games, deeper into lineups. The slider, the gyro, I have two of them now. I worked on the sweeper all off-season, that’s kind of coming to fruition now.”
The California native was drafted by Milwaukee in the seventh round of the 2024 MLB draft; Molina pitched five innings with the Brewers organization before he was traded to Texas for reliever Grant Anderson. Then the Rangers flipped Molina to St. Louis in a 2025 trade deadline deal for Phil Maton.
Springfield captured the Texas League championship last fall thanks to a trio of lefthanded starters – Pete Hansen, Ixan Henderson, and Brycen Mautz – that all moved to Triple-A Memphis this season. Molina, Liam Doyle and Braden Davis are the southpaws Springfield manager Patrick Anderson will call upon this season.
“(Molina) is a professional, he knows what that means,” Anderson said. “It’s a breath of fresh air to be able to see that – it’s cool to be able to see it from somebody who comes from other organizations, bounces around a little bit, but the daily process, what he does, it’s consistent. He’s got a plus changeup and his (fastball) velo was a tick up in spring training and it seemed like we could be able to keep that up there.”
