Chaim Bloom and Tanking… a History

[Cusecards]

Zero chance we are tanking for the #1 pick.

Their best RHH for salary relief, a back of the rotation guy who tore his ACL in July, and 2 lottery tickets (Hunter Dobbins, Yhoiker Fajardo, & Blake Aita).

Neither will be contributing to the 2026 Cardinals.

Do you SERIOUSLY think these moves are about 2026?????

[BleedingBleu]

Zero chance we are tanking for the #1 pick.

Their best RHH for salary relief, a back of the rotation guy who tore his ACL in July, and 2 lottery tickets (Hunter Dobbins, Yhoiker Fajardo, & Blake Aita).

Neither will be contributing to the 2026 Cardinals.

Do you SERIOUSLY think these moves are about 2026?????

Did you SERIOUSLY not notice what I was responding to?

[Cusecards]

Zero chance we are tanking for the #1 pick.

Their best RHH for salary relief, a back of the rotation guy who tore his ACL in July, and 2 lottery tickets (Hunter Dobbins, Yhoiker Fajardo, & Blake Aita).

Neither will be contributing to the 2026 Cardinals.

Do you SERIOUSLY think these moves are about 2026?????

Did you SERIOUSLY not notice what I was responding to?

Ok...if I misunderstood your post my bad!

[BleedingBleu]

Zero chance we are tanking for the #1 pick.

Their best RHH for salary relief, a back of the rotation guy who tore his ACL in July, and 2 lottery tickets (Hunter Dobbins, Yhoiker Fajardo, & Blake Aita).

Neither will be contributing to the 2026 Cardinals.

You haven't been paying attention if you think the goal is to acquire talent for the 2026 Cardinals team.

You haven’t been paying attention if you think… I was responding to you about how there’s not a zero percent chance the Cardinals are tanking for the #1 pick.

[BleedingBleu]

Zero chance we are tanking for the #1 pick.

Their best RHH for salary relief, a back of the rotation guy who tore his ACL in July, and 2 lottery tickets (Hunter Dobbins, Yhoiker Fajardo, & Blake Aita).

Neither will be contributing to the 2026 Cardinals.

Do you SERIOUSLY think these moves are about 2026?????

Did you SERIOUSLY not notice what I was responding to?

Ok...if I misunderstood your post my bad!

All good.

I assume Dobbins is out for the 2026 season. Had they acquired a Starter who could provide +160 innings, maybe the argument could be made that they weren’t tanking. Trading Contreras and then signing Murakami definitely changes that statement.

At this point, I hope they’re tanking, because it’s going to be bad

[Cusecards]

Zero chance we are tanking for the #1 pick.

Their best RHH for salary relief, a back of the rotation guy who tore his ACL in July, and 2 lottery tickets (Hunter Dobbins, Yhoiker Fajardo, & Blake Aita).

Neither will be contributing to the 2026 Cardinals.

Do you SERIOUSLY think these moves are about 2026?????

Did you SERIOUSLY not notice what I was responding to?

Ok...if I misunderstood your post my bad!

All good.

I assume Dobbins is out for the 2026 season. Had they acquired a Starter who could provide +160 innings, maybe the argument could be made that they weren’t tanking. Trading Contreras and then signing Murakami definitely changes that statement.

At this point, I hope they’re tanking, because it’s going to be bad

To be honest I was mostly looking forward to watching the young guys(JJ etc) in 2026 as opposed to where they finish.
But you are correct, losing Gray, WC, Arenado(?) etc figures to weaken them for 2026.
More honesty?
Not sure those guys would bring much in 2027?

[BleedingBleu]

Zero chance we are tanking for the #1 pick.

Their best RHH for salary relief, a back of the rotation guy who tore his ACL in July, and 2 lottery tickets (Hunter Dobbins, Yhoiker Fajardo, & Blake Aita).

Neither will be contributing to the 2026 Cardinals.

Do you SERIOUSLY think these moves are about 2026?????

Did you SERIOUSLY not notice what I was responding to?

Ok...if I misunderstood your post my bad!

All good.

I assume Dobbins is out for the 2026 season. Had they acquired a Starter who could provide +160 innings, maybe the argument could be made that they weren’t tanking. Trading Contreras and then signing Murakami definitely changes that statement.

At this point, I hope they’re tanking, because it’s going to be bad

To be honest I was mostly looking forward to watching the young guys(JJ etc) in 2026 as opposed to where they finish.
But you are correct, losing Gray, WC, Arenado(?) etc figures to weaken them for 2026.
More honesty?
Not sure those guys would bring much in 2027?

