Maybe I look at it with the eyes of an old man...

[CCard]

Some on here are proponents of intentionally making the team worse in the short term to try to catch lightning in a bottle long term. They say 3 to 5 years and we'll have a super team. On par to the Dodgers and Yankees of MLB. I might be biased in that I'm an old man in ill health and I might not have 3 to 5 years to wait for this vaunted super team. I've been a Cardinals fan since I was a young teenager and it was the one thing that me and my grandfather could relate to together. It helped us grow close. He's been gone a long time now. He got to enjoy Whiteyball in the 80's but he was gone by the time Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright made their marks. He would have loved it. That's why I'm a proponent of getting into the playoffs. At least you give people hope that it can happen. Intentionally losing has a stench about it that just doesn't sit well with me. I may have a few years and I'd hate to see it taken away by some pie in the sky rebuilding plan. Those of us near the end want to challenge and win now, not in 5 years. If anything is for sure it's that not all of us will get that chance. So you see, might vision for the Cards is not the same as some who "have a plan" that would take years. Aside from all the other number crunching, Baseball is about heart, feeling. To me that's what its always been about and I'd hate to deprive the fans of that excitement. Especially those near the end.

[Ronnie Dobbs]

I wish life and sports were perfect, but many times, in both, there are problems that you need to work through.

[JohnnyMO]

Fair point and honestly maybe the most valid reason to disagree with a rebuild as a fan.

[CorneliusWolfe]

Some on here are proponents of intentionally making the team worse in the short term to try to catch lightning in a bottle long term. They say 3 to 5 years and we'll have a super team. On par to the Dodgers and Yankees of MLB. I might be biased in that I'm an old man in ill health and I might not have 3 to 5 years to wait for this vaunted super team. I've been a Cardinals fan since I was a young teenager and it was the one thing that me and my grandfather could relate to together. It helped us grow close. He's been gone a long time now. He got to enjoy Whiteyball in the 80's but he was gone by the time Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright made their marks. He would have loved it. That's why I'm a proponent of getting into the playoffs. At least you give people hope that it can happen. Intentionally losing has a stench about it that just doesn't sit well with me. I may have a few years and I'd hate to see it taken away by some pie in the sky rebuilding plan. Those of us near the end want to challenge and win now, not in 5 years. If anything is for sure it's that not all of us will get that chance. So you see, might vision for the Cards is not the same as some who "have a plan" that would take years. Aside from all the other number crunching, Baseball is about heart, feeling. To me that's what its always been about and I'd hate to deprive the fans of that excitement. Especially those near the end.

I’m no spring chicken but apparently younger than many others on this forum. But I always think of you guys when I’m arguing with all the tank-crowd types around here. Life is short, even for the young sometimes, so why not try and have some fun? The team owes it to the lifetime supporters to at least try.

However long it takes, I hope you find some joy in seeing the team get back to their winning ways again and you get to enjoy it with the younger generations in your family like we did with our grandfathers.

[Melville]

Some on here are proponents of intentionally making the team worse in the short term to try to catch lightning in a bottle long term. They say 3 to 5 years and we'll have a super team. On par to the Dodgers and Yankees of MLB. I might be biased in that I'm an old man in ill health and I might not have 3 to 5 years to wait for this vaunted super team. I've been a Cardinals fan since I was a young teenager and it was the one thing that me and my grandfather could relate to together. It helped us grow close. He's been gone a long time now. He got to enjoy Whiteyball in the 80's but he was gone by the time Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright made their marks. He would have loved it. That's why I'm a proponent of getting into the playoffs. At least you give people hope that it can happen. Intentionally losing has a stench about it that just doesn't sit well with me. I may have a few years and I'd hate to see it taken away by some pie in the sky rebuilding plan. Those of us near the end want to challenge and win now, not in 5 years. If anything is for sure it's that not all of us will get that chance. So you see, might vision for the Cards is not the same as some who "have a plan" that would take years. Aside from all the other number crunching, Baseball is about heart, feeling. To me that's what its always been about and I'd hate to deprive the fans of that excitement. Especially those near the end.

