State of the Union: St. Louis Cardinals Baseball

If you don't know who I am, my name is Nick Yahl and I'm the head of content for Bookit Sports. I'm not usually in content much anymore, but rather behind the scenes helping the social and production teams that support Bookit Sports and our creators. 

 

I'm a lifelong St. Louis sports fan and I'm never shy to showcase my love for my favorite teams. As I help Bookit Sports grow our website, I'll have blogs from time to time on my favorite sports teams, what's going on around Bookit Sports or general opinion columns. 

 

I graduated from the University of Missouri with a bachelors degree in sports radio/tv, so writing and covering sports has always been a passion of mine and something I did pretty consistently covering the St. Louis and Missouri beat while I was in college and postgrad. 

 

That's enough about me though, the St. Louis Cardinals are what we're really here to talk about. 

 

It's been quite some time since the Cardinals have been in the playoffs, 2022 to be exact. St. Louis lost to the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL Wild Card round after Ryan Helsley forgot how throw a baseball. Since then it's been a consistent dissapointment with missed playoff appearences the past three years. 

 

The additions of Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt coupled with the young talent of Tyler O'Neill, Harrison Bader, Tommy Edman, Jack Flaherty and Alex Reyes were supposed to propel this team into consistent playoff contention. 

 

Instead, injuries and inconsistency forced St. Louis to trade and fast track guys like Masyn Winn, Jordan Walker and Nolan Gorman to the big leagues before they were ready. With the exception of Winn, it's been dissapointment after dissapointment. 

 

A lot of people like to blame former President of Baseball Operations, John Mozeliak for the team's inconsistency. Others say the DeWitt family hasn't done enough to bring big time free agents to the team. Of course there's also the firing of Mike Schildt for what the team described as philisophical differences. All are contirbuting factors. 

 

Then there was the death of Oscar Taveras and the cheating scandal  involving former Cardinals Director of Baseball Operations, Chris Correa that put pressure on the once elite farm system. Loss of draft picks and pressure to continue the dominance the teams ownership and fans became accustomed to between 2011-2022 created a situation Mozeliak tried to repair with band-aids rather than fundamental changes in process. 

 

"Patience" is all fans heard for what seems like the last decade. In reality I don't think Mozeliak ever cared much enough to go through the systematic changes the team finds itself in currently. He simply wasn't the man for the job. 

 

And while the man for the job, new President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom is in place, the team would've been better off starting the process in 2023. The past two years have been spent overhauling the process and systems by which the Cardinals develop their prospects. This included installing a series of new coaching positions, with an analytics first, more main stream mindset in line with the modern style of baseball. 

 

In this years off-season we've seen the team dump veteran contracts of players that were formerly the cornerstone of the franchise. Sonny Gray, Wilson Contreras, and Nolan Arenado each waived their no-trade clauses as the Cardinals pursue a new path. Bloom has been able to restock the pool of young arms in the farm system through deadline and offseason trades that have stabilized the Cardinals farm. 

 

It's also opened up opportunities for Jordan Walker, Nolan Gorman, Victor Scott, Ivan Herrera and now JJ Wetherholt to play every day in the Cardinals lineup. No more platooning veterans, no more band-aids, just homegrown talent getting the chance to play every day without the pressure of HAVING to compete. 

 

We all know St. Louis won't be in contention this year or the next and with the impending lockout in 2027, now is the perfect time to start the rebuild. It's a new era of Cardinals' baseball and it's not necessarily something everyone is excited about. The pitching staff is less than desirable, headlined by offseason acquisition Dusitn May. The postion group certainly has potential, but if Brendan Donovan gets traded it will certainly lower the overall expectations of the team. 

 

If there's ever a time for patience, now is the time because if you're a Cardinals fan like me, you're going to have to wait awhile. It's bad enough watching former Cardinals like Tommy Edman, Randy Arozarena, Adolis Garcia or Jack Flaherty excel in other areas. It's worse watching the rival Cubs or the super team Dodgers continue to add to their already stacked lineups. 

 

With the signing of Kyle Tucker to a $240M 4-year deal, there's almost certainly going to be a lockout next year. Owners are calling for a salary cap and the players association will fight hard against it. If there is a work stoppage, there couldn't be a better time for the Cardinals rebuild. It will take a few years, but St. Louis is finally on the right track.