So, here we are. Mo rides off into the sunset. A new voice is needed, and the Chaim Bloom era has begun. It seems the Cardinals have discovered what many have long suspected. Trying to keep a foot in two boats doesn’t usually work out. It is time for a rebuild. “We can make this work, you’ll see” has been replaced with “It is time to start over”. On his Opening Day, Bloom talked about stacking good decisions on top of each other. That will be easier said than done.
For the Cardinals the 2026 season ended as their third in a row outside the playoff picture. Their dilemma? They don’t presently have the resources to be confident that the talent pipeline can and will reverse this course, especially in the near-term, and especially in the pitching department. They’ve been robbing Peter to pay Paul for years now and they are struggling to fix the MLB roster AND the minor league pipeline at the same time. A year ago, they discovered what they’ve been doing is not working. Now they are discovering how deep the damage is. Chaim Bloom and his lieutenants will have to solve this problem creatively.
First, let’s define a few things.
The near-term planning period (I call it the NOW) is really the next year or so.
The mid-term period is really 2-3 years out in the future. Think the 2027 and 2028 seasons.
The long-term period is out 4-5 years, as in the 2029 and 2030 seasons and beyond. Really, “beyond” is an illusion, as the only reliable stake in the ground they have beyond 2030 is the stadium they play in. Everything else is unknown and hard to predict. Even the new POBO contract expires by then. It is reasonable to project that zero or one or two players currently on the MLB roster will be with them after 2030. Winn and Herrera would be most likely, along with Wetherholt. Winn and Herrera would require extensions to accomplish.
The Cardinals, like many mid-market teams have an extra challenge to deal with. The highest revenue teams can focus more on the near-term (ie. win now), with recognition that they have the resources to go into the free agent market to fill any future shortcomings or play in the trade market and absorb a bad contract in order to acquire a related talent that fills a need. A mid-market team can’t rely on those pathways. So, they have to hone their skills in draft-and-develop and be wise (efficient?) in picking up short-term FA contracts that retain surplus value and don’t become burdensome blocks to developing players.
For them, what does planning look like?
It all starts with the long-term view. Bloom’s general theme confirmed this. What do they want to be? How do they want to shape the roster? The aforementioned stake in the ground, the stadium, shapes this view. This is a park that puts a premium on pitching and defense. All talent acquisitions should fit into this view. It is my expectation they are going to shy away from one-dimensional players (the guys with one carrying tool like power) and look more for multi-tool players (speed and defense are good, too). This change will take a while to take hold. Likewise on the pitching side, the Cardinals will become late adapters to the pitching evolution. To use an analogy, their long-term view is moving off of flip phones and trying to vault into smartphones embedded with AI. Not a moment too soon, either. Fortunately, they’ve already started. Unfortunately, it is going to take more than just this off-season.
The long-term view has started to come into focus a bit. As early as a year ago, management charted a course to return to a draft-and-develop style of development and move away from chasing free agents to fill near-term needs. A new POBO was named and renewed investment in personnel and tech was announced and then started. We then saw how the 2025 draft played out. Very different than years past, with a different focus on pitcher types. We also saw signs that they’ve focused on this with their international signings too, as it seemed a whole bevy of pitchers throwing 100 mph emerged from the complex late in the year to throw a bit for Palm Beach.
Interestingly, this creates a dichotomy within their organization. The top of the organization will be filled with the pitch-to-contact style of pitcher and the lower part has some emerging high-whiff guys. They will have to charter a course that accommodates multiple years of both styles and figure out how aggressively to transition the upper levels of the organizations. And how to blend the styles to maximize success.
It ends with the view for next year – the NOW. Fundamentally, the question is … what can they do to get better for next year? Or will they even try? Bloom says they will.
When they look at the current major league roster, they can see that it comes up short of being wild-card playoff caliber. That’s been defined quite clearly by running essentially the same team out three years in a row and getting the same just over or under .500 result. No randomness, no small samples. This is who they are. Tony LaRussa once famously said “You are what your record says you are”. My corollary … especially if it says the same thing thrice.
The strengths and weaknesses are somewhat obvious. At the top of the list, they need more outfield production (a lot more) and more quality starting pitching. However, fixing that can be difficult. In the Cardinals case, the minor league system pipeline isn’t strong enough at the upper ends to address those near-term needs, at least not for 2026. If they get a single outfielder or starting pitcher to emerge from AAA next year, they will consider it a success. But they need more, of both.
