Call This Transition "Six" Because It's Serious

Chaim Bloom--and outside events--are wasting no time changing the look of the Cardinals

I feel like most people reading this Substack are going to understand the title of this post, but being that it’s been 16 years—a number that gobsmacked me when I saw it—since the original commercials, I probably should provide the reference.

Since the end of the season and the passing of the torch/baton (whichever you prefer) from John Mozeliak to Chaim Bloom, it definitely has felt like this off-season is not really business as usual. Moves have already been made that are out of the ordinary for the Cardinals and other possibilities are being broadly hinted at. These aren’t the Cards of yesteryear, these are the Cardinals primed for a new era of baseball.

Let’s start with something that’s nothing big but might have been a canary in the coal mine. Miles Mikolas reached the end of his contract and elected free agency. The Cardinals, at the time, were in need of a veteran arm that would eat innings. While you could argue that Mikolas really wasn’t eating a lot of innings anymore, he still had a solid number of quality starts last season. Currently, the Cardinals are in need of qualified arms to make out a rotation.

In the past, there’d at least be some serious rumblings about Mikolas getting a one-year deal to help out the Cardinals as they let the young arms adapt. There’d be some talk about him being a veteran leader of the team, a good presence in the clubhouse, something that would at least start to ease the club into a reunion.

Instead, there’s been nothing. Even when you aren’t sure there are five starting arms for the major league team currently, there’s not even the hint of Mikolas around this squad. It’s a change in perspective that’s been needed for a while and it’s quite nice to see. Yes, this team is going to struggle on the mound next year, but at least they’ll do it with pitchers with upside, not with pitchers who have given all they can.

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The non-tender/40-man protection time was fairly uneventful and it’s less clear where things were different under Bloom than under Mo. Would Mo have let John King go? That feels like a no. I will say I think Michael Siani would have been put on waivers even if the old regime was here given the emergence of Nathan Church and the fact that we barely saw Siani in the bigs last year. The other moves, it’s hard to say. I feel like Mo might have kept Jorge Alacala since they barely got to see him, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he would have made the same moves that his successor did.

I wonder if Mozeliak might have been tempted to protect Blaze Jordan, given that he was one of the more notable pieces that came over at the deadline. After all, in 2023 he kept both Sem Robberse and Adam Kloffenstein, even though neither wound up panning out for the Cards. (At least yet—Robberse did resign with the club after being removed from the 40-man last month.) The additions that were made were pretty much slam dunks and likely any front office would have made the same choices.

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Then we get to the big move of the winter so far, the trade of Sonny Gray to the Red Sox. It’s hard to know how much of this sort of thing Mozeliak would have done because it feels like, from all accounts, ownership was really hesitant to pay money in deals like they did here. It sounds like Mo could have made a better move (and one that stuck) last year with Nolan Arenado had the DeWitts been open to paying some of that salary. So saying “Mo would have never dealt Sonny Gray” is a bit unknowable. It’s only in the past few seasons where such a trade—a highly compensated star open to leaving a struggling team—would have even been possible. Mo never wanted to do a rebuild, I think it’s fair to say, but ownership didn’t have a lot of stomach for it either.

Whether Chaim Bloom has been more persuasive on the benefits and the fact that this is a quicker way to success or it just took 2023-2025 to open the eyes of the DeWitts, who can say. The fact remains, though, that the way the Cardinals are doing business has changed. The $20 million they sent with Gray likely bought them Brandon Clarke to go along with Richard Fitts. The club is still saving $15 million this year, less whatever it costs to replace Gray. The odds of them getting a $15 million pitcher is really small, I’d think, and even if they did, they’d still have Fitts and Clarke when they wouldn’t have had them before.

It’s disappointing that Gray’s tenure in St. Louis didn’t really pan out, though I guess he’s kinda used to that. He started his career in Oakland and was there parts of five seasons. Since then, he’s only been in the same space for three years once—in Cincinnati—and he has two playoff starts with the Yankees and two with Minnesota. Hopefully he can have more success in Boston, though it feels like that’s a one-and-done spot for him. If you are a fan of a team Gray hasn’t played for (which is harder and harder to find), what team do you associate him with? Man’s running out of wall space to frame his jerseys. I wish he’d been able to find the success in St. Louis that he wanted because he seemed like an interesting guy that really did his best. I’m a little worried about his home run numbers in Fenway, though.

