Cardinals Direction Criticized By Analyst: ‘Fan Base Isn’t Even Engaged’

It’s difficult to understand what the St. Louis Cardinals are after these days.

Earlier in the season, St. Louis’ ability to combine player development with a surprising amount of wins was lauded, but that strategy has lost its luster of late as critics are confused about what the Cardinals plan to do at the trade deadline.

What was once a masterful show of dual-wielding has turned into a problem for the Cardinals. St. Louis isn’t a World Series contender, but they have one foot in the door of trying to win now. The other foot is in the door of player development, but president of baseball operations John Mozeliak hasn’t committed to trading any of the team’s veterans on expiring deals.

At some point, you have to choose a path, and the Cardinals simply haven’t.

ESPN’s Karl Ravech recently discussed this conundrum on an episode of the Baseball Tonight with Buster Olney podcast.

“The Cardinals are in this position of flux,” Ravech said.

“They clearly went into this season as an organization thinking, ‘This is a rebuilding year. We want to develop players and get better.’ And lo and behold, on the way to rebuilding, they have won more games than they've lost.”

“And they've got themselves square in the middle of a wild card race where clearly as an organization … you wanna win, (and) you wanna make sure the fan base is engaged. Well, the fan base isn't even engaged in St. Louis. So that part of it hasn't translated. … “It's an uncomfortable feeling that I got from listening to Oli (Marmol) talk and the messaging from the front office.”

Ravech makes good points here. If the objective of winning in 2025 was to keep fans intrigued but the fans aren't intrigued, why not pivot to a full rebuild? The Cardinals have a ton of young talent, but some of it is stuck in Triple-A due to tradable veterans continuing to take up spots in The Show.

By committing fully to a fire sale, Mozeliak could begin setting up his successor, Chaim Bloom, for a smooth transition into 2026.