Their budget constraints aren’t going to allow them to spend their way out of this mess, either. The trade market exists but will be particularly challenging because the major shortages in the trade market happen to coincide with the major talent deficits on the Cardinals roster. This winter, roughly 20 of the 30 teams in baseball will be looking to improve outfield production. There aren’t 20 options to choose from. Peculiarly, the Cardinals might have one of them (Nootbaar). Everyone looks for pitching, and young pitching prospects are the most valuable commodity in the trade market.
Part of the dilemma is … on the surface, it is not like the talent deficit at the MLB level requires a full tear down and complete rebuild. 2 or 3 well placed acquisitions would make this a play-off competitive team. Unfortunately, the areas of their needs carry the highest prices (in trade value and/or free agency terms) and the areas of their surpluses they could deal from (catcher, LH DH types, middle infield/utility types) generate the least amount of interest in the trade market. In the near-term look, they are strong where they could most afford to be weak, and weak where they can least afford to be. They do have some major league talent they can look to deal. That may well involve going backwards, talent-wise, in the near-term. Ouch. That won’t help attendance any. And this is a business, after all.
Another short-term complication is that the Cardinals’ three largest player contracts carry No Trade Clauses and each player has repeatedly declined to waive them, effectively cementing them on the roster. Some combination of the three may be more willing than previous years to soften that stance, but will it be enough to move them? All three players are in their decline years and it is hard to project them as contributing the same in 2026 than they do now, much less hope for more. So, improvement there is improbable, and decline is foreseeable. So, the real challenge is they must get more out of the other 23 roster spots just to tread water. But treading water isn’t the goal. Or at least it shouldn’t be.
There isn’t much short-term help coming from the minors. Wetherholt and Mathews and that might be all. If they want to actually improve the 2026 roster, that leaves the free agent market or dealing from the prospect list to acquire talent. Given their financial constraints, the free agent market doesn’t seem like a haven for them. Especially if they can’t move Gray or Arenado. Dealing prospects to improve the 2026 roster would compromise 2027 and beyond. This is not a strong pipeline right now. It’s not barren, but dealing what they have would draw them closer to that. That leads to the conclusion we’ve suspected. They are more likely to deal the talent off the major league roster to improve the pipeline and those efforts may not improve the MLB roster for 2026.
The starting pitching situation is uniquely complicated. Many of their upper-level prospects (Rom, Hence, Roby, Hjerpe, Robberse, others) have suffered season ending injuries that halted development and likely renders these players non-helpful until late 2026 at the earliest and perhaps out into 2027. They will have Pallante, Gray, McGreevy and Liberatore coming back, so they have one foreseeable open spot right now, and a decided lack of reliable quality in the occupied spots. It would be easy to suggest the open spot is the spot Mikolas is vacating and it shouldn’t be that hard (or particularly expensive) to improve on the fWAR production of that spot. Leahy will get a crack at that. But the great equalizer called injury will defeat that approach. Realistically, they will need 3-4 more arms, unless they imprudently project to have the same starter health in 2026 as they have experienced in 2025, where no starter has lost time to the IL. That would involve taking the best possible outcome (no IL time for starters) and expecting it to repeat.
Bottom line, it will take some creativity to just to tread water, much less improve the talent on the roster for 2026. They can hope the internal options will emerge. Some will say, though, that “Hope is not a strategy”.
Mid-term planning (2027 and 2028) is a different animal
Teams must take their current roster and project who will remain and who will not. Who might ascend, and who might not. The projection must include which positions might need an alternative talent to realize a needed improvement or a replacement for a player expected to depart. A key question with each is .. do they have someone in the pipeline they can reasonably anticipate to replace said departing player(s)? The best-case scenario is to have multiple options. Competition often brings out the best in competitors. Go figure.
This time period also begins to include consideration of player salaries. A young, 1.5-2 WAR player making minimum salary in the NOW timeframe begins to look less attractive in the mid-term as they move into arbitration years and their salary goes up. They could be the same useful player, but just at a higher cost. What is that player going to be in 2 years? Should the organization look to replace? Or pay up? With the money supply tight, the pay up option isn’t likely.
With the Cardinals, their mid-term look (2027 and 2028) has some opportunity but comes with some significant risks. First, both Contreras and Arenado will be under those NTC contracts through 2027. But performance decline at this point could be quite severe, and the roster spots may still be occupied.
