The St. Louis Cardinals have lost their way. Now they must fix their failure

Off the bat, Jordan Walker seemed to have a read on the sinking liner hit to right field. His first step was quick and his route was direct as he sprinted at the ball. But as he closed in, an all-too-familiar scene unraveled for Walker, the fledgling outfielder who has become the latest young player set up to fail by the St. Louis Cardinals.

A split-second hesitation left him scrambling. Walker made a sliding attempt, though his body language betrayed the helplessness that comes from losing a ball in the lights. He hit the ground awkwardly, his glove outstretched to protect his face. The ball sailed over it and rolled to the right-field wall for a double.

Walker got up on one knee and pointed toward the stadium lights with his glove. The frustration on his face was clear. Walker has become accustomed to plays like this — a mistake that Cardinals prospects for years were taught so well in the minors to avoid.

But now, players like Walker reach the major leagues less prepared to prosper. Instead their imperfections highlight what people in the organization describe as the withering of a once-thriving player development operation, a machine that was once the envy of the sport.

“We’re in trouble,” one team employee said. “This is not easily fixable within the next year, or year after. This is going to take some time.

“I don’t know how this was f—ed up so bad over the last few years.”

The Cardinals have lost their way, according to people within the organization interviewed by The Athletic, all of whom were granted anonymity in exchange for their candor. All described an outdated player development department, one that has hurt players like Walker. Some lamented the organization’s emphasis on directing more money to the big-league payroll, even if it meant skimping on hiring the coaches, instructors and modern technology that are vital to refining players as they progress through the minors. Those decisions have left the organization to reckon with the harsh reality that they have fallen behind their rivals.

“People would always ask in the minors, do you care about winning or do you care about developing players?” one staffer said. “The answer would be, we develop winning players.

“We are no longer developing winning players.”

Walker, the club’s No. 1 pick in the 2020 draft, joined the Cardinals with more upside than nearly any other amateur player in the organization’s draft history. He has since joined a growing list of Cardinals top prospects who have faltered in the major leagues, having twice been demoted to Triple A in the past two seasons. Two recent first-rounders, Nolan Gorman (2018) and Zack Thompson (2019), both finished this season in the minors. Two first-rounders from the 2016 draft, Dylan Carlson and Dakota Hudson, flamed out of the organization.

The fallout, years in the making, has now hit the major leagues.

The Cardinals missed the postseason for the second consecutive year and appear ready to revive the infrastructure that once served as a conveyor belt for polished homegrown players. Though they do not plan on tanking, people briefed on the Cardinals’ plans say the organization is preparing to shift its focus on upgrading the minor leagues and the player development department, even if it means going down a path seldom taken in baseball-mad St. Louis: accepting the possibility of not putting the major-league team in position to contend.

President of baseball operations John Mozeliak plans to publicly address the team’s future shortly after the regular season ends, though he and general manager Mike Girsch declined multiple requests for comment for this story. Representatives of the ownership group headed up by chief executive officer Bill DeWitt II did not respond to The Athletic’s interview requests. But according to people briefed on the situation, the Cardinals intend to take sweeping action, and at least one of those changes has already been made.

Chaim Bloom, who helped shape the Tampa Bay Rays into a player development powerhouse before enduring a turbulent stint as general manager of the Boston Red Sox, joined the Cardinals earlier this year as a consultant to audit the club’s minor-league operations. Bloom has since joined the front office full-time. He will be charged with making changes in the Cardinals’ farm system based on his findings.

His first and most pressing task: hiring a new director of player development.

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To understand how far the Cardinals have fallen in player development, it helps to understand how far ahead of the curve they were two decades ago. One of baseball’s winningest franchises, the Cardinals long avoided a period where winning in the majors was not the top priority. They did it largely by finding talented players and developing them into polished homegrown major leaguers.

Under former scouting executive Jeff Luhnow, the Cardinals were one of the first teams willing to incorporate advanced analytics into their amateur draft model.

From 2005 to 2010, the Cardinals were arguably baseball’s best team at using analytics to evaluate and identify talent. They refined their drafting and development process, targeting young, under-the-radar players who usually didn’t make the top-100 lists of other organizations. It helped that most of these prospects were college players, who tend to ascend through the minors faster than their prep counterparts. That blueprint propelled St. Louis to the 2011 World Series title.

When they made the postseason again in 2012, homegrown players comprised more than 60 percent of the playoff roster, the most in baseball at the time. Players drafted and developed in the late 2000s — a list that includes Allen Craig, Daniel Descalso, Skip Schumaker, Joe Kelly and Jon Jay — became key supplementary pieces to a consistent winner.

Though they have not won the World Series since that 2011 championship, the Cardinals made the postseason each of the next four seasons, including winning another pennant in 2013.

The Cardinals knew their model worked.

But high-profile success almost always ensures that other organizations take notice, and eventually rivals built similar analytical models. Over time, a key difference emerged: Other clubs invested more in their models than the Cardinals were investing in theirs. As innovation spread through the industry the Cardinals stagnated. Their advantage began to slip.

