It’s not fair to cast as the Kevin Bacon character from the late 1970s movie “Animal House,†standing amid chaos and rioting, shouting “All is well!†in misguided attempt to calm an unraveling situation.
At the same time, Dewitt Jr. isn’t taking last season’s failures on the field as a catalyst to enact sweeping change for a ballclub coming off a last-place finish and a 71-91 record — the club’s worst since 1990. During his annual news conference during Winter Warm-up at Busch Stadium, DeWitt Jr. struck the tone of an owner determined to stay the course as opposed to foreshadowing any sort of shakeup.
There’s certainly a case for the Cardinals as a franchise at or on the cusp of an inflection point.
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Not only are they coming off their first losing season in 16 years and the worst record in three decades, but their president of baseball operations has stated intentions of stepping back from his everyday role by the end of 2025, and their manager does not have a contract past 2024. Couple that with a largely young core of position players, and the Cardinals seem like a club potentially poised for significant change.
Instead, DeWitt Jr. simply took last season’s on-field results as an example of the fickle nature of baseball.
“I think it was just one of those years where what could go wrong did go wrong,†DeWitt Jr. said. “You have years where what could go right, did go right. Baseball is an interesting game that way. You go into a season and you think you’ve got a really good team. Then you get off to the kind of start we did, it can have an effect as the year goes on.
“I remember , when he was managing, always said, ‘I want to get off to good start because it sets the tone for the rest of the year.’ Well, the opposite of that happened. Things happen in baseball. There’s no perfect science, that’s for sure.â€
Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak announced a high-profile addition to the front office a week ago with the hiring of former Boston Red Sox baseball operations chief Chaim Bloom as an advisor, but DeWitt Jr. clearly seemed to position Bloom more as an internal auditor than an agent of change.
As far as a succession plan, DeWitt Jr. spoke as though he didn’t view it as a certainty that Mozeliak will step away after his current contract expires following the 2025 season.
“Mo has said that that’s a potential timeline for him,†DeWitt Jr. said. “The sequence of Chaim Bloom coming on, I wouldn’t say necessarily was part of that. It was to get another asset in our baseball ops group. It’s a fresh look, and if it turns out that Mo is moving on or wants to go in a different direction in a couple years, then we’ve got a more beefed-up staff than we would have had otherwise.â€
heads into this season in the final year of his current contract, but DeWitt Jr. also indicated there are no plans to move on from Marmol at this point.
“We’re very positive on Oli as our manager,†DeWitt said. “We’ll see how this year goes, but I have full expectation that after this year, he’ll continue as our manager.â€
Staying the course
There’s no immediate thirst from ownership to shuffle the deck in the baseball operations department after a string of 15 consecutive winning seasons snapped in 2023.
If anything, there seems to be more of a tenor of rededicating themselves and refining a time-tested model.
Last winter, the New York Mets and their free-spending billionaire owner Steve Cohen bolstered their roster with high-profile free-agent additions that expanded their payroll to more than $60 million higher than the next closest club.
This winter, the Los Angeles Dodgers went on a free-agent spending spree, utilizing deferred payments to commit more than $1 billion to new acquisitions over the next 12 years. They spent $700 million just on the addition of Shohei Ohtani.
“The way the game is set up now, the big markets have an advantage in terms of revenue they generate,†DeWitt Jr. said. “They’re taking advantage of that, so we’re in a certain level of the market and try to do everything we can to compete with that and, of course, the other teams that we play. It’s kind of the nature of the game, and give them credit. I mean, if they have resources to do that — which they do — they’re going to try to have the best teams possible. The same thing we’re trying to do.â€
The Cardinals have largely relied on players they’ve drafted and groomed in their player development system and then augmenting their roster selectively with free agents. That method has regularly placed them among the top half of the majors in payroll spending, but they’re not in the same stratosphere as the large-market clubs.
The Cardinals’ top offseason addition was right-handed pitcher Sonny Gray. His contract includes an option year that could bring its total value to $100 million over four years. That would become the largest contract for a pitcher in club history.
“You compete the best way you can, and we’ve always felt that draft and develop is the Cardinal model, and it has played pretty well for us over the years,†DeWitt said. “We’ll continue to do that, pick our spots on free agents. We feel like we can compete with anybody. They clearly have an advantage, but I think we saw this last year where some of the higher-priced payrolls didn’t necessarily do that well. Baseball is an interesting game that way.â€
DeWitt acknowledged the club’s need to improve the results of their draft and develop efforts on the pitching front. They supplemented their shortcomings at the trade deadline by bringing in multiple pitching prospects from outside the organization.
Optimism about 2024
DeWitt Jr. also expressed confidence in the additions the front made this winter, led by Gray.
Gray’s addition accompanied by the signing of veteran pitchers Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson, addressed the glaring weakness of the club last season — the starting rotation.
That trio of veteran starting pitching additions will also serve as a means to help address a clubhouse leadership void.
“I think Cardinal baseball is a very competitive team, and you’ve got players that want to win and do everything they can to help us win,†DeWitt Jr. said. “I think some of the players that we’ve acquired — particularly the three pitchers or the prominent ones — fit that bill. There’s no question that we were a little short on the pitching front last year.
“I think the culture that those three and others bring is part of their asset. I mean, they’re good pitchers, but also, they’re good teammates and competitors.â€
Mozeliak and DeWitt Jr. said they still hoped to add to their bullpen this offseason.
While the Cardinals have doubled down on the Cardinal Way and will largely lean on their existing baseball brain trust to fix last year’s ills, early indications point to the fan base that has bought in to this approach.
Team president Bill DeWitt III oversees all aspects of the team, and he’s keenly aware of the potential impact a bad season might have on business operations.
DeWitt III described himself as “pleasantly surprised†by where sales currently stand, and he said the club typically sells 70% to 80% of its tickets before opening day.
“We’re actually pretty happy so far with our ticket sales,†DeWitt III said on Monday. “Right out of the gate, we started a little slow. Then Mo made those pitching moves. I think that really bolstered interest in the team. When you look at sort of where we are right now, it sets us up for — I think — achieving our goal of 3 million tickets sold, which is always a great milestone for us, out of reach for many clubs. There are teams that have been around for a long, long time and never gotten close to that number.
“I think our fans understand that we have a team that figures to be very competitive this year.â€