Pretty sure DeWitt wants to challenge for most losses this season.

[CCard]

Does anyone really think they are trying to lose?

Well they aren't trying to win.
Semantics???

Is management going to extraordinary lengths to win this year….no.

Does every kid on that roster….whose lifetime dream is to be in the major leagues…trying as hard as they can to stay in the major leagues…yes

So would any minor league player do then? Because they all want to win in the majors. I guess we should just give them all equal time at the majors? Don't be obtuse.

[CCard]

Does anyone really think they are trying to lose?

Well they aren't trying to win.
Semantics???

Is management going to extraordinary lengths to win this year….no.

Does every kid on that roster….whose lifetime dream is to be in the major leagues…trying as hard as they can to stay in the major leagues…yes

Precisely. ...and whose dream is to play for the big payday as well. I think Bloom is doing just fine so far. A plan is in place. The only thing I disagree on is the retention of Marmol and Blake. But I am not in charge.... and I am looking forward to watching JJW, see if Winn bounces back offensively after the knee cleanup, whether any of the young pitchers show promise, and a whole lot of other things. I expect they will be around 75-81 wins one way or another. We shall see. I certainly have no illusions of even a WC spot. Next season is in doubt due to a potential strike or lockout. It is 2028 where they will hopefully challenge for at least a playoff spot again.

What Bloom doing just fine with right now? What has he done? Other than cut payroll and acquire a little suspect talent? Go ahead and explain all the things he's done to make this great dynasty happen in the future.

[Ozziesfan41]

lol the mental melt down of some cards fans is real

[hofmann13]

The age of the core players jumped to the other side of the curve. Can't make band aids work when The team started November at 10,000 to one odds to make the series... you look and see payroll is mostly tied up in over age 30 corner infielders. You have no ace. You have two 3b playing elsewhere, a C that is best as a DH, and somehow still no Of that can hit for power or average and/ or stay healthy. You are also not likely to be successful outbidding large markets for top younger free agent talent.

If you can't improve your odds to below, idk, 1000 to one in 26, how does playing existing contracts or signing over 33 age players help in '27?

Unless they are to short term deals that can be flipped at the deadline... Those may be coming. A free agent has to be willing to come to terms he's not getting what he wants first.

[Cusecards]

Another Classic thread.
Bully and Webby would be proud!

[scoutyjones2]

The moves being made to shed talent (and salary) can only lead to one conclusion. Losing is the objective. They don't care about the fans suffering or making the Cards the laughing stock of the league. They're willfully destroying the franchise and its value. Is it in preparation to sell the team? Or is it due to the CBA? Or both? In two decades they haven't acted this way. They've always played the "Let's look for a deal" game, but they did spend some. Enough to be at least average or better. This is something different. They may have changed some bells and whistles in the minor leagues. Maybe added some coaches and made some tweaks to regimen. But they're essentially the same system they were for two decades minus the professional talent they traded away. The team that not that long ago was considered to be the best run organization in MLB is now in free fall. How low can they go? Apparently we're going to find out. Some of you on here grinning from ear to ear and salivating at the imminent prospect of losing big, I just don't get.

Yes, that's the goal of any business

[82birds]

The age of the core players jumped to the other side of the curve. Can't make band aids work when The team started November at 10,000 to one odds to make the series... you look and see payroll is mostly tied up in over age 30 corner infielders. You have no ace. You have two 3b playing elsewhere, a C that is best as a DH, and somehow still no Of that can hit for power or average and/ or stay healthy. You are also not likely to be successful outbidding large markets for top younger free agent talent.

If you can't improve your odds to below, idk, 1000 to one in 26, how does playing existing contracts or signing over 33 age players help in '27?