At first, it wasn’t easy to notice. After reaching the National League Championship Series in 2019, the Cardinals made the postseason the next three years, a run that included a division title in 2022. But despite the success, internal concerns were growing.

By the time the club suffered its jarring 91-loss season in 2023, it was too late. A shaky infrastructure had finally collapsed.

“It’s broken,” one staffer said. “Our system is broken in a way. How it got there, I don’t know.”

How it got there, according to multiple staffers, is a matter of numbers.

The Cardinals have always operated with a relatively small player development team. But in recent years, team insiders say, the Cardinals failed to keep up as rival teams increased the size of their staffs. Not including affiliate coaches, special advisors or medical coordinators, the Cardinals have five full-time minor-league instructors, which marks their leanest staffing level in the past decade.

That number becomes even more conspicuous when compared to other teams in the National League. The Phillies boast 14 full-time field staff members. The Mets employ 15 staffers, including coordinators for catching, base running, infield and outfield. The Brewers, winners of the National League Central three times in the past four seasons, retain 17 staffers.

By contrast, the Cardinals do not have an infield, outfield or catching coordinator, nor do they employ any full-time roving instructors or any full-time coordinator position in Latin America. Instead, a small crew led by instructing coordinator José Oquendo oversees the entire operation, with help from long-time pitching coordinator Tim Leveque and hitting coordinator Russ Steinhorn. The Cardinals have an assistant hitting coordinator, Brock Hammit, and a pitching coordinator dedicated solely to the Jupiter Complex in Rick Harig.

The Cardinals have paid a steep price for their lack of coordinators.

“When guys get to the majors, they’re not ready,” one staffer said. “They have so many warts that have to get taken care of in the big leagues.”

Over the past three seasons, plenty of Cardinals prospects have floundered in the major leagues. Though Walker has been the most prominent case, others in the organization found examples in Gorman, Thompson, Matthew Liberatore and Iván Herrera. Fundamentals, one staffer said, is “where we’re seeing guys really take a hit. I mean, these guys do not know the fundamentals of the game.”

Taking secondary leads, looking in for signs, throwing to the right base, hitting the right cutoff man and taking the correct route on a fly ball may often be inconsequential in the box score, at least in the minors. But for some Cardinals players, deficiencies in those areas have required corrective action by coaches in the majors, where failure to execute on such finer points is often a recipe for disaster.

There is a push from some in the organization to add more staff positions to the minor leagues. Some staffers cringed when recalling some of Walker’s routes, and one noted how much an outfield coordinator would have helped the struggling young player, who spent just four months in the minors playing in the outfield before being expected to continue learning the position in the majors. That experiment has saddled Walker with a career minus-17 outs above average.

Another employee pointed out Herrera’s struggles behind the plate, particularly in controlling the run game; Herrera has thrown out just four runners in 59 stolen-base attempts this season. Herrera “is the one who has been impacted the most,” the employee said, while also acknowledging the organization’s reliance on two decades of Yadier Molina, whose presence in a way allowed them to let catching development slip through the cracks.

“You can’t cut yourself thin and expect two to three guys to cover all of those areas,” the employee said. “It’s hurting our minor leagues. It kills you. Not having guys individually going into cities, specifically focusing on areas of the game to tell guys to get better? A manager can only do so much within the course of the season.”

“That’s what coordinators are for, to be able to scour (the system) and hold people accountable,” another employee added. “Hold coaches accountable for teaching, hold players accountable for doing the work and executing it. To leave it up to one guy (Oquendo), that’s not fair to him.”

A handful of employees acknowledged the temptation to rush young talent through the system, an industry-wide trend that is hardly unique to the Cardinals. But multiple staffers pointed out that the Cardinals’ lack of coaches has made them particularly vulnerable.

“It’s a lack of resources,” one staffer said. “It’s also the game itself, the way it’s changed. It’s pushing these kids through the system and then they’re getting put into positions that they shouldn’t be in. It’s detrimental to them because they get up here, and they fail.

“They’re making mistakes that should have been fixed already. Or they make a mistake that should’ve been fixed, and they make it again and again and again. That’s the stuff that should happen in the minor leagues. That’s what the minor leagues are for.”

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For all the gripes, some employees say the Cardinals’ problems in player development are not entirely a problem of staff size. The overarching issue, they say, comes down to money.

To make up for the slippage in the Cardinals’ homegrown player pipeline, major-league payroll has climbed in order to keep pace with attempts to field a strong major-league product every season. But the team’s investment in player development has not followed suit, staffers believe, and as a result they have neglected the foundation that for so long had allowed the franchise to remain competitive.

“We have gotten ourselves into a cycle,” one employee said.

Breaking that cycle has proven to be a complex task.

Dating to their last World Series championship, COVID-19-shortened season aside, the Cardinals’ Opening Day payroll has climbed incrementally. The team’s Opening Day payroll for the 2024 season exceeded $175 million for the second straight season, topping the 2022 payroll by nearly $20 million.

This would suggest that ownership has been willing to spend more to win more. But according to people familiar with the organization’s business decisions, Mozeliak has been operating with a set amount of money to split between the Cardinals’ entire baseball operations department, and the front office has repeatedly chosen to invest in the big-league team. Those decisions resulted in repeated cuts to player development, both stateside and in Latin America.

