As they head into longtime president of baseball operations John Mozeliak’s final season, the St. Louis Cardinals have made it clear where their priorities lie entering 2025.
In short: Let the kids play.
A youth movement is coming to St. Louis next season. It will be the center point of the Cardinals’ reset period, one the organization hopes will help restore the foundation of the club. For years, developing and producing homegrown talent was instrumental to the Cardinals’ success. Yet over the last few seasons, the club shifted away from that strategy, instead choosing to augment the team by the dollar. As pressures rose to continue fielding a competitive roster, spending followed suit.
The problem with this strategy is that it’s difficult to ensure a team’s spending results in wins. After just one playoff win dating to 2020 — and two consecutive seasons when the Cardinals missed the postseason entirely — the organization realized its current track was no longer viable.
“Is this sustainable forever?” Mozeliak said when asked about the timing of the Cardinals reset last week during MLB’s general managers’ meetings. “It’s been a good run, and I know this is a what have you done for me now kind of business, but when you look at this as a whole, there’s been a lot of success from the franchise. And we did it trying to be innovative, trying to be cutting edge.
“I think the last few years maybe we weren’t focused on where we can squeeze a little more out of the fruit, and instead we were trying to squeeze a little more for payroll. Over the past couple of years, the timing of my situation, it’s now that time to hit that reset and try to reposition ourselves to have another great run.”
Mozeliak will step down after the 2025 season, and adviser Chaim Bloom, the former chief baseball officer for the Boston Red Sox, will take over as president of baseball operations in 2026. In the interim, he has already started a dramatic overhaul of the player development system. Bloom will spend next season overseeing this process in the minor leagues, and Mozeliak will remain responsible for constructing the major-league roster. Mozeliak is not expected to be very active in the free-agent market this winter, instead focusing on his internal options.
“Our team is not going to look all that different,” Mozeliak said. “As we navigate the next four to eight weeks, it is going to be how can we better our club or how can we better our future? What does that look like? We are going to find pathways to give our younger players a chance to play and see what they can do.”
The future of the #STLCards franchise starts with Masyn Winn. @Cardinals | #ForTheLou
🔗 https://t.co/fGPbvbjGlC pic.twitter.com/IpCVAFpzzL— MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM (@MLBNetworkRadio) November 12, 2024
So, what exactly is this youth movement? And what will it entail?
The Cardinals do not plan to tank next year. They are not tearing down their roster. Mozeliak would still prefer to field a competitive team, but unlike seasons prior, that won’t come at the expense of the development of the team’s young players.
Take a look at next year’s projected roster, for example. Michael Siani and Victor Scott II provided stellar defense in center field, but neither produced much of anything offensively (Siani hit .228 with a .570 OPS over 124 games, and Scott posted a .179 average and a .502 OPS through 53 games). If the Cardinals were operating under their usual methods, center field would likely be a position they’d look to improve through free agency or trade, even if it meant prolonging or pivoting on either player.
Second base is another example. Nolan Gorman’s dramatic decline last season (.671 OPS, career-high 37.6 percent strikeout rate) would almost guarantee the Cardinals’ rethinking his place in the organization in 2025.
“In the past, we couldn’t keep trying,” Mozeliak said. “We’d have to go out and address those needs. Now what we’re saying is we’re going to let (the players) go play and find out if they can make those adjustments. Let’s see if they can do it for us, instead of us giving up on them and now they’re doing it for someone else.”
There are some players about whom the organization is already confident. Rookie shortstop Masyn Winn is someone the Cardinals can plan a future around, as is 27-year-old utility player Brendan Donovan. Pitching-wise, Andre Pallante should see plenty of reps in next year’s rotation. Elsewhere, Michael McGreevy is another pitcher to monitor either as a starter or reliever, as is Matthew Liberatore.
For far more players, 2025 will be imperative in deciding their futures in the organization. Can Lars Nootbaar stay healthy and become a more productive hitter? What’s fair to expect from Alec Burleson, who is one of the team’s best contact hitters but lacks a true defensive position? What about Jordan Walker, who, after two turbulent years in the majors, is still someone the Cardinals want to remain high on.
The overarching idea for next season is to guarantee consistent playing time for these players so the club can properly evaluate them. In years past this concept wasn’t feasible as it would’ve cost the team valuable games in the standings. In 2025, the Cardinals are willing to weigh that risk.
“We were always rushing to find the next better thing,” Mozeliak said. “Now we’re going to say we’re going to give this time to see what we really have.”
There will still be a veteran presence within the club. Mozeliak held conversations with all four veterans who hold no-trade clauses — Sonny Gray, Nolan Arenado, Willson Contreras and Miles Mikolas — all of whom either signed free-agent deals or denied opt-outs because they were under the pretenses the Cardinals would be competing for playoff berths for the duration of their contracts. If the team’s new direction resulted in a player’s wanting to leave, Mozeliak pledged to work with each player to try to trade them.
Contreras expressed strong desires to stay, per Mozeliak, and accepted a position change to first base. This decision allowed the Cardinals to keep their most productive bat, while also clearing the way for Iván Herrera and Pedro Pagés behind the plate. The Athletic previously reported that Gray also wants to remain with the Cardinals, and is open to the idea of mentoring younger pitchers.
Arenado’s situation is less clear, though even if he does prefer to be traded, there is no guarantee he will be. His heavy contract and performance decline over the last two years, along with his full no-trade clause, does not leave much room for negotiations. Trading Arenado would open third base to Donovan and Gorman (who came up the Cardinals system as a third baseman). Though Walker also played third base for the majority of his minor-league career, the Cardinals would prefer to leave him in right field next year, at least for now.
Next year will indeed be different for St. Louis, but it’s what the club believes will set them up best for the future. When the Cardinals were at their best, they were consistently fielding a homegrown club. For them to begin doing that again, they need to know what they already have.
(Top photo of Jordan Walker and Lars Nootbaar: Mike Stobe / Getty Images)
