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Bloom addressed the additional rotation depth question today. Details here.
My free article on Dustin May signing with the #stlcards has been updated with a quick summary of his and Chaim Bloom's comments to the media via Zoom this morning. https://t.co/fFDhjxvfwo pic.twitter.com/0DTWBBYZOd
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) December 18, 2025
Chaim Bloom…So why should we expect anything smart from him?
Can’t argue with that, Bob. But I think most people like the changes he’s been making, particularly with regard to player development and drafting. I wanted to also name some of the personnel that he cherry picked from other organizations. But the only name I could remember was Rob Cerfolio from the Guardians. So I tried to look up the other ones he hired. I didn’t really find the names I was looking for. But, on the Cardinals website, I did find a list of all of the organization’s employees, and the ones I was looking for are, no doubt, on the list somewhere. I’m changing the subject of this post now because I think I made my point, and I want to mention my surprise at the list of employees. I counted 401 people that the Cardinals employ for the sole purpose of entertaining fans by fielding a team of athletes to play baseball. That’s is one heck of an overhead, and it doesn’t even include work done by outside contractors, etc.
https://www.mlb.com/cardinals/team/front-officeI seem to recall Bloom working somewhere else before Boston where he was really successful at for nearly a decade.
Boston also reached the ALCS under Bloom. As the Cardinals have proven, lowering payroll and remaining competitive is rather difficult.
“I seem to recall Bloom working somewhere else before Boston where he was really successful at for nearly a decade.”
Bloom was VP or Senior VP for six years in the Tampa Bay organization. As in Boston, the team got worse when he took over and better after he left. In Tampa they made the playoffs once in six years under his stewardship. In Boston, once in four years. That is an awful track record, in an era where 40% of teams make the playoffs.
And again, he inherited strong teams in both cities. He hasn’t executed any re-builds. He has only lowered payrolls and/or made teams worse. He is a failure.
We could argue how much of the blame he deserves for his failures in Boston and Tampa. But I do not believe there is any reasonable argument about whether he failed in those places or not.
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“Seems there could be a better method to judge a guy than by the team’s place in the standings.”
At the risk of stating the grotesquely obvious, in sports the objective is to win. If Bloom were the CEO or CFO, then his job would be to maximize profits. But as a GM (or its equivalent) his job is to win games — to put the manager in the best possible position to win games.
Of course, any GM can’t be judged in a vacuum. Some inherit stronger teams than others, some have much more resources than others. Nevertheless, the job is to win, and Bloom has done a poor job of that over ten years with two other organizations.
But I want VERY badly for him to win in St. Louis, so I would LOVE for anyone to give me hope. Please, I implore you to give me hope, give me a reason to expect something positive to come from the Bloom Era. Not faith, not hollow optimism. A real reason.
There is a part of me that wishes for an all in guy like Dombrowski or heck, evenJocketty, but for the long term I think CB isn’t even close to the worst option.
Can I please reevaluate this comment after the returns on Donnie, Jojo, Contreras and Nado are known?
I’d have to say that most baseball fans still know how to read a W/L record, so if you take a quick glance at the standings on Labor Day, you’ll know if the new guy they call “Chaim” is any good or not. Keep it simple and it’s easy to understand.
So, I guess if we go 78-84 he’s bad, if we go 84-78 he’s good. What is he if we go 84-78 five years from now?
If by some odd circumstance the team plays 161 regular season games and goes 83-78, he would be really, really good if the 83-78 regular season record was embellished with a WS championship.
But I want VERY badly for him to win in St. Louis, so I would LOVE for anyone to give me hope. Please, I implore you to give me hope, give me a reason to expect something positive to come from the Bloom Era. Not faith, not hollow optimism. A real reason.