You make a very interesting point.
There are no guarantees in life.
Nor in baseball.
There is zero guarantee that a 3 year or 5 year plan would put the team in any better condition than it is now.
Just ask the Pirates.
Or the Rockies.
Ot the Angels.
So, if you want to accomplish something, do whatever is necessary to do so now.
A person can plan and save for retirement - and also take the vacation of a lifetime.
They are not mutually exclusive.
Same with the Cardinals - they can compete next year with a couple of wise moves and still rebuild the foundation long term.
Both are achievable.
In life, as in baseball, only two things are needed.
The will and the skill.

[zuck698]

Some on here are proponents of intentionally making the team worse in the short term to try to catch lightning in a bottle long term. They say 3 to 5 years and we'll have a super team. On par to the Dodgers and Yankees of MLB. I might be biased in that I'm an old man in ill health and I might not have 3 to 5 years to wait for this vaunted super team. I've been a Cardinals fan since I was a young teenager and it was the one thing that me and my grandfather could relate to together. It helped us grow close. He's been gone a long time now. He got to enjoy Whiteyball in the 80's but he was gone by the time Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright made their marks. He would have loved it. That's why I'm a proponent of getting into the playoffs. At least you give people hope that it can happen. Intentionally losing has a stench about it that just doesn't sit well with me. I may have a few years and I'd hate to see it taken away by some pie in the sky rebuilding plan. Those of us near the end want to challenge and win now, not in 5 years. If anything is for sure it's that not all of us will get that chance. So you see, might vision for the Cards is not the same as some who "have a plan" that would take years. Aside from all the other number crunching, Baseball is about heart, feeling. To me that's what its always been about and I'd hate to deprive the fans of that excitement. Especially those near the end.

IMO you are looking at it correctly. I would prefer to try to win and lose, versus never having a shot at winning. People that play to lose, guess what they call them? You already know the answer CC.

[Hoosier59]

You’d think old Bill would feel the same way, but he must think he can take all that dry power with him when he goes!
It really doesn’t make any sense to me, the way hes just quit trying!

[Ozziesfan41]

I try and look at the team as realistically as possibly. The cardinals aren’t going to go on a spending spree and sign a 1 and 2 starter and a 3 and 4 hitter to make the team relevant again it’s not going to happen. A 1% chance of that. The cardinals aren’t going to go trading a bunch of top
Rated prospects for tatis jr. it won’t happen people that think they can trade Donovan and burleson and crooks for tatis are delusional it would start with JJ and Doyle and then more it won’t happen. The only hope is bloom fixes the minor league development system that produces impact players they can build around. Will bloom succeed I think so I could be wrong I was a staunch mo supporter once upon a time until I realized his success was due to Larussa telling him what the team needed and the further it got away from the Larussa/jocketty era and became the mo the era the worse the team got so hey could be wrong but hope I’m not

[fullswing]

I try and look at the team as realistically as possibly. The cardinals aren’t going to go on a spending spree and sign a 1 and 2 starter and a 3 and 4 hitter to make the team relevant again it’s not going to happen. A 1% chance of that. The cardinals aren’t going to go trading a bunch of top
Rated prospects for tatis jr. it won’t happen people that think they can trade Donovan and burleson and crooks for tatis are delusional it would start with JJ and Doyle and then more it won’t happen. The only hope is bloom fixes the minor league development system that produces impact players they can build around. Will bloom succeed I think so I could be wrong I was a staunch mo supporter once upon a time until I realized his success was due to Larussa telling him what the team needed and the further it got away from the Larussa/jocketty era and became the mo the era the worse the team got so hey could be wrong but hope I’m not

That isn’t at all what this thread is about.

