Random Thoughts at the Halfway Point

When you want to write but you aren't sure what about

As I write this, the rest of my family is heading home from a vacation in Ohio to see my wife’s friends and family. Since we have two dogs that don’t do well in long stretches in a kennel, I took the time off of work, which has allowed me to do some things around the house and to watch a variety of baseball games throughout the afternoons and evenings. As my vacation wraps up, though, I wanted to put some things down here. Just some random thoughts as we finish the month of June.

Probably the biggest news since I wrote last was the shifting of chairs on the business side of the organization. Bill DeWitt III takes over as CEO with his dad keeping the primary owner label for all things MLB while Anuk Karunaratne moves up to BD3’s old spot of president of business operations, the equivalent of Chaim Bloom for non-baseball things.

Given the comments, it seems this was less about promotions (though I imagine increases in salary come with the titles) and more about putting the right label on work they were already doing, at least in part. I know that Karuaratne was very visible with the change to Cardinals.tv, for instance, which seems like a large part of business operations.

So it seems unlikely that anything is truly going to change. Perhaps DeWitt the younger will have a little more freedom to do some projects he’d have like to do, though his dad still is in a pretty powerful position. I doubt there’s anything huge that he wanted to push through that BDW Jr. was adamantly opposed to, but maybe we’ll see a few tweaks here and there. Honestly, a lot of what these guys do isn’t really front facing.

While it doesn’t completely rule out the DeWitt family selling at some point in the future, it does seem to indicate that’s not going to happen soon. I’ve always said that it’s very unlikely they’d sell in the elder DeWitt’s lifetime, because assets that pass in inheritance get a step-up in basis. Remember, the ownership group (of which the DeWitts are the face of, but not the entirety) paid like $150 million for the team and then sold the parking garages for $75 million. While I’m sure the accounting is more complicated, when you put that basis against a $4 billion valuation, that’s a lot of capital gains taxes you can avoid if you wait until you inherit things.

I also know that some folks find the younger DeWitt to be a bit of a cold fish and they wonder if he cares about the game or just the business of it. The first few years of the Blogger Day event, BDW3 would be in there with John Mozeliak and he always was very in touch with what the team was doing, even if he left those sort of questions to Mo for the most part. I also remember how passionate he was about the club’s history, their logos, things of that nature.

All in all, it wasn’t big news but it goes to show that things are continuing on behind the scenes. Continuity and competency are good things!

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Speaking of front offices, it was quite the surprise when John Mozeliak popped up in Anaheim this weekend. Apparently he doesn’t hold a grudge from the organization outbidding him for Albert Pujols. (There have been a lot of Anaheim-St. Louis connections over the years, such as Randal Grichuk, David Freese, Fernando Salas, Peter Bourjos….and if you go back well before Mo’s time, there’s that little Bottenfield-for-Edmonds deal.)

When you hear him speak of the job, it sounds a little bit like the tables are turned and he’s going to be doing the Chaim Bloom circa 2024 role for the most part. He’ll still do the day-to-day stuff, which someone has to do, but he’s going to be doing a system-wide review, looking at where there are issues, trying to find solutions. Which sounds like a great job for a retired guy that wants to stay connected to the game. I would be very surprised if Mo is GM at the start of the next season and if he is, it’s probably because they are still reviewing and searching for someone to do it. I don’t think this is Dick Cheney leading George Bush’s search committee for a vice-president only to get the job himself.

It’s going to be interesting for Mo to work for an owner that he doesn’t have a deep relationship with and, indeed, took the job without talking to. Hopefully Anaheim (it’s easier than continually saying Los Angeles Angels) is realizing how much work they need to do and that they need smart people to do it. It’ll let Mo stretch a little bit as well, which isn’t a bad thing.

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The Cardinals are currently 43-38, which means they are on pace (with the overall, not how they’ve played lately) to win 86 games, which is probably about 15 more than most people expected. They’ve never been underwater this season and can’t be until Game 87. It’s been a remarkable run though, as we talked last time, you wonder if things might be starting to trail off.

