Bullet point summary by AI
- Former executive John Mozeliak built a surprising winner for the St. Louis Cardinals by prioritizing long-term stability over a total roster gutting.
- Retaining young stars like Alec Burleson and Jordan Walker while reinvesting in the farm system has created a competitive roster with high-value team control.
- This strategic patience transformed a potential rebuild into a playoff push, proving that calculated development can yield immediate National League success.
John Mozeliak had a calculated approach to his final season with the St. Louis Cardinals last season. He committed to the future of this team by not selling off any position players with any sort of potential and focused on ridding the team of players on expiring contracts. It ended up being the gift that blessed the Cardinals more prosperous future without him. This year’s Cardinals are already outperforming their expectations.
All the talk of trading Jordan Walker and moving off the position players that weren’t quite cutting it last season would have pushed back St. Louis’ rebuilding window even further back. Instead, the Cardinals are already competing in a challenging NL Central division and look better than when they were loaded with players on lengthy contracts.
According to Spotrac, the Cardinals have just $47 million in guaranteed contracts and just over $111 million in projected tax payroll. Mozeliak gave the Cardinals one final gift by giving Chaim Bloom a foundation to work with. Now the Cardinals are better off for it and already looking like a winner. These moves Mozeliak made last year set the Cardinals up for one heck of a 2026.
Focusing on strictly moving expiring contracts rather than gutting this whole team
It seems like an obvious plan for somebody that isn’t going to survive the year. Don’t do too much and simply do enough to either set the future president of baseball operations up or at least give them an idea of what to do. The idea behind moving the players that were on expiring contracts was that it gave the team some prospects that would be ready to make waves in this next phase of the Cardinals.
Alec Burleson is another name that came up at last year’s trade deadline that the Cardinals could have offloaded for better minor league talent. Not only has keeping Burleson paid off – he’s slashing .273/.342/.448 with a .791 OPS. He’s been a massive offensive contributor, and with two more seasons of team control after, while he had a lot of trade value, he’s clearly more valuable as a cornerstone of this rebuild.
Eyeing the right prospects is finally paying off
Cardinals fans were prepared to have Walker haunt Mozeliak long after his departure from St. Louis. It turns out he was right all along. For years, Cardinals fans were told to be patient with Walker and it felt insane to keep believing in him. Now he’s going to force the Cardinals to sign a bigger check or risk arbitration. Michael McGreevy and Matthew Liberatore are both becoming competent arms in this rotation as well.
Walker’s turnaround this year has him in the top 10 in home runs this year in MLB. He has been one of the best hitters and is showing why patience is key. McGreevy is toting a 2.10 ERA in nine starts with 36 strikeouts. He’s also fourth in MLB with a 0.88 WHIP. Liberatore is having a solid season as well with a 4.40 ERA with 34 strikeouts and a 1.51 WHIP.
While Bloom gets credit for landing Dustin May, this starting rotation is finally coming together and Mozeliak deserves credit for finding these guys and not rushing their development. His whole final season was about making sure this team’s future was intact. Now the Cardinals are 4.5 games back from first place in the National League as of May 15.
Of course none of this will matter if St. Louis’ roaring start cools off as the season picks up. For now, Mozeliak stayed true to the young core he invested in and Bloom can (somewhat) take the credit for it as things have turned around quickly for the Cardinals.
Not neglecting the farm system will pay off if history repeats itself
With the deadline deals last year, Mozeliak made sure to reinvest into the farm system. He landed several solid prospects via trades, including Jesus Baez and Jordan Blaze. Now, yes, most of these players are still in Single-A baseball. But if there’s one thing Mozeliak taught Cardinals fans, it’s to be patient with the process. The players the Cardinals acquired have some upside and still need time to work through the minors. If any of those players hit as well, it will prove Mozeliak knew what he was doing this whole time. Now it’s up to Bloom to not screw it up.
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