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Honest question for the “need to reset and find out what we have” crew. What do you think the chances are that the strategy you have mind will be successful are?
I’d consider success as becoming a perennial contender again within a reasonable 2-4 years, making the playoffs most every year and winning rounds of the playoffs at least every other year, with a shot at a title.
My view is that for a mid market team, hitting the reset button has around a 20-30% chance of working out. We’ve seen lots of teams sell off and then spend 10+ years in baseball purgatory with little to nothing to show for it.
It is hard to say because this is new territory for us, at least for the last few decades. The build from within strategy seems to work well for small to mid-market teams like Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Tampa. The Cardinals have poached some front office people from Cleveland and Tampa and the Cardinals have more financial resources than those three teams so I think it has a decent chance of working. I guess what I am saying is that I am putting a lot of faith in Chaim Bloom.
Well, Mike’s not the Cardinal manager and four of the other guys on the list are members of the HOF.
Some Q/A responses from one of the moderators/experts at today’s MLB Trade Rumors chat:
1:16 Which team had the worst off-season?
Steve Adams
1:17 The Cardinals staked their entire offseason on being able to trade three guys with no-trade clauses, and then have done quite literally nothing when it became almost immediately clear that those efforts weren’t going to pan out. I can’t imagine the offseason having gone much worse for them.1:21 Will Ryan Helsley be traded? If he does get traded what are the likely teams he gets traded to?
Steve Adams
1:22 This summer, probably. They should’ve traded him in December, and their reluctance to do so looks egregious to me, at this point.1:29 Cardinals picked 7th in 2024 and got the 5th pick due to the lottery this year… does that mean they’re ineligible to pick in the top 10 in 2026? Seems like they have less of an incentive to tank than your saying (RE: offseason, helsley) under this CBA
Steve Adams
1:30 I’m not saying it with regard to the draft or tanking, I’m saying their roster isn’t improved over last year’s disappointing team. It’s actively worse. And there’s immense risk for any pitcher — Helsley or Erick Fedde in this case — to get injured and completely tank his value before he walks as a free agent. I agree wholeheartedly with the piece Anthony Franco wrote recently for MLBTR calling their offseason a half measure. It might not even be a half measure. Is a tenth-measure a thing?https://live.jotcast.com/chat/chat-with-mlbtrs-steve-adams-2-19-25-20368.html
Two aspects to managing –
1.) The hand your dealt.
2.) How you play the hand.
In response to your rating system for managers, 1toughdominican, I would refer you to Joe Torre’s winning percentage as a Cardinal manager vs. his winning percentage as a Yankee manager.
The Athletic offers up a review of the Cardinal offseason:
St. Louis Cardinals
Offseason grade: F
2024 payroll: $183 million
2025 payroll estimate: $148 millionThe Cardinals commenced the offseason with a frank evaluation of the organization’s recent failures, outlining a multiyear plan to emphasize player development while turning over the front office. At the time, the presumption across the sport was that St. Louis would look to move on from several veteran pieces, even those under longer team control.
Instead, the Cardinals reported to camp with Nolan Arenado still the third baseman, Ryan Helsley still the closer and the rotation still stocked with Sonny Gray, Miles Mikolas and Steven Matz. St. Louis has been candid about its ongoing efforts to move Arenado, who nixed a deal to Houston back in December.
The good news is that retaining those players means the 2025 Cardinals should be better than what we all expected. The bad news is that probably isn’t good enough to contend in the NL Central — given their record last season and the lack of a single major-league acquisition this winter — and brings them no closer to improving the talent pipeline beyond this summer.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6142976/2025/02/18/mlb-offseason-grades-2024-25-trades-signings/
The national media are concerned with the StL offseason, and it’s effect on our 2025. The FO isn’t. Waiting to sell.
Sell now vs sell later, again.
Can we just say it like it is? Bill is valuing the possible gate increase, over supposed increased prospect value, if he sold off now. It’s just what it is. C’mon, Bills broke 😉
Sell now vs sell later, again.
Can we just say it like it is? Bill is valuing the possible gate increase, over supposed increased prospect value, if he sold off now. It’s just what it is. C’mon, Bills broke 😉
Drop the mic. Nothing left to say about it
Attendance and stadium revenue have always driven the Cardinals organization. I wasn’t finding fault in “sell later”.
Members of the St. Louis Cardinals LLC are wealthy. They don’t need the money from a sale. Plus interest in a baseball club is a DeWitt family tradition (Browns, Orioles, Reds, Cardinals).
The org and it’s fans need a club worthy of good attendance this season and “sell later” provides that opportunity. TBD.
The club this season could very well be better than many people think. Depends on if Arenado bounces back and how Walker and Gorman hit. Plus Nootbaar staying healthy.
The build from within strategy seems to work well for small to mid-market teams like Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Tampa.
Brewers haven’t won a postseason series since 2018.
Cleveland finally won their first series since 2016 this past season.
Tampa has that 2020 short season run to the World Series between it and no postseason series wins since 2008.
Combined, since the Cards last World Series win, they have won 6 playoff series in 39 team seasons. I would hope for a little better than that, personally. Maybe Dewitt will open the wallet back up, but the death spiral awaits any mistakes. Dewitt III sure doesn’t care about the success of the team outside the $$$.