Unless they are to short term deals that can be flipped at the deadline... Those may be coming. A free agent has to be willing to come to terms he's not getting what he wants first.

yikes

[Bomber1]

The age of the core players jumped to the other side of the curve. Can't make band aids work when The team started November at 10,000 to one odds to make the series... you look and see payroll is mostly tied up in over age 30 corner infielders. You have no ace. You have two 3b playing elsewhere, a C that is best as a DH, and somehow still no Of that can hit for power or average and/ or stay healthy. You are also not likely to be successful outbidding large markets for top younger free agent talent.

If you can't improve your odds to below, idk, 1000 to one in 26, how does playing existing contracts or signing over 33 age players help in '27?

Unless they are to short term deals that can be flipped at the deadline... Those may be coming. A free agent has to be willing to come to terms he's not getting what he wants first.

This is a sensible post IMO, well stated.

[CCard]

The age of the core players jumped to the other side of the curve. Can't make band aids work when The team started November at 10,000 to one odds to make the series... you look and see payroll is mostly tied up in over age 30 corner infielders. You have no ace. You have two 3b playing elsewhere, a C that is best as a DH, and somehow still no Of that can hit for power or average and/ or stay healthy. You are also not likely to be successful outbidding large markets for top younger free agent talent.

If you can't improve your odds to below, idk, 1000 to one in 26, how does playing existing contracts or signing over 33 age players help in '27?

Unless they are to short term deals that can be flipped at the deadline... Those may be coming. A free agent has to be willing to come to terms he's not getting what he wants first.

Your funny, I'll give you that. Shohei Ohtani is 31. Aaron Judge is 33. I suppose you'd tell those guys no way. Javier Baez is 33. Freddie Freeman is 36. Manny Machado is 33. Francisco Lindor is 32. Your age limit is laughable.

[Cardinals1964]

Haven’t we read the same version of this numerous times?

[AZ_Cardsfan]

I'll be right back, Cutting up some cheese for the daily whine.

[mattmitchl44]

The moves being made to shed talent (and salary) can only lead to one conclusion. Losing is the objective. They don't care about the fans suffering or making the Cards the laughing stock of the league. They're willfully destroying the franchise and its value. Is it in preparation to sell the team? Or is it due to the CBA? Or both? In two decades they haven't acted this way. They've always played the "Let's look for a deal" game, but they did spend some. Enough to be at least average or better. This is something different. They may have changed some bells and whistles in the minor leagues. Maybe added some coaches and made some tweaks to regimen. But they're essentially the same system they were for two decades minus the professional talent they traded away. The team that not that long ago was considered to be the best run organization in MLB is now in free fall. How low can they go? Apparently we're going to find out. Some of you on here grinning from ear to ear and salivating at the imminent prospect of losing big, I just don't get.

How do you reconcile "willfully destroying the...value" of the team and preparing to sell?

How does that make any sense?

More likely - they recognize that what they have been doing for about the last decade has led them into a dead end. That strategic approach - try to be just good enough to make the playoffs most years and hope for the best - gets them no farther in modern, 2026 baseball than high level mediocrity.

So now they are trying something different - a willingness to take a bigger step back for 1, 2, 3 years to rebuild the organization in order to provide the foundation to be better than high level mediocrity further into the future.

I mean this whole situation isn’t something that just same out of of the blue. It’s been obvious for sometime and they only now are making changes now that Mo walked out the door, by his own choice.

Dewitt chose not to make the changes and just let Mo do whatever he wanted.

No matter what the reasoning behind that was, it’s willfully destroying the franchise

I have said repeatedly that they should have started tearing the whole thing down at the 2023 trade deadline. So you won't get any argument from me that the last two seasons have been, mostly, just wandering aimlessly in the wilderness.

So you think that the Cards who made the playoffs in 2022 should have gutted the team? That's not the way to win a championship.

In July 2023, the Cardinals were 10+ games under .500, with aging veterans (Goldschmidt 35, Arenado 32, Mikolas 34) who were declining but might have had value to some contender that season. They should have been more committed to finding someplace for them to go where they would waive their NTCs.

Instead they doubled down on aging players by adding Gray, Gibson, and Lynn after 2023 and going on to win a whopping 83 and 78 games the past two seasons.