[juan good eye]

Some on here are proponents of intentionally making the team worse in the short term to try to catch lightning in a bottle long term. They say 3 to 5 years and we'll have a super team. On par to the Dodgers and Yankees of MLB. I might be biased in that I'm an old man in ill health and I might not have 3 to 5 years to wait for this vaunted super team. I've been a Cardinals fan since I was a young teenager and it was the one thing that me and my grandfather could relate to together. It helped us grow close. He's been gone a long time now. He got to enjoy Whiteyball in the 80's but he was gone by the time Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright made their marks. He would have loved it. That's why I'm a proponent of getting into the playoffs. At least you give people hope that it can happen. Intentionally losing has a stench about it that just doesn't sit well with me. I may have a few years and I'd hate to see it taken away by some pie in the sky rebuilding plan. Those of us near the end want to challenge and win now, not in 5 years. If anything is for sure it's that not all of us will get that chance. So you see, might vision for the Cards is not the same as some who "have a plan" that would take years. Aside from all the other number crunching, Baseball is about heart, feeling. To me that's what its always been about and I'd hate to deprive the fans of that excitement. Especially those near the end.

Sorry. If they would’ve done this sooner we wouldn’t be talking about 3-5 years out but sadly to many of you are very hard headed about the reality of baseball, just like Mo.

If this helps your perspective at least you got to see some championship teams. Don’t be selfish and force the younger generations to grow up with more mediocrity by begging for the status quo to continue.

[juan good eye]

Some on here are proponents of intentionally making the team worse in the short term to try to catch lightning in a bottle long term. They say 3 to 5 years and we'll have a super team. On par to the Dodgers and Yankees of MLB. I might be biased in that I'm an old man in ill health and I might not have 3 to 5 years to wait for this vaunted super team. I've been a Cardinals fan since I was a young teenager and it was the one thing that me and my grandfather could relate to together. It helped us grow close. He's been gone a long time now. He got to enjoy Whiteyball in the 80's but he was gone by the time Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright made their marks. He would have loved it. That's why I'm a proponent of getting into the playoffs. At least you give people hope that it can happen. Intentionally losing has a stench about it that just doesn't sit well with me. I may have a few years and I'd hate to see it taken away by some pie in the sky rebuilding plan. Those of us near the end want to challenge and win now, not in 5 years. If anything is for sure it's that not all of us will get that chance. So you see, might vision for the Cards is not the same as some who "have a plan" that would take years. Aside from all the other number crunching, Baseball is about heart, feeling. To me that's what its always been about and I'd hate to deprive the fans of that excitement. Especially those near the end.

IMO you are looking at it correctly. I would prefer to try to win and lose, versus never having a shot at winning. People that play to lose, guess what they call them? You already know the answer CC.

It’s called strategy.

Some choose to live in the moment and choose instant gratification.

Others look at both short and long term options and prioritize for the best outcome. It’s not rocket science but it seems to confound the simple.

[renostl]

Some on here are proponents of intentionally making the team worse in the short term to try to catch lightning in a bottle long term. They say 3 to 5 years and we'll have a super team. On par to the Dodgers and Yankees of MLB. I might be biased in that I'm an old man in ill health and I might not have 3 to 5 years to wait for this vaunted super team. I've been a Cardinals fan since I was a young teenager and it was the one thing that me and my grandfather could relate to together. It helped us grow close. He's been gone a long time now. He got to enjoy Whiteyball in the 80's but he was gone by the time Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright made their marks. He would have loved it. That's why I'm a proponent of getting into the playoffs. At least you give people hope that it can happen. Intentionally losing has a stench about it that just doesn't sit well with me. I may have a few years and I'd hate to see it taken away by some pie in the sky rebuilding plan. Those of us near the end want to challenge and win now, not in 5 years. If anything is for sure it's that not all of us will get that chance. So you see, might vision for the Cards is not the same as some who "have a plan" that would take years. Aside from all the other number crunching, Baseball is about heart, feeling. To me that's what its always been about and I'd hate to deprive the fans of that excitement. Especially those near the end.