Brewers haven’t won a postseason series since 2018.
Cleveland finally won their first series since 2016 this past season.
Tampa has that 2020 short season run to the World Series between it and no postseason series wins since 2008.
Combined, since the Cards last World Series win, they have won 6 playoff series in 39 team seasons. I would hope for a little better than that, personally. Maybe Dewitt will open the wallet back up, but the death spiral awaits any mistakes. Dewitt III sure doesn’t care about the success of the team outside the $$$.
This isn’t about the postseason since we have been told that it is all about get in and get hot at the right time. Those teams mentioned above have put together stellar regular seasons on a fraction of the Cardinal budget. That is just a fact. Too bad for them they couldn’t get hot in the postseason. At least they made the postseason. While we are talking about the postseason the Cardinals have won ONE postseason series in the last decade so how is that working out?
To my friends who think the “rebuild-reset-transition” is just nonsense and think the Cardinals are good enough to contend this year I have two questions for you:
1. If the Cardinals can win 80-85 games in 2025 and contend for a playoff spot on a $145M payroll vs last year’s $180M payroll why wouldn’t Bill DeWitt want to do it? That sounds like good business sense.
2. Do you think the Cardinal business plan of the last several years of scraping together a 85 win team with band aids and duct tape while neglecting player development is a sustainable plan?
Personally, I have always thought the Cardinals have been too frugal and risk averse, however, I think the rebuild idea is actually a worthy idea at this time if they could actually commit to it. The problem is that they are getting all wishy washy and trying to have it both ways by doing the half-measure, middle of the road, low hanging fruit approach. They need to pick a lane and stay with it.
Today there’s a hard sell scenario by next offseason, that forces stl to spend 30mil minimum next offseason, just to match MIL / KC in the mid 120’s. After that who knows where the budget goes, or doesn’t.
Their way of doing business isn’t fun to follow any more. I was actually pretty enthused about the whole deal until it became clear it is business as usual. I will watch the games regardless.
Nobody involved is dumb enough to sacrifice the present for the unknown future. All evaluations by national media or even bloggers with blinders are discounting the actual reality of the Cardinals’ situation choosing to instead echo a popular perception that the front office is foolish or ownership is cheap or simply constrained by economics.
Balderdash…truth always forms a synergy of factors that combine to create outcomes. All the popular storyline are rooted in facts, so writer’s assume their words are harbingers of the doom to come.
What is missing is the reality that Masyn and Willson are the heart of this team. This is really Masyn Winn’s team and we all saw what happens when Winn tries to do too much. The wise front office took all the blame for building foundationally not chronologically.
They know some AAA arms were going to have to become bullpen arms but didn’t want to say that to kids dreaming on starting. No free agent arms this winter at $10 million…seems prudent.
They have gone all in on some kids who they don’t want under the microscope, so they lowered external expectations, created runways, and maintained enough veteran pitching to protect the upper-level gems from being rushed while still sending the internal message that winning is the goal.
How is this off season not as great in its results as it was tedious and disheartening to endure?Because we aren’t expected to receive top prospect value for two players, Helsley and Fedde, doesn’t mean it’s business as usual. Middleton was last Feb 3rd, that’s a different trend.
As long as the FO doesn’t take on long term $ by seasons end, the reset is accomplished and that’s an entirely new model. They can be buyers at this deadline short term, doesn’t matter.
The marginal gain for selling now on two players, is not retooling the farm. That ongoing process is much bigger than those gains.
KCB, I’m just more concerned with the 5 first rounders on our 40man who ALL need to carve out a mlb role. Others watch different levels of the farm more closely, and for them “sell now” seems an immediate need. I get that too.
Nigel, your ivy-league level prose withstanding, I am not buying the argument that the front office played 3-D chess all winter and hoodwinked all of the hayseeds and national media types by actually concocting an ingenious roadmap to success only seen and understood by a few.
A more likely scenario is that they started out intent on slashing payroll, jettisoning as many veterans as possible, investing in minor league player development, and going with as many cheap, younger players as possible.
But along the way they ran into no trade clauses, unwilling trade partners, and the reality that they also need to win some games in 2025 to sell some tickets, therefore, executed the low hanging fruit plan of getting rid of the expiring contract players that required no effort then just shrugged their shoulders and punted on the remaining reset plans until July.
Cranny-all you read from my post was that this offseason wasn’t any fun. Did you read this part?
. I was actually pretty enthused about the whole deal
So in what way is that saying I’m not enthused about the new kids? Just the opposite. I’m upset because we didn’t drill down further into stocking our player developement system. All we did was dump salary. I’m disappointed Arenado is still here. Nothing personal. It just would have given more pt for these young guys. I don’t blame Mo. Nobody that he wanted to play for wanted him, at least not unless it was a lopsided deal. I get it. So was this offseason fun? Was there any real exitement? Do you think we enticed any young people to become Cardinal fans? I’m more than willing to engage in discussion, but if all you want to do is snark my posts and mis-represent what I say, don’t bother.
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