The St. Louis Cardinals are hiring Cleveland Guardians’ director of player development Rob Cerfolio to oversee a major overhaul of the club’s minor-league system, multiple league sources told The Athletic on Tuesday.
Cerfolio joined the Guardians in 2015 after graduating from Yale University. The 32-year-old was named Cleveland’s director of player development ahead of the 2022 season after spending seven years in various roles in both player development and amateur scouting.
Hiring a new position to take over the Cardinals’ farm system was the first task assigned to executive Chaim Bloom in his newly expanded role. Bloom will be responsible for jumpstarting the upgrades to the Cardinals’ minor leagues before taking over for top executive John Mozeliak as president of baseball operations in 2026.
In hiring Cerfolio, the Cardinals believe they’ve landed one of baseball’s up-and-coming talents in player development. Cerfolio’s background and development style are similar to those of top executives such as Cubs general manager Carter Hawkins, Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey and Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins. In his three years with the Guardians, Cerfolio oversaw one of baseball’s youngest farm systems. Three Guardians prospects were named to The Athletic’s Keith Law’s top 100 rankings before the 2024 season, including infielder Brayan Rocchio, who emerged as a key player throughout the 2024 season and into Cleveland’s playoff run.
After being hired as a special advisor ahead of the 2024 season, Bloom spent the year canvassing each minor-league level, both stateside and internationally. When long-time farm director Gary LaRocque announced his retirement near the end of the regular season, Bloom was given the green light by ownership to begin the hiring process for a replacement, something that Bloom described as the critical first step to modernizing the Cardinals’ outdated minor-league system.
“As part of his assessment last season, (Bloom) has developed a plan for improving our player development infrastructure and philosophy,” chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. said during the team’s end-of-season press conference in early October.
That plan will start with Cerfolio. While Cerfolio’s official title is unclear at this time, Mozeliak indicated earlier in the month that the position Bloom hired for would be at the assistant general manager level.
Cerfolio’s hiring is expected to be the first of many this winter at the player development level. Bloom is expected to bring on dozens of new employees as part of his multi-year plan to restore the Cardinals’ farm system. These roles will range from on-field coordinators and roving staff members to employees who will help utilize new technology that St. Louis does not yet implement.
“Prioritizing what order we do this, obviously finding the right leadership, first of all, and getting these folks in their positions and set up, and then helping me go forward as we make these investments is going to be really important,” Bloom said at the end of the season.
“There is so much opportunity for us to make positive change. … I have some ideas from my own experiences. We’re going to have new ideas come into the organization and really figure out — in all areas — how we can make this as good as it can be.”
(Photo: Dilip Vishwanat / Getty Images)