You make a very interesting point.
There are no guarantees in life.
Nor in baseball.
There is zero guarantee that a 3 year or 5 year plan would put the team in any better condition than it is now.
Just ask the Pirates.
Or the Rockies.
Ot the Angels.
So, if you want to accomplish something, do whatever is necessary to do so now.
A person can plan and save for retirement - and also take the vacation of a lifetime.
They are not mutually exclusive.
Same with the Cardinals - they can compete next year with a couple of wise moves and still rebuild the foundation long term.
Both are achievable.
In life, as in baseball, only two things are needed.
The will and the skill.

To both posts

The foundation of sports is to compete.
To be your best for competition.

The goal should be perpetual improvement while always keeping an eye on the future. IMO that can be done without jeopardizing the future.

The last couple seasons had very flawed rosters. To list and rehash again here is tiresome. I'll just say that it should not be difficult to put a better balance OD roster on the field. A little more speed, a little more power.
thus better positioned to compete.

Set back and watch what the people that actually have control do, not what us hot stove participants are guessing at happening. This does not need to be a tank job and I fully expect it not to be.

[StlMike1969]

Winning teams are built on chemistry, attitude and talent. Talent can be bought. Chemistry has to be built and attitude is inherent, but coachable. This is a mid market team. Always has been. This team will never be in the bidding wars for the top talent with todays inflated contracts. I would also argue that some GM's are catching on that a $400 mill+ player contract can be disabling to a team. Fans need to accept there will not be an Ohtani or Pujols type player in St. Louis again unless it is a home grown one or on the back end of their careers. Prime years will be spent on teams like LA and NY that can afford them. What they are trying to do is build a system that recognizes the talent early on, evaluates the right level for it and brings them into the fold so that the prime 24 to 28 years of age are spent in St. Louis on the cheap. Get to a core of 3 to 5 offensive players and at least 2 stud starters that you can replace parts of every year or two as they get traded due to pending free agency. Get back quality younger talent to keep that development train running. Then the team can use a mid range payroll to get in good support players to help build that chemistry. The reason LA is winning is because the support guys can relax and just play ball. They all know on any given night Ohtani, Freeman, Betts or Yamamoto can go off with a juggernaut game and they just have to do the basics and it is more than enough to win. That is what we had with Pujols, Edman, Rolen, Carpenter and Wainwright back in the day. Larussa put in good complimentary players that helped support the studs.

Right now this team lacks any studs to build around. So they must get the system right and work towards that pipeline creation of a system. it may take a couple of years but one also has to remember that the sport is facing a possible lockout in 2027. That is a big factor in what gets built now. This is why 2026 is yet again one more year of let's look and see. It looms larger than most think. Just need some patience.

[mattmitchl44]

Everyone here wants the same thing - for the Cardinals to be a consistently successful organization that wins more than its fair share of NL Division titles, NL Pennants, and World Series Championships.

I think we can all agree that the only way for the Cardinals to be a consistently successful organization is for them to consistently have a high level of talent on their ML roster.

What we bicker about is exactly how they should go about getting the organization from its current state - which given that they've only advanced past the 1st round of the playoffs once in the last decade, I think we can safely say has not been consistently successful - to where we want to see them be.

Some think that the last decade was just a failure of the people running the organization. Some, like myself, think that it was also, in part, their implementation of an organizational philosophy which was flawed and that simply changing the people without changing the philosophy isn't going to get them back to being consistently successful in the conditions which exist in MLB in 2025. Even an organizational philosophy which people fondly remember having worked in the 1980s or the 2000-2015 period may no longer work under the present conditions. So the "just go back to doing what Walt Jocketty did" philosophy isn't going to guarantee consistent success in 2025 going forward. Times have changed and the Cardinals have to change with them.

In 2025, when the difference between the ML minimum salary ($760,000) for a single pre-ARB player and the $25 million, $30 million, etc. per year for one really good free agent this offseason represents ~15% of the Cardinals total ML payroll even if it were at $170, $175, $180 million, that makes the conditions in which the Cardinals have to operate to be successful much different than they were in the 1960s, 1980s, or even 2000-2015. The expanding difference between the ML minimum and what FAs are getting is why, now moreso than ever before, to be consistently successful the Cardinals have to lean more and more on young, cost controlled players for their success.