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The Cardinals don’t seem to be done with their revamp. They are listening on Brendan Donovan but they are smartly saying that they need a lot to move him. Mo tended to say that he was always open to hearing about any player, but it seems like things have shifted to a more definitive “give us your best offers on this guy” approach. While they aren’t making promises, they seem to be engaging with others more even on a player that they would like to keep.

I think what is really going to be interesting is if this transparency that Bloom continues to talk about (and, so far, practice) leads to more leaks/rumors coming out of the front office. For many years, the Mozeliak front office was a lead safe. You didn’t find out that they were about to make a move until they were calling the press conference. I wonder if reporters will get more info from Bloom, Rob Cerfolio, and others.

After all, we’re hearing about Donovan, we’re hearing that they could pivot to moving Lars Nootbaar, there talk about two lefties getting dealt, and Bloom has said he wants to sign a starting pitcher after all the dust settles. It feels like we might have to read fewer tea leaves under this administration and I’m interested to see exactly what that feels like.

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The biggest blow, at least for online Cardinal fans, was the news that came today. Katie Woo, the Cardinals writer for The Athletic, wrote her farewell piece today (subscription required).

Let me tell you just how beloved Katie was in the community. For many years, I ran a “Top Cards on Twitter” contest where people would vote on the best Cardinals-centric Twitter accounts. If you won three times, you were retired to the Hall of Fame. (We did that because otherwise cardinalsgifs would win all the time.) When Katie arrived in St. Louis, gifs had already won his three and Derrick Goold had two under his belt, seemingly on a glide path to enshinement.

Katie won the first year she was on the beat. And the second. And the third. She spotted Derrick two titles and still got into the HOF before he did. (Derrick won his third last year with Katie out of the picture.) Besides being an awesome writer, she connected with the fan base in a way that much of the St. Louis writing establishment couldn’t. Much like Jim Edmonds years ago, St. Louis embraced the California transplant and made her feel right at home.

Katie was also very kind to me. Every year she would make the time to come on Meet Me at Musial. I remember the first time we talked, she was sitting in an apartment that was barely furnished because she had only had the job for a few weeks and had been in Jupiter that whole time. We talked about how she rarely had a normal Cardinal experience, what with the lingering effects of COVID, the lockout, and then some of the worst Cardinal results in her lifetime. I always looked forward to our conversations and will miss her joining me each January now that she’s returning to her roots (sort of—the childhood Giants fan is covering the enemy now). It was a great joy to finally get a chance to meet her a couple of years ago and she was gracious enough not only to agree to a selfie, but to take it when the old man was having troubles.

Our best wishes to Katie as she heads to Hollywood. It was only a matter of time—given the way her profile had elevated over the last year or two, I thought she might get a national beat next—and whoever comes next has big shoes to fill.

Assuming someone comes next. I would hope that The Athletic would recognize how much demand for baseball coverage there is in St. Louis. I know there are some markets like Milwaukee that don’t have their own writer over there. I would hate for that to happen to the Cardinals. It might be enough to drop my subscription, though there’s still a lot of great stuff over there.

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The holidays are here. Longtime readers and listeners know that I spend a lot of time decorating for Christmas. This year’s outside display came on Thanksgiving evening and seems to have lived up to our reputation.

We’re finishing up the inside this week. Next week I start working on my holiday chocolates (which really aren’t anything fancy, just melting chips into molds) and the week after the wife starts cookie making before our annual Christmas open house. We’ll probably have around 100 people at the come and go and my wife makes enough cookies that each person could have more than a dozen. Yes, it’s a bit insane, but we so enjoy seeing everyone.

The holidays also mean that the podcasts are a little less regular. Allen and I plan to get back on Musial this weekend, catching up with the Gray trade and everything else that might have happened. Scheduling and illnesses and other things have kept David and I from recording Gateway to Baseball Heaven in about a month but hopefully we can do that this Sunday as well.

I used to update my reading in this space. I’ve been reading Master of Evil, a book set right after Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. It’s been pretty fun so far. I have a few other books started on the Kindle but I’ve not been doing as much reading of late. Maybe around Christmas I can do some more.

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving and will have a merry holiday season. I’ll try to be back in this spot before the new year!