NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Grab a piece of paper, a pencil and a pen.
Let’s do a quick Cardinals roster exercise to illustrate how something jumps out.
In order of age, list the 52 players who either pitched an inning or took an at-bat for the Cardinals during a miserable 91-loss 2023 season.
Now, with the pen, start scratching out names of internally produced players who were either drafted and/or developed by the Cardinals before ties were severed either during the 2023 season or since it finished crashing into a ditch.
• Hitter Juan Yepez, 25, non-tendered.
• Starting pitcher Jake Woodford, 27, non-tendered.
• Reliever Jordan Hicks, 27, traded at the trade deadline.
• Reliever Genesis Cabrera, 27, traded at the trade deadline.
People are also reading…
• Starting pitcher Jack Flaherty, 28, traded at the trade deadline.
• Catcher Andrew Knizner, 28, non-tendered.
• Starting pitcher Dakota Hudson, 29, non-tendered.
• Shortstop Paul DeJong, 30, traded at the trade deadline.
Listening to president of baseball operations John Mozeliak on Day 1 of Winter Meetings here at the Opryland Hotel, it sounded reasonable to expect outfielder Tyler O’Neill to be added to this list, with a qualifier attached.
O’Neill, 28, is not an internally produced, drafted-and-developed Cardinal. But he is a years-long Cardinal the organization poured opportunity after opportunity into, one who was prioritized over other options who have become significant difference makers elsewhere — guys like Tampa Bay All-Star and former American League Rookie of the Year Randy Arozarena and two-time All-Star and Texas Rangers World Series champion Adolis Garcia.
Mozeliak made it very clear multiple times Monday that the team wants to move O’Neill. He also said there has been interest in Cardinals outfielders, plural. Could Dylan Carlson, 24, be traded as well? If not, he’s viewed as the team’s fourth outfielder, Mozeliak said.
This was blunt talk from Mozeliak, who usually declines to speak in specifics about trade talks. It also fits the theme of the offseason. A clearing out of sorts.
Go ahead and put a pencil line through O’Neill on that list. Put a dotted pencil line beneath Carlson. Then zoom out and look at the big picture. What do you see?
I see a whole lot of lines through this team’s middle age range.
I see a clear message being sent — and a calculated risk being embraced.
The Cardinals after their worst season during Mozeliak’s reign are quietly but undoubtedly cleaving through a very specific part of their roster, a part where most consistently contending teams hope to have consistency. They’re churning the middle.
The Cardinals are excited about the futures of young and rising talents like corner outfielder Jordan Walker and rising shortstop Masyn Winn. They are confident about the performance of seasoned veterans who are well beyond 30 years old, a group that includes cornerstone infielders Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado and now three new starting pitchers, the youngest of whom is 34-year-old Sonny Gray. Tommy Edman, 28, and Brendan Donovan, 26, are hard-charging players teammates and officials alike have pointed to as examples younger players need to follow, and the Cardinals are still high on what 26-year-old outfielder Lars Nootbaar can do if healthy for a full season.
But make no mistake about what is happening here. A team that cites development as a core belief and always wants to produce its own internal answers for major league roster holes is dispatching a swath of players who, collectively, underperformed.
“When you have the type of year we had, you are almost required to have some form of churn,†Mozeliak said when asked about the trend. “If we did nothing and we were sitting here, wouldn’t the practical question be: ‘Why aren’t you doing something?’â€
In their attempt to rebound without fully rebuilding the Cardinals are about to try something hard. They seem prepared to bet that the strength of their oldest portion of the roster and the performance from the younger end of the spectrum can and will bridge the uncertainty of a shaky middle. Usually, a solid and stable middle is at the heart of a team determined to play playoff baseball annually. Usually, the middle is where you must have, if not sizzle, hearty substance.
But at least this is better than an alternative of ignoring what had become obvious. Last season, the Cardinals talked themselves into Flaherty being the reason they didn’t need to sign a top-shelf starter. They talked themselves into O’Neill being their starting center fielder. They stitched a captain’s “C†onto Knizner’s batting practice jersey and so on. The final shot for Paul DeJong fizzled. None of it worked.
A hard truth now being accepted and acted upon is that the Cardinals, over recent seasons during their retreat from significant postseason runs, had accumulated too many players who had become used to what seemed like guaranteed success but were not contributing enough to the equation to keep that success from diminishing. A soft middle formed. This is not a free pass for coaches and front office members. It happened on their watch.
A sense of complacency had trended toward contagious. Pitchers were treating their availability like it was something that could be determined daily, on a whim. Position players struggling to produce were citing lack of regular playing time as reasons they weren’t effective. When the team struggled last season, blame rolled downhill to the newest guy on the team, catcher Willson Contreras. Too many excuses. Not enough wins.
A new wind has been blowing this offseason, not long after Cardinals’ third-year manager Oliver Marmol said bluntly at last season’s end that the team needed a “weeding out†of players who incapable or unwilling to put team success over the individual. The front office through its rotation additions retrenched with veterans eager to restore the Cardinals’ dented brand. Edman and Donovan seem to have been shielded from trade chatter, with Mozeliak on Monday endorsing Edman for the center-field job if the season started today.
Space has been created for more opportunities for others, like slugging Nolan Gorman, to do what those cleared out could not. New bench coach and former Cardinal Daniel Descalso brings needed grit and accountability. The return of Yadier Molina in whatever coaching/consulting capacity will help, too. Contreras’ fire will no longer be extinguished by a public questioning of his skills.
All are good signs.
The Cardinals will have to prove with their play that they can be a much better team in 2024, with plenty of time still left to improve this roster before games count. But I’d bet today, right now, on them being a tougher team, thanks to this roster churn.