And because they have to lean more and more on young, cost controlled players if they want to be consistently successful in the future, some of us clearly articulate that an almost singular focus right now on rebuilding their player development system into one that is a Top 5 system in MLB is what they absolutely cannot fail to do. Doing anything which might compromise that objective to win 80 or 85 games in 2026 instead of 70 seems penny wise and pound foolish.

The expression "sometimes you have to take one step back in order to take two steps forward" is exactly what applies to the Cardinals over these next 1, 2, 3 seasons if we all do want to see them be a consistently successful organization again.

[mattmitchl44]

I should add to the above.

I don't think anyone has said for the Cardinals to not spend ANY money this offseason. If they want to go out and get relatively cheap FAs on short term 1-2 year deals, maybe with an eye towards flipping them for more prospects in July 2026, that would be fine. If that wins them a few more games next year, makes some people like the OP feel like they are "being competitive", etc. - more power to them.

What I, at least, have said is that I don't want to see them going out and signing really expensive players over age 30 - your Schwarbers, Valdezs, even Bellingers, etc. - to the 5, 6, 7 year contracts they are almost certain to get.

We've all seen it over and over and over again - when teams sign these older, expensive players to long contracts:

1) you get a couple of great years at the beginning of the contract
2) you get a couple of average to good years in the middle of the contract, and then
3) you get 1, 2, 3 relatively bad years at the end of the contract where you wish you were out from under it

So, when you do go out and sign those kinds of older, expensive players, you want their great years at the beginning of those contracts to overlap with when the rest of your roster is primed to "win now." But the rest of the Cardinals roster is not primed in 2026 to "win now." When Wetherholt and Doyle (hopefully) start to hit their stride in the majors in 2-3 years, the Cardinals should be primed to "win now" in 2028, 2029, 2030. That will be when they want to add these older, expensive players so that their great remaining years overlap with the talent on the rest of the roster.

If the only way the OP can be satisfied with the team's effort this offseason is to see them add at least a couple of Schwarbers, Valdezs, Bellingers, etc., then we'll just have to agree to disagree on what path forward makes sense for the organization.

[sikeston bulldog2]

I should add to the above.

I don't think anyone has said for the Cardinals to not spend ANY money this offseason. If they want to go out and get relatively cheap FAs on short term 1-2 year deals, maybe with an eye towards flipping them for more prospects in July 2026, that would be fine. If that wins them a few more games next year, makes some people like the OP feel like they are "being competitive", etc. - more power to them.

What I, at least, have said is that I don't want to see them going out and signing really expensive players over age 30 - your Schwarbers, Valdezs, even Bellingers, etc. - to the 5, 6, 7 year contracts they are almost certain to get.

We've all seen it over and over and over again - when teams sign these older, expensive players to long contracts:

1) you get a couple of great years at the beginning of the contract
2) you get a couple of average to good years in the middle of the contract, and then
3) you get 1, 2, 3 relatively bad years at the end of the contract where you wish you were out from under it

So, when you do go out and sign those kinds of older, expensive players, you want their great years at the beginning of those contracts to overlap with when the rest of your roster is primed to "win now." But the rest of the Cardinals roster is not primed in 2026 to "win now." When Wetherholt and Doyle (hopefully) start to hit their stride in the majors in 2-3 years, the Cardinals should be primed to "win now" in 2028, 2029, 2030. That will be when they want to add these older, expensive players so that their great remaining years overlap with the talent on the rest of the roster.

If the only way the OP can be satisfied with the team's effort this offseason is to see them add at least a couple of Schwarbers, Valdezs, Bellingers, etc., then we'll just have to agree to disagree on what path forward makes sense for the organization.

If you get two great years, two good years, and two bad years, isn’t that success. And isn’t that better than the path we have been in n for 12 years.

I’d submit, just about all long term deals, young or old vets, have down years. I think it’s the nature of the beast.