Given the rainout of the Arizona game being made up on July 23, the only days off between today and August 5th are the four games for the All-Star Break. Which isn’t nothing, of course, but that means they’ll play 14 games in 13 days on one side of it and 20 games in 20 days on the other side of it. They’ll have to travel to Wrigley, play a doubleheader at home against the Brewers, and visit Canada. It’s a true test of any team, much less one this young.

It still remains to be seen if this group is starting the downward spiral or just hitting a speed bump that any team can hit during a season. After all, the Cards are in Atlanta about to take on the Braves as I write this. The Braves looked like they were going to run away with everything a month ago, only to go 9-13 in June. While it will still be tough for the Cardinals to play them six times in the next couple of weeks, maybe they will catch them at the right time, get some wins, and get a little fire back in the belly. (Unlike the fire that is outside the belly, because summer has definitely hit the south.)

Of course, Matthew Liberatore goes today and if there’s anyone that you want to start a critical run of games….it’s probably not him. Jeff Jones notes that Ivan Herrera is going to catch him tonight instead of Pedro Pages, so we’ll see if that makes a difference but it would be a little surprising if so. I guess since people are slugging .519 against him, that probably means fewer singles and fewer chances for someone to steal a base off Herrera.

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I felt like the offense had hit a wall lately, which is a fair thing to think given that they were shut out three times in June. However, the last 30 days, the numbers aren’t too bad for folks. Some of that is because they had that good series in Cincinnati at the beginning of the month and the bats were fairly strong in Kansas City as well.

The last week has been bad—the club has only two homers, one by Jose Fermin, one by Bryan Torres—and only Fermin, Lars Nootbaar, and Jordan Walker are hitting over .300 in that span and the most any of them played in that span were four games, so we’re talking small sample size. I’m interested to see how things go in Atlanta. Of course, I remember when they called Atlanta “the launching pad” so if that was still the case we’d worry about the pitching more than the hitting, but Truist Park plays around league average, so probably not going to get a boost there.

We’re going to know a lot about this team by Sunday, I think. If they hold their own against the Braves and Cubs, it’s still not going to get Chaim Bloom to invest in this year, but it might impact what he sells off at the deadline. It’s tempting to try to capitalize on a surprising team, but as Yoda tried to tell Luke, taking the quick and easy path can really mess with your future. I get that we don’t know if these guys will be this good or better in 2027, but I think we have to trust that they will be or that the talent around them will be stronger. Trying to scramble around, putting on enough band-aids that you get your foot in the October door usually doesn’t give you much success there or in the future. That doesn’t mean Bloom has to sell everything that’s not nailed down, but if there is a chance to improve down the line and create a durable era of success, he is going to take it.

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Yesterday was one of those days that you’d never expect when you start putting words on the Internet and into the ether. Representative Joe Morelle, who represents the 25th district of New York (upstate—Rochester is in his district), is actually a huge Cardinals fan and has been his whole life. His staff reached out to me to see if I’d be interested in having a chat and it turned out to be a wonderful discussion. It’s very possible Representative Morelle and I would disagree on a lot of things in his professional field, but baseball has a way of bridging those gaps. I hope you’ll give it a listen and I look forward to having him on again in the future.

The regular shows are going well also. With an empty house, it was easier to do some shows and I sat in with Nate and Ben on Talking About Birds before doing Musial on Friday morning with Allen and Gateway on Sunday night with David. (David’s thinking about doing a special draft-focused episode, so be looking for that!) Allen is heading to Hawaii in a couple of weeks and for some reason doesn’t want to spend time holed up talking to me, so I’m pleased to announce the legend Bernie Miklasz will be filling in that week.

Game’s starting soon so I’ll wrap this up. Hopefully we have some fun July results to talk about next time!