With barely over a month before Spring Training begins, we still don’t know the complete story about what St. Louis Cardinals President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom and his team will accomplish. I can start to fill out the grade card and overall it’s very promising. There are 4 moves that I believe were very smart for the St. Louis Cardinals, but I also have a big concern pending.
I try to be a glass half-full sort of person, so let’s start with what we’ve seen from the new St. Louis Cardinals front office that I would categorize as good if not great.
1 – Trading Sonny Gray to Boston for Richard Fitts and Brandon Clarke
I was impressed with how quickly Chaim Bloom got this deal done, but feel free to insert your own Boston Red Sox conspiracy theory here. Instead of just flat-out dumping Sonny Gray’s salary, the DeWitt family was also convinced by Chaim to toss in $20 million in return for a major-league ready pitcher that can hopefully eat innings and a prospect that could be a strikeout machine if developed correctly. The deal was done snappy and the return was impressive.
2 – Convincing Willson Contreras to accept a trade to Boston in return for 3 righthanded pitchers
While I have concerns about moving one of the most fiery personalities on the St. Louis Cardinals roster, trading Willson Contreras to the Boston Red Sox for major league-ready pitcher Hunter Dobbins and minor league right-handed pitchers Blake Aita and Yhoiker Fajardo is a big picture win. This opens up first base for Alec Burleson and frees up salary overhead which will be vital when the Cardinals are ready to seriously compete again and need to sign the right free agent pieces.
3 – Chaim Bloom coming to agreements with all 7 arbitration-eligible players before the hearings
Based on the previous Cardinals front office approach of going through the brutal arbitration hearing process, Chaim Bloom working out agreements with Brendan Donovan, JoJo Romero, Matthew Liberatore, Lars Nootbaar, Nolan Gorman, Alec Burleson and Andre Pallante was a pleasant surprise to me. I believe this is the type of move that will positively affect team morale.
4 – Public comments from Chaim Bloom have been the perfect balance of transparency without saying too much
As I have shared before, I felt like John Mozeliak crossed the too much information line several times in recent years. The handling of Nolan Arenado’s situation last winter was a disaster. Compare that to very little being said publicly this winter other than Chaim Bloom stating that releasing him is “not an option”. He has revealed that he still believes it’s in the team and Nolan’s best interest to find an acceptable move for him, but no list of teams has been openly discussed by him or his team and there’s no public revelation about Nolan shooting down a trade so far. We’re still early in the Chaim Bloom era, but let’s hope this trend of openness without too much openness continues and we don’t have another embarrassing public exchange like the handling of Willson Contreras not working out as a catcher dumpster fire.
Now about that one big concern
I am not ignoring some of the great moves that John Mozeliak made during his time leading the St. Louis Cardinals front office, but I felt that the last several years of his time here involved overvaluing players on our roster. The comments about Dylan Carlson during the Juan Soto pursuit come to mind. Let me be clear that I’m not putting Chaim Bloom in this category yet, but hearing assessments of the St. Louis Cardinals position on Brendan Donovan are a concern. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic said Brendan Donovan has not been traded because “it comes down to a difference in perceived value.” My fear which is hopefully just my imagination and not reality is that Chaim Bloom believes Brendan Donovan is a franchise cornerstone type of player. While I did mention that Brendan is the type of player you can build around, he’s not Albert Pujols. Yes, big exaggeration, but you get the point.
Let me also play devil’s advocate against my previous point. I think (and hope) this is Chaim Bloom presenting Brendan Donovan in the best possible light to interested teams and there are reportedly a lot of them. It’s a good thing that Chaim Bloom wants to get the best possible return for Brendan. Let’s just hope we’re not overestimating the talent on offer – again.
One bonus concern is how Chaim Bloom handles the Nolan Arenado situation. He’s publicly said that releasing Nolan “is not an option”. Will that still be the case once Spring Training begins? Last winter, I thought that Nolan Arenado handled the awkward Spring Training questions with the ultimate class. Will the St. Louis Cardinals also handle his exit in the same way? We’ll find out in the next few weeks.
Overall, I am very optimistic about the St. Louis Cardinals new leadership and that’s not just Chaim Bloom. The hires that have been done throughout the organization are encouraging as it looks like Chaim is surrounding himself and the players with good baseball people. I’m very hopeful that the result will be a team that contends sooner rather than later.