Probably not. However, I can tell you I stopped watching the 2023 Cardinals about midway through June, barely watched the 2024 Cardinals, and didn’t bother to watch the 2025 Cardinals.

My girls are 7 & 4 and neither are interested in Cardinals baseball, despite taking them each to more Cardinals games than Blues & MLS combined. That is the price for being both irrelevant and sucking. And that sucks.

I want to watch baseball. Ownership is not doing nearly enough to incentivize the fans to watch. Dumping stars, dropping payroll, and driving up the cost at home and in the park is not going to change that.

I’m not in the minority, either. They’ve not only watched their Regional Network go bankrupt, but they’ve watched their attendance plummet, too. This isn't about who is or is not a “real” fan. It’s about serving the customer and whew boy are they failing to do that.

Let’s hope they recover after not doing (bleep)(bloop) for 5 straight offseasons while locking-out the players.

[Clubmaker2]

total starter innings forecasted will be interesting .possibly alarming if Donovan doesnt land something. Or is the tailor letting out lance lynns uniform again just in case...

[Cusecards]

Zero chance we are tanking for the #1 pick.

Their best RHH for salary relief, a back of the rotation guy who tore his ACL in July, and 2 lottery tickets (Hunter Dobbins, Yhoiker Fajardo, & Blake Aita).

Neither will be contributing to the 2026 Cardinals.

Do you SERIOUSLY think these moves are about 2026?????

Did you SERIOUSLY not notice what I was responding to?

Ok...if I misunderstood your post my bad!

All good.

I assume Dobbins is out for the 2026 season. Had they acquired a Starter who could provide +160 innings, maybe the argument could be made that they weren’t tanking. Trading Contreras and then signing Murakami definitely changes that statement.

At this point, I hope they’re tanking, because it’s going to be bad

To be honest I was mostly looking forward to watching the young guys(JJ etc) in 2026 as opposed to where they finish.
But you are correct, losing Gray, WC, Arenado(?) etc figures to weaken them for 2026.
More honesty?
Not sure those guys would bring much in 2027?

Probably not. However, I can tell you I stopped watching the 2023 Cardinals about midway through June, barely watched the 2024 Cardinals, and didn’t bother to watch the 2025 Cardinals.

My girls are 7 & 4 and neither are interested in Cardinals baseball, despite taking them each to more Cardinals games than Blues & MLS combined. That is the price for being both irrelevant and sucking. And that sucks.

I want to watch baseball. Ownership is not doing nearly enough to incentivize the fans to watch. Dumping stars, dropping payroll, and driving up the cost at home and in the park is not going to change that.

I’m not in the minority, either. They’ve not only watched their Regional Network go bankrupt, but they’ve watched their attendance plummet, too. This isn't about who is or is not a “real” fan. It’s about serving the customer and whew boy are they failing to do that.

Let’s hope they recover after not doing (bleep)(bloop) for 5 straight offseasons while locking-out the players.

Their road to recovery in my opinion is all about drafting/building/developing the farm system.
Hopefully that path has started?

[BleedingBleu]

Zero chance we are tanking for the #1 pick.

Their best RHH for salary relief, a back of the rotation guy who tore his ACL in July, and 2 lottery tickets (Hunter Dobbins, Yhoiker Fajardo, & Blake Aita).

Neither will be contributing to the 2026 Cardinals.

Do you SERIOUSLY think these moves are about 2026?????

Did you SERIOUSLY not notice what I was responding to?

Ok...if I misunderstood your post my bad!

All good.

I assume Dobbins is out for the 2026 season. Had they acquired a Starter who could provide +160 innings, maybe the argument could be made that they weren’t tanking. Trading Contreras and then signing Murakami definitely changes that statement.

At this point, I hope they’re tanking, because it’s going to be bad

To be honest I was mostly looking forward to watching the young guys(JJ etc) in 2026 as opposed to where they finish.
But you are correct, losing Gray, WC, Arenado(?) etc figures to weaken them for 2026.
More honesty?
Not sure those guys would bring much in 2027?

Probably not. However, I can tell you I stopped watching the 2023 Cardinals about midway through June, barely watched the 2024 Cardinals, and didn’t bother to watch the 2025 Cardinals.

My girls are 7 & 4 and neither are interested in Cardinals baseball, despite taking them each to more Cardinals games than Blues & MLS combined. That is the price for being both irrelevant and sucking. And that sucks.