[CCard]

The moves being made to shed talent (and salary) can only lead to one conclusion. Losing is the objective. They don't care about the fans suffering or making the Cards the laughing stock of the league. They're willfully destroying the franchise and its value. Is it in preparation to sell the team? Or is it due to the CBA? Or both? In two decades they haven't acted this way. They've always played the "Let's look for a deal" game, but they did spend some. Enough to be at least average or better. This is something different. They may have changed some bells and whistles in the minor leagues. Maybe added some coaches and made some tweaks to regimen. But they're essentially the same system they were for two decades minus the professional talent they traded away. The team that not that long ago was considered to be the best run organization in MLB is now in free fall. How low can they go? Apparently we're going to find out. Some of you on here grinning from ear to ear and salivating at the imminent prospect of losing big, I just don't get.

How do you reconcile "willfully destroying the...value" of the team and preparing to sell?

How does that make any sense?

More likely - they recognize that what they have been doing for about the last decade has led them into a dead end. That strategic approach - try to be just good enough to make the playoffs most years and hope for the best - gets them no farther in modern, 2026 baseball than high level mediocrity.

So now they are trying something different - a willingness to take a bigger step back for 1, 2, 3 years to rebuild the organization in order to provide the foundation to be better than high level mediocrity further into the future.

I mean this whole situation isn’t something that just same out of of the blue. It’s been obvious for sometime and they only now are making changes now that Mo walked out the door, by his own choice.

Dewitt chose not to make the changes and just let Mo do whatever he wanted.

No matter what the reasoning behind that was, it’s willfully destroying the franchise

I have said repeatedly that they should have started tearing the whole thing down at the 2023 trade deadline. So you won't get any argument from me that the last two seasons have been, mostly, just wandering aimlessly in the wilderness.

So you think that the Cards who made the playoffs in 2022 should have gutted the team? That's not the way to win a championship.

In July 2023, the Cardinals were 10+ games under .500, with aging veterans (Goldschmidt 35, Arenado 32, Mikolas 34) who were declining but might have had value to some contender that season. They should have been more committed to finding someplace for them to go where they would waive their NTCs.

Instead they doubled down on aging players by adding Gray, Gibson, and Lynn after 2023 and going on to win a whopping 83 and 78 games the past two seasons.

If they had added a quality pitcher instead of Gibson and Lynn, and made an effort to upgrade the offense a little they would have made the playoffs and then who knows. But they made the active decision to play Mikolas (contract) and compound it by lesser talents Gibson, Lynn and later on Fedde. If you go with lesser talents you typically get lesser results. Your way of tanking has led to what in baseball? You can point to Houston (cheaters) and Chicago (basically down to the last play in the world series) as your beacons. Tanking only guarantees losing, and losing big.

[hofmann13]

The age of the core players jumped to the other side of the curve. Can't make band aids work when The team started November at 10,000 to one odds to make the series... you look and see payroll is mostly tied up in over age 30 corner infielders. You have no ace. You have two 3b playing elsewhere, a C that is best as a DH, and somehow still no Of that can hit for power or average and/ or stay healthy. You are also not likely to be successful outbidding large markets for top younger free agent talent.

If you can't improve your odds to below, idk, 1000 to one in 26, how does playing existing contracts or signing over 33 age players help in '27?

Unless they are to short term deals that can be flipped at the deadline... Those may be coming. A free agent has to be willing to come to terms he's not getting what he wants first.

Your funny, I'll give you that. Shohei Ohtani is 31. Aaron Judge is 33. I suppose you'd tell those guys no way. Javier Baez is 33. Freddie Freeman is 36. Manny Machado is 33. Francisco Lindor is 32. Your age limit is laughable.

You LITERALLY just provided a list of star players that signed their last deals at under age 33 and im the funny one?