Second, both Donovan and Nootbaar will be eligible for free agency at the end of the 2027 season. Best practice says a future-oriented team will be looking to move them as soon as the trade deadline, 2026 (to maximize return value) and at worst by trade deadline 2027 (to avoid losing them for nothing). Neither of these players fits the mold for extension, so the outcome here is almost foretold. Likewise, both these players fit the model where their production becomes less attractive as their arbitration driven salaries escalate. A 3 fWARseason at major league minimum is way more interesting than a future projection of 2.5-3.5 fWAR season at $6.2m projected arbitration salary (just an example…). Same player, same production, but a lot less surplus value.
Replacements for them must be identified (internally) or obtained. If they intend to move these guys and somehow remain competitive, they should be looking for their replacements already. With Donovan, it is easy. His name is JJ Wetherholt. With Nootbaar, not so easy. More challenging, the replacement needs to bring what they WANT out of Nootbaar, which is more than what they are getting. Both in terms of production and availability. Who in pipeline looks like they might be able to bring that as soon as July, 2026? Baez (Joshua)? He is starting to turn heads, but that is no sure bet, even as prospect bets go. Just like in the pitching arena, they are going to need more than one outfielder.
Another risky area for the Cardinals in the mid-term is, again, starting pitching. The number of young starters affords some comfort, because many are under control through 2028. But their top guy, Gray, will be gone by then. Do they have a replacement? Some wishcasters might say Liam Doyle, but that is a lot to put on a guy that has pitched 4 professional innings. He would seem likely to make an MLB debut in that mid-term period, but be an Ace already?
Perhaps even more challenging is they will be managing a transition from pitch-to-contact to more modern whiff-related pitching approaches. These organizational shifts don’t usually go smoothly, and the velo- and spin- pitchers tend to get hurt more, so more volume will be needed. Is that volume in the pipeline? I don’t see a lot of high K-rate pitchers that are both healthy and performing well at A+ or AA levels. Those are the guys that would be emerging in the mid-term. And are the Cardinals prepared, organizationally, in terms of coaching and tech, to develop velo- and spin-oriented pitchers? They’ve been good at getting the max out of the McGreevy’s of the world for years. But this is a different world for them….
Coming to some conclusions
It begins to sound like the folks that are in charge of making personnel evaluations and charting the plan are growing less optimistic this can be turned around quickly. For those that see the MLB roster as just a few key moves away from serious contending, this cannot be good news. For those who feared the worst, it just adds to the frustration because this has been percolating (and largely ignored) for several years. Years that could have been spent starting the very rebuild they appear intent on attempting.
Some things to look for as a new course is charted:
- One or more of the NTC holders might broaden their areas of interest. If they introduce more flexibility, will Cardinals management introduce more cash to facilitate movement? And will they find trade partners?
- Nootbaar, Donovan, Romero will likely be at least aggressively shopped. Any minor leaguers they acquire will likely be below AAA guys that do NOT need 40-man roster spots and will have ETAs that look like mid- and long-term improvements. A lot like what see at this past trade deadline.
- We may well see new courses set for Gorman and Walker. For Walker, the obvious solution is he goes back to the minors to work on his game. But a new management team might see this totally different. I could see them moving Gorman, especially if Arenado stays.
- I could see them moving Burleson if Contreras stays.
- I would expect they see Wetherholt in the majors early in 2026, if not right out of the gate.
- Any major leaguers they acquire will be short-term stop gap solutions.
- Will they have an interest on MLB-ready prospects or just long-term projects?
Add it all up and the major league roster for 2026 could look more like a 78-win team (again) than anything.
For those that foresee an aggressive approach to this, here are some poll type questions. I don’t know if we can create polls with the new platform, so just use comments.
- Could you see them dealing Winn for a top-flight pitching prospect, and deploy Wetherholt to SS?
- Could you see them dealing Burleson, especially if Contreras stays? Maybe packaged a bit…say Burleson and Bernal to the Phillies for Painter?
- Could you see them dangling Mathews for younger starting pitching prospects, using him as a force multiplier? He will be 25 next week, after all and MLB-ready pitching prospects fetch the greatest value.
- Could you see them dangling Herrera? .800+ OPS bats do not grow on trees. There are some venues where he becomes a .900+ OPS hitter…
Food for thought. It is time to start the hot-stove discussion.