I’m not entirely convinced myself, but you could make the case that Bloom (and the people he’s worked with) have generally put the teams he’s been with on a good trajectory with the farm system, at a minimum. His tenure with the Rays started at a bit of a poor point (20th ranked farm system in 2014 per BA) and a below .500 record, and ended with them having a top 5 system and built the division winner in 2019 and the pennant winner in 2020.
With the Red Sox, he was hired with the imperative to cut payroll and build the farm (which was ranked 30th in 2019). He had to do some unpopular things (I think the Betts trade was basically forced on him) but did turn the farm around. The Red Sox system was ranked around 10th BA in 2022-24, basically all Bloom’s work.
So while the Cards system has been better than those teams before Chaim took over, the hope is that player development will catch up and the cheap talent level will rise to make something like the Rays player development model with a poor man’s Red Sox payroll (10th or so in the league) a few years down the road. So far it’s a step up from Mozeliak. We’ll see if the results follow.
“His tenure with the Rays started at a bit of a poor point (20th ranked farm system in 2014 per BA) and a below .500 record, and ended with them having a top 5 system and built the division winner in 2019 and the pennant winner in 2020.”
Thanks for the response, 25. I appreciate the thoroughness.
Just to clarify, the Tampa Bay Rays went 77-85 in Bloom’s first year as VP. Which was awful, given that he inherited an excellent base of MLB talent: In the previous four seasons they won 96, 91, 90, and 92 games. (They made the playoffs in three of those four seasons.) In a dramatic reversal of fortune, Bloom’s first four Tampa teams all finished with losing records — Joe Maddon by the way was manager for Chaim Bloom’s first losing season, then bailed to take the cub job.
Bloom’s fifth and sixth teams won 90+ games, and he left the club in good enough shape to play nearly .600 baseball for the next four seasons, under someone else’s stewardship. He gets some partial credit for that, sure.
But here’s the thing: if he truly knew what he was doing in Tampa, he wouldn’t have dragged what was then a perennial 90+ win team down below .500 for four straight years. And if he leads the Cards to a string of losing seasons from 2026 through 2029, that will make him an abject failure regardless of budgets or ownership interference or anything else. And if he does in St. Louis what he did in Boston — three finishes in the cellar in four years, including his final season in Beantown, he’ll go down as the worst Redbird GM in a century. No matter how much he spruces up the farm system (which has been one of three or four most productive in the majors over the past 30 years, even without good old Chaim Bloom).
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“With the Red Sox, he was hired with the imperative to cut payroll and build the farm (which was ranked 30th in 2019). He had to do some unpopular things (I think the Betts trade was basically forced on him) but did turn the farm around.”
Agreed, absolutely, the Betts trade was under duress from ownership. But a substantial percentage of baseball trades are under duress of one type or another; and for generational talent Mookie Betts, Bloom’s return (from his good buddy Andrew Friedman by the way) was fairly pathetic. An average regular, a below-average semi-regular, and a top 100 prospect in Jeter Downs who completely busted.
Look, maybe Bloom has a good trade or two on his resume. I’m not a student of his career. (The Sonny Gray trade doesn’t count. That’s a salary dump that garnered a sub-mediocre redundancy in Rich Fitts, and a talented but infinitely breakable Brandon Clarke. That’s somewhere between a C- and C+. Factor in the 20 million bucks the Birds threw in, and the grade drops to D or D-.)
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Lastly, I want to apologize, Brian, for the tone of my response to your remark about how to best judge a GM. I was way too snotty. Didn’t mean to be, but there you have it.
Bloom is not going to be the problem with the “turn around”, 1,000,000 of the blame is on De-lost-his-wallet in Ohio.
Dear Mr. Musk, please buy the Cardinals. Please. I’ll go to games again if you do……
Just to clarify, the Tampa Bay Rays went 77-85 in Bloom’s first year as VP. Which was awful, given that he inherited an excellent base of MLB talent: In the previous four seasons they won 96, 91, 90, and 92 games.