[CCard]

The age of the core players jumped to the other side of the curve. Can't make band aids work when The team started November at 10,000 to one odds to make the series... you look and see payroll is mostly tied up in over age 30 corner infielders. You have no ace. You have two 3b playing elsewhere, a C that is best as a DH, and somehow still no Of that can hit for power or average and/ or stay healthy. You are also not likely to be successful outbidding large markets for top younger free agent talent.

If you can't improve your odds to below, idk, 1000 to one in 26, how does playing existing contracts or signing over 33 age players help in '27?

Unless they are to short term deals that can be flipped at the deadline... Those may be coming. A free agent has to be willing to come to terms he's not getting what he wants first.

Your funny, I'll give you that. Shohei Ohtani is 31. Aaron Judge is 33. I suppose you'd tell those guys no way. Javier Baez is 33. Freddie Freeman is 36. Manny Machado is 33. Francisco Lindor is 32. Your age limit is laughable.

You LITERALLY just provided a list of star players that signed their last deals at under age 33 and im the funny one?

You act like 33 is a death knell for a player and they should all be traded at or right before that mark. Those players that I posted? They just made the last all-star team. Yes, you're funny, but not in a fun way.

[mattmitchl44]

The moves being made to shed talent (and salary) can only lead to one conclusion. Losing is the objective. They don't care about the fans suffering or making the Cards the laughing stock of the league. They're willfully destroying the franchise and its value. Is it in preparation to sell the team? Or is it due to the CBA? Or both? In two decades they haven't acted this way. They've always played the "Let's look for a deal" game, but they did spend some. Enough to be at least average or better. This is something different. They may have changed some bells and whistles in the minor leagues. Maybe added some coaches and made some tweaks to regimen. But they're essentially the same system they were for two decades minus the professional talent they traded away. The team that not that long ago was considered to be the best run organization in MLB is now in free fall. How low can they go? Apparently we're going to find out. Some of you on here grinning from ear to ear and salivating at the imminent prospect of losing big, I just don't get.

How do you reconcile "willfully destroying the...value" of the team and preparing to sell?

How does that make any sense?

More likely - they recognize that what they have been doing for about the last decade has led them into a dead end. That strategic approach - try to be just good enough to make the playoffs most years and hope for the best - gets them no farther in modern, 2026 baseball than high level mediocrity.

So now they are trying something different - a willingness to take a bigger step back for 1, 2, 3 years to rebuild the organization in order to provide the foundation to be better than high level mediocrity further into the future.

I mean this whole situation isn’t something that just same out of of the blue. It’s been obvious for sometime and they only now are making changes now that Mo walked out the door, by his own choice.

Dewitt chose not to make the changes and just let Mo do whatever he wanted.

No matter what the reasoning behind that was, it’s willfully destroying the franchise

I have said repeatedly that they should have started tearing the whole thing down at the 2023 trade deadline. So you won't get any argument from me that the last two seasons have been, mostly, just wandering aimlessly in the wilderness.

So you think that the Cards who made the playoffs in 2022 should have gutted the team? That's not the way to win a championship.

In July 2023, the Cardinals were 10+ games under .500, with aging veterans (Goldschmidt 35, Arenado 32, Mikolas 34) who were declining but might have had value to some contender that season. They should have been more committed to finding someplace for them to go where they would waive their NTCs.

Instead they doubled down on aging players by adding Gray, Gibson, and Lynn after 2023 and going on to win a whopping 83 and 78 games the past two seasons.

If they had added a quality pitcher instead of Gibson and Lynn, and made an effort to upgrade the offense a little they would have made the playoffs and then who knows. But they made the active decision to play Mikolas (contract) and compound it by lesser talents Gibson, Lynn and later on Fedde. If you go with lesser talents you typically get lesser results. Your way of tanking has led to what in baseball? You can point to Houston (cheaters) and Chicago (basically down to the last play in the world series) as your beacons. Tanking only guarantees losing, and losing big.

They were about six games out of sneaking into the last wild card each year, and in 2024 that was with Gibson and Lynn. So, no, they weren't particularly close to anything.