photos: Buster Posey (Denny Medley/USA TODAY Sports)
The San Francisco Giants’ 21st-century makeover is a model the St. Louis Cardinals may already be following.
By Lou Schuler
“These are dark times, there’s no denying.” – Rufus Scrimgeour, Minister of Magic (deceased)
The St. Louis Cardinals avoided this dark moment for as long as they could.
Before and since their last good season in 2022, the team signed players who they would eventually have to pay other teams to take off their roster, while also costing them draft picks and international money. They leaned into nostalgia, pumping up the fanbase over aging stars reaching career milestones while underfunded and understaffed player development stagnated and prospects underperformed.
One could argue that the organization’s descent began long before the 71-91 debacle of 2023, and the two mediocre, non-playoff seasons that followed. Since the 2019 NLDS, the last time the Cards won a playoff series, they are 1-9 in postseason games.
Now, the Cardinals are fully committed to a rebuild, which is both exciting and scary.
An optimist can look at rebuilding as a bridge to the next era of consistently competitive teams. And that’s where I am more often than not.
But the realist understands there’s no guarantee that a competitive window will actually open, or that the rebuilding process will ever end.
My goal here isn’t to feed either beast, but rather to present a case study of one of the most successful rebuilds in modern baseball history, one that produced three World Series titles for the San Francisco Giants and a lifetime of memories for their fans.
It’s a model the Cardinals may already be following.
Part 1: The Nosedive
Let’s start by looking at the Giants’ competitive trajectory in the late 20th and early 21st centuries:
| Era | Average # of wins per season | Playoff appearances | World Series titles |
| 1997-2004 | 92 | 4 | 0 |
| 2005-2008 | 73.5 | 0 | 0 |
| 2009-2016 | 87 | 4 | 3 |
The first block, as you probably recall, was the peak of the steroid era, with Barry Bonds averaging 10.85 WAR per season from 2001-2004. (All stats are from Baseball Reference, unless specified otherwise.)
They won a pennant in 2002 before losing to the David Eckstein-powered Angels in the World Series.
That run was followed by four consecutive losing seasons. I’m sure that was rough for Giants fans, though if you could work up any sympathy for them, you’re a better person than me.
What matters is this: In baseball, there’s a reward for being bad, and the Giants took full advantage of their premium draft picks to build the championship teams that followed.
Part 2: The Draft Picks
Here’s what the Giants did in the next four drafts:
| Draft year | First-round pick (# overall) | Career WAR | Awards |
| 2006 | RHP Tim Lincecum (10) | 19.5 | 2x CYA |
| 4x All-Star | |||
| 2007 | LHP Madison Bumgarner (10) | 37.2 | NLCS and WS MVP |
| 4x All-Star | |||
| 2x Silver Slugger | |||
| 2008 | C Buster Posey (5) | 45 | ROY |
| MVP | |||
| 7x All-Star | |||
| 5x Silver Slugger | |||
| Gold Glove | |||
| 2009 | RHP Zack Wheeler (6) | 40.2* | 3x All-Star |
| Gold Glove |
* With the Mets and Phillies. The Giants traded Wheeler to the Mets for Carlos Beltran at the deadline in 2011. It was one of their few missteps during their championship era. Even though Beltran had a 159 OPS+ in his two months with the Giants, the team went from four games up at the time of the trade to eight games behind at the end. Beltran subsequently signed with the Cardinals in the offseason.
Those four weren’t the only studs the Giants drafted in their dark years. They also added shortstop Brandon Crawford (29.4 WAR) in the fourth round in 2008, and first baseman Brandon Belt (29.9 WAR) in the fifth round in 2009.
Crawford, a three-time all-star, won four Gold Gloves and a Silver Slugger for the Giants. Belt made one All-Star Team. Both were key players on San Francisco’s championship teams in 2012 and 2014.
Part 3: The Championships
In summary, the Giants capitalized on four bad seasons with four great drafts.
They then capitalized on those drafts with World Series titles in 2010, 2012, and 2014.
Of course there were other contributors to their success, starting with Hall of Fame manager Bruce Bochy.
Right-hander Matt Cain, the Giants’ first-round pick in 2002 (25th overall), was a three-time All-Star. In the 2010 and 2012 postseasons, Cain went 6-0 with a 2.10 ERA. (In 2010, he didn’t give up a single earned run in his three starts.)
And then there was third baseman Pablo Sandoval, a two-time All-Star who the Giants signed as an international free agent. He memorably terrorized the Cardinals in the 2012 NLCS before being named World Series MVP.
It’s also worth noting that the Giants of that era were hardly juggernauts. They only won two division titles in those eight years and blew some sizable leads.
The most notable was in 2014, when they led the NL West by as many as 10 games but entered the playoffs as an 88-win Wild Card team.
That, you may recall, was the year Bumgarner turned in one of the greatest postseason performances in history, and almost single-handedly gave the Giants their third World Series title in five years.
So, what does this have to do with the Cardinals in 2026 and beyond?
Part 4: How the Cardinals Can Return to the Top
We’ll start with the obvious parallels:
- The Cardinals, like the Giants, have suffered through three disappointing seasons, and are probably looking at a fourth in 2026.
- The Cards, like the Giants, had consecutive top 10 draft picks in 2024 and 2025, and would have a third in 2026 if not for bad lottery juju. Returning to the top 10 for the 2027 draft is not far-fetched.
- The Cards, like the Giants, selected an up-the-middle position player and an intimidating lefty starter with two of those picks.
I’m not suggesting JJ Wetherholt will reach the same level as Posey, a likely first-ballot Hall of Famer. No 23-year-old should start his MLB career with such unrealistically high expectations.
That goes double for Liam Doyle. Comparing a young man with 3 2/3 professional innings to one of the greatest postseason performers in history is beyond absurd.
In fact, I have no idea when the Cards will again be competitive, or who the key contributors will be when they do.
But neither did the Giants when they suffered through those four dark seasons from 2005 to 2008.
And neither did the Royals, Cubs, Astros, or Red Sox, who won every World Series from 2015 to 2018.
Those four teams had one thing in common with the Giants of the early 2000s: They built top-ranked farm systems in the years before they went from chum to champions.
The Cardinals aren’t there yet, but they’re heading in the right direction. Early draft picks and improved farm system rankings are important steps on the road toward a return to October relevance.
So, even though these are indeed dark days for Cardinals fans, there is a clear blueprint for better times ahead.
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Lou Schuler is a journalist, author, and lifelong Cardinals fan. Born and raised in the St. Louis area, he now lives in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley with his wife and their three children.
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