I want to watch baseball. Ownership is not doing nearly enough to incentivize the fans to watch. Dumping stars, dropping payroll, and driving up the cost at home and in the park is not going to change that.

I’m not in the minority, either. They’ve not only watched their Regional Network go bankrupt, but they’ve watched their attendance plummet, too. This isn't about who is or is not a “real” fan. It’s about serving the customer and whew boy are they failing to do that.

Let’s hope they recover after not doing (bleep)(bloop) for 5 straight offseasons while locking-out the players.

Their road to recovery in my opinion is all about drafting/building/developing the farm system.
Hopefully that path has started?

Hope isn’t a strategy. They can both draft/develop/build and invest in winning at the major league level.

I’m unsure how killing all levels of excitement; which enhances attendance, viewership, and subscriptions to their streaming service helps. They obviously are not reinvesting the tens of millions they’ve dropped from the MLB Roster the last 3 years.

2023-$183.6M
2024-$179.4M
2025-$156.6M
2026-$130M and dropping

The real question is, what are they in 2028 and later? Are they the 1995-2023 St Louis Cardinals or the Tampa Rays, who sell their players off constantly and rebuild for 4-years for the chance at a 3-year window of making the playoffs before restarting the cycle again.

[Cusecards]

Zero chance we are tanking for the #1 pick.

Their best RHH for salary relief, a back of the rotation guy who tore his ACL in July, and 2 lottery tickets (Hunter Dobbins, Yhoiker Fajardo, & Blake Aita).

Neither will be contributing to the 2026 Cardinals.

Do you SERIOUSLY think these moves are about 2026?????

Did you SERIOUSLY not notice what I was responding to?

Ok...if I misunderstood your post my bad!

All good.

I assume Dobbins is out for the 2026 season. Had they acquired a Starter who could provide +160 innings, maybe the argument could be made that they weren’t tanking. Trading Contreras and then signing Murakami definitely changes that statement.

At this point, I hope they’re tanking, because it’s going to be bad

To be honest I was mostly looking forward to watching the young guys(JJ etc) in 2026 as opposed to where they finish.
But you are correct, losing Gray, WC, Arenado(?) etc figures to weaken them for 2026.
More honesty?
Not sure those guys would bring much in 2027?

Probably not. However, I can tell you I stopped watching the 2023 Cardinals about midway through June, barely watched the 2024 Cardinals, and didn’t bother to watch the 2025 Cardinals.

My girls are 7 & 4 and neither are interested in Cardinals baseball, despite taking them each to more Cardinals games than Blues & MLS combined. That is the price for being both irrelevant and sucking. And that sucks.

I want to watch baseball. Ownership is not doing nearly enough to incentivize the fans to watch. Dumping stars, dropping payroll, and driving up the cost at home and in the park is not going to change that.

I’m not in the minority, either. They’ve not only watched their Regional Network go bankrupt, but they’ve watched their attendance plummet, too. This isn't about who is or is not a “real” fan. It’s about serving the customer and whew boy are they failing to do that.

Let’s hope they recover after not doing (bleep)(bloop) for 5 straight offseasons while locking-out the players.

Their road to recovery in my opinion is all about drafting/building/developing the farm system.
Hopefully that path has started?

Hope isn’t a strategy. They can both draft/develop/build and invest in winning at the major league level.

I’m unsure how killing all levels of excitement; which enhances attendance, viewership, and subscriptions to their streaming service helps. They obviously are not reinvesting the tens of millions they’ve dropped from the MLB Roster the last 3 years.

2023-$183.6M
2024-$179.4M
2025-$156.6M
2026-$130M and dropping

The real question is, what are they in 2028 and later? Are they the 1995-2023 St Louis Cardinals or the Tampa Rays, who sell their players off constantly and rebuild for 4-years for the chance at a 3-year window of making the playoffs before restarting the cycle again.

Hey I’ll be watching and rooting!
Have a good evening!

[Ronnie Dobbs]

Neither will be contributing to the 2026 Cardinals.

Dobbins is on track to start the season. He's going to help the 2026 Cardinals, unless you're thrilled with throwing Pallante out there or expecting Kyle Leahy to make that leap from reliever to starter.

[OldRed]

Neither will be contributing to the 2026 Cardinals.

Dobbins is on track to start the season. He's going to help the 2026 Cardinals, unless you're thrilled with throwing Pallante out there or expecting Kyle Leahy to make that leap from reliever to starter.

I think Leahy has a chance to make that leap.