To make matters worse, the money that the front office has spent on the major-league team has too often failed to pan out. Aside from the additions of Goldschmidt and Arenado, Mozeliak’s recent track record of free-agent signings and trades has been pockmarked by misses.

The Cardinals built their 2024 Opening Day starting rotation solely out of free agency. That alone cost them over $62 million in payroll. It’s difficult — if not impossible — to piece together a competitive rotation through free-agent signings every year, especially when a front office faces financial restraints.

The Cardinals’ analytics department, headed by Girsch, has also missed on multiple internal evaluations. The Cardinals kept Tyler O’Neill and Dylan Carlson past their peak value, and when they did get traded, the organization whiffed on the returns.

And so the cycle has continued. The breakdown of the Cardinals’ homegrown pipeline means that the team is no longer receiving an infusion of payroll-friendly, team-controlled talent. It has led to a reliance on more expensive free agents to fill too many critical needs.

“Free agency is for supplementing your roster,” one employee said.

All five pitchers in the Opening Day rotation this season were bought in free agency, all at market price. That’s not sustainable for the Cardinals, especially when considering the rising cost of pitching. Mozeliak’s job over the last decade has not been easy. He’s had to balance developing players at a high level while simultaneously investing in the big-league club at a high level — all under financial parameters set by an ownership group that views its team as a small-market club.

For the better part of his tenure, Mozeliak excelled. Since he took over the baseball operations department in 2008, St. Louis has posted just one losing season and advanced to the postseason 10 times. In a way, the Cardinals’ consistency made it difficult to address their pressing needs away from the major-league team.

How does the organization justify a pivot from a major-league team that just keeps winning?

At this point, the Cardinals don’t believe they have a choice.

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For many in the organization, questions will arise about the future.

Paul Goldschmidt is an impending free agent. Ryan Helsley, who is vying for the most saves in baseball this year, is due for a major raise in his final year of arbitration. Nolan Arenado, Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras all have contracts that could keep them in St. Louis through 2027, and all have full no-trade clauses. Still, all three players were brought to the organization under the premise that the major-league team would be competitive. A change in that direction could change their minds. It’s not apparent if the Cardinals’ plans will make an impact but discussions will be had — likely in the beginning of the offseason — to better gauge where each player stands.

Those decisions will likely now also involve an executive who is relatively new to the organization. The Cardinals hired Bloom before the 2024 season as a special advisor to Mozeliak. He spent the year canvassing the minor leagues, observing the staff in place and evaluating what technology was being used. More notably, he took note of what technology was absent. Mozeliak’s hiring of Bloom was strategic in that regard. Bloom’s extensive background in player development and analytics, specifically during his 16 seasons with Rays, was precisely what Mozeliak thought would help the Cardinals.

“It will be good to get an outside perspective of our organization from someone who is as well-respected as Chaim,” Mozeliak said after Bloom’s hiring. “Having a fresh set of eyes on all aspects of our baseball operations should be helpful.”

It was clear from the start that Bloom would be asked to survey the minor leagues. Now he’ll be responsible for fixing them. What Bloom’s promotion means for Mozeliak and his eventual successor is not yet clear. Mozeliak’s contract is up after 2025, and he’s said publicly he plans to step down from his position after this term.

As for manager Oli Marmol, the expectation is he’ll return for the 2025 season, along with the majority of his staff. Marmol signed a two-year contract extension before the season that will take him through 2026.

Bench coach Daniel Descalso is signed through 2025, as is pitching coach Dusty Blake. Third-base coach Pop Warner signed an extension through 2026 in spring training, shortly after Marmol. Five coaches are up for negotiation after the season: hitting coaches Turner Ward and Brandon Allen, game-planning coach Packy Elkins, first-base coach Stubby Clapp and assistant pitching coach Julio Rangel. Though the Cardinals were one of the National League’s worst offensive teams this season, there is mutual interest in retaining all of this year’s coaching staff, including the hitting coaches.

The Cardinals are structured to field a youth movement next year if necessary. Brendan Donovan, Masyn Winn, Lars Nootbaar and Alec Burleson are looking to make big steps in their careers. It will also be a pivotal season for Walker and Gorman, both who spent substantial time this year in Triple A. Homegrown pitchers like Andre Pallante and Michael McGreevy will have a chance to compete for the starting rotation. Top pitching prospect Tink Hence and up-and-comer Quinn Mathews have also piqued interest.

Next year’s roster could lack star power, but it’s a risk the Cardinals are willing to take as they attempt to address what they believe to be the root of their issues. The extent to which St. Louis retools and what their incoming transition period looks like will become more apparent over the offseason. Ask around the organization, however, and one thing is abundantly clear.

A new chapter is about to begin, and the Cardinals know they must find their way.

(Illustration by Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photos of Chaim Bloom, John Mozeliak and Jordan Walker: Billie Weiss, Mike Carlson, Michael Zagaris / Getty Images, Boston Red Sox, Oakland Athletics, MLB Photos)