A strange thought on this current Cardinal team

[woofy25]

"This is Mo's team developed from the minors."
Disagree.
Walker turned to corner this year by ignoring what Super Slo Mo and the coaching staff ordered him to do the last couple of years.
Gorman has become the most productive 3B in MLB because Bloom finally moved N/A out of the way.
Burleson, for the first time in his career, was assured a starting role and position (last season he was the 26th man to make the roster).
McGreevy, the ace of the staff, is no longer buried behind Mikolas.
Mootbaar - Mo's love affair for the previous 4 seasons - has not taken a single 2026 PA, which automatically made the team better.
Wetherholt has seized the leadoff role - which was a long-time black hole of rotating odd fitting pieces under Super Slo Mo.
Those are the factors which have turned things around.
Mo did not develop this team.
For many years, he undermined it.

I'm glad Mo is gone as much as anyone else, but the examples/reasoning above are wild and mostly easy to debate.
For instance:
Mikolas wasn't coming back in 2026 even if Mo was still the POBO, so McGreevy wasn't going to be blocked.
Nootbaar will be a starting OFer as soon as he's healthy. Church clearly moves to CF unless Scott turns into somebody he isn't
Wetherholt would be the leadoff hitter regardless of who the POBO is. Now, it is possible he would have started the season in AAA, but nobody knows for sure
Burleson had a 127 OPS+ last season and 126 OPS+ this season, and he got 500 ABs in 2025. Your point about Burleson's position on the roster last year compared to this year doesn't really prove anything one way or another
Walker turning it around is because of Walker deciding his way wasn't working. That has been documented.
Mo did have a deal with Arenado that NA obviously regretted vetoing.
I'm sure your comment on Gorman is bait, but I'll take it. There is not one offensive or a group of offensive statistics that would suggest he is leading 3B in production. As a matter of fact, if his .291 OBP and his .678 OPS are maintained, you can be sure his RBIs/gm will drop off. He's on pace to have a season similar to the last two and worse than his first two. I've been a strong supporter of Gorman, but if he's going to strike out more often than he gets on base (which he is currently doing and has always done), he needs to hit 30 HRs and 25-30 doubles. Again, without a power surge, his RBI rate will not be maintained. Fortunately for him, it's early enough that a three homerun/three double week puts him on pace.

[callitwhatyouwant]

You can say this is Mo's team because he had a heavy hand in all of them being Cardinals. But there was something that was SEVERELY lacking in the process department that was causing disfunction once players got to the big league level. Mo has just as much to do with that as building the roster. The team at the big league level was a toxic wasteland for any newcomer. They would be doing something well at some other point of development, show a quick flash at the big league level and then get exposed.

What that issue is? I don't know. But it gets really tiresome hearing that we are making trades by guys getting healthy, the fan base doesn't show up then we can't sign players. etc etc... The room got stale. And it's most likely because the bosses were stale.

Mo is one of the best GM's in cards history for being able to get cost effective deals. But his ultimate success came off the groundwork that Walt Jocketty provided with him being able to take risks and getting the cornerstone pieces that made the Cardinals tick for over a decade in house. It's much easier to turnover a working vehicle that has all the fluids needed to run topped off than it is to build the thing from scratch.

[ecleme22]

You can say this is Mo's team because he had a heavy hand in all of them being Cardinals. But there was something that was SEVERELY lacking in the process department that was causing disfunction once players got to the big league level. Mo has just as much to do with that as building the roster. The team at the big league level was a toxic wasteland for any newcomer. They would be doing something well at some other point of development, show a quick flash at the big league level and then get exposed.

What that issue is? I don't know. But it gets really tiresome hearing that we are making trades by guys getting healthy, the fan base doesn't show up then we can't sign players. etc etc... The room got stale. And it's most likely because the bosses were stale.

Mo is one of the best GM's in cards history for being able to get cost effective deals. But his ultimate success came off the groundwork that Walt Jocketty provided with him being able to take risks and getting the cornerstone pieces that made the Cardinals tick for over a decade in house. It's much easier to turnover a working vehicle that has all the fluids needed to run topped off than it is to build the thing from scratch.

Let’s see: I’ve seen OPs on DeJong, Carlson and Niko struggling, saw Arozarena a few back against the cards, and have seen the prize pig in the Montgomery trade, Sagesse, sent down again. Not to mention gutting minor league investment.

Yeah Mo deserves credit for the 2026. Same way Matt Eberflus has ‘some’ credit for the 2025 Chicago Bears.