This is not true. Bloom was promoted after the 2014 season, when Friedman left for Los Angeles. They traded one of their three best players (Ben Zobrist) that off-season (in his last pre free agency year, which poor house teams do),after trading their best player (David Price) during the summer of 2014. The Tampa farm system bottomed out in 2014 with their worst ranking of the 21st century, then consistently improved in 2015-2020. I don’t believe it’s a fair assertion that Bloom was to blame for the Rays’ downturn (they would have bottomed out even with Friedman), and I think it’s fair to give him at least some credit for their rise.
As for the Betts trade, they were trading that albatross contract of Price along with Betts (and only one year of Betts). It was always going to be a muted return. Getting 4 years of an upside RF (who produced better than 5 WAR over a full season of plate appearances in 2019 and 2020 with LA and Boston) plus a pair of middle infield prospects who were around the top 100 prospects (if not in them)…isn’t a bad return. They also saved $27M in Betts salary and $48M in Prices salary (over 3 years).
Look, I’m not saying that Bloom will be wildly successful here. We can’t know that. But I do think on the player development side, he’s a step up from Mozeliak at the end of his career. If the Cards are successful, it will take the farm producing some top talent for the long run. Unlike how the Rays operate, and more like how Boston does (and the Cards did)…I think it’ll also take ownership being willing to approve shrewd trades and reasonably high dollar acquisitions and extensions (like Arenado and Goldy were in the last 10 years) to go along with that young core. If we’re sitting here in 4 years and the Cards have not made the playoffs, then I’ll agree that Bloom has failed. But it’s also possible that in four years, the Cards win the pennant (or more) with Josh Baez a 5 WAR right fielder, Deniel Ortiz (or Rainiel Rodriguez), Masyn Winn and JJ Wetherholt as All Stars on the infield, Liam Doyle and others fronting and impressive and deep rotation, and supplemented by big free agent signing Ronald Acuna, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Riley Greene, etc.
There is no shortage of elements to examine in one’s search for the ultimate measure of success, but in the end Lombardi had it right (if in fact Vince is really the one who coined the saying).
Dustin May is a $12.5 million lottery ticket.
You know that the Cardinals likely just threw $12.5 million away, but there is that miniscule hope he won’t break down and he’ll realize his potential and the Cardinals can cash in.
If they were only paying May $5-7 million, it would have been an okay signing.
Maybe the Cardinals have entered the territory where they have to overpay people to come here.
I’ll take May at 12.5 and his upside, especially for the current Cardinals situation and the 2026 inflated prices. Way before $10 or whatever it was for a Lynn and Gibson….
That being said, and to not rush the young fellas, two more guys that will start 20+ games and throw 100+ innings is a necessity.
Bloom isn’t blind, he knows this as well.
two more guys that will start 20+ games and throw 100+ innings is a necessity.
Which is exactly where they were before the May signing.
12.5 seems a bit rich but – it seems to be the cost of doing business. They paid Matz 11 per year for 4 years and he couldn’t stay healthy.
The Cards need a volume of starting pitching possibilities and an even larger volume of minor league prospects so that some are actually good and can help the big league club by playing or being trade chips.
162 x 5 IP per start is 810, they are not close to that projection even with May. I don’t understand your comment. May could be a great trade chip or a dud… all I meant was they need two more 120-150 innings, not guys that are named Mikolas or Pallante
I don’t really care what May cost (within reason I guess). We aren’t going to spend fully anyway. The point of signing guys like May is potential upside. No reason to sign an innings eater like a Mikolas or Lynn. The cost is mostly irrelevant at this point. Sign one or two more like him.
Pallante was somewhat less horrible the first half, so i can see the plan being head north with him the 5th starter. The idea being AAA guy will be ready for a try at some point.
Thanks for correcting my Chaim Bloom timeline, 25. (His Wikipedia page was somewhat misleading.) I will amend his Tampa grade from F+ to a solid D, same as his Red Sox grade.
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