{"id":545003,"date":"2026-01-30T01:23:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T01:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/545003\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T01:23:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T01:23:15","slug":"espns-buster-olney-shares-interesting-perception-of-st-louis-cardinals-chaim-bloom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/545003\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN’s Buster Olney Shares Interesting Perception of St. Louis Cardinals Chaim Bloom"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to the St. Louis Cardinals<\/a>, fans are just waiting to see what the final resolution will be with All-Star utility player Brendan Donovan.<\/p>\n

Will he actually make it to spring training on the roster, or will he be dealt like Nolan Arenado, Willson Contreras and Sonny Gray have been this offseason?<\/p>\n

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Donovan has two years left of team control, so there’s no imminent need to trade him, but he’s been one of the most desired trade pieces this offseason, with both the San Francisco Giants and Seattle Mariners <\/a>interested in his services.<\/p>\n

Ironically, ESPN MLB Insider Buster Olney was on our Mariners Roundtable sister podcast (Refuse to Lose<\/a>) on Thursday and spoke about Donovan – and the perception of Cardinals front office leader Chaim Bloom:<\/p>\n

“You \u200bknow, \u200bwe \u200bhaven’t \u200btalked \u200babout \u200bBrandon \u200bDonovan \u200bfor \u200ba \u200bcouple \u200bweeks, \u200bbut \u200b\u200bI \u200bmean, \u200bthey’re \u200bstill \u200bin \u200bthat \u200bconversation \u200b \u200bfrom \u200bwhat \u200bI \u200bunderstand with \u200bthe \u200bCardinals. And \u200bfrom \u200bwhat \u200bI \u200bunderstand, that \u200bthe \u200bCardinals \u200bknow \u200bwhat \u200bthe \u200bMariners \u200bare \u200bwilling \u200bto \u200bdo, \u200band \u200bat \u200bsome \u200bpoint \u200bthe \u200bquestion \u200bis will \u200bSt. \u200bLouis \u200bdecide, \u200b’Hey, \u200bthe \u200bpackage \u200bthat \u200bthe \u200bMariners \u200bare \u200boffering \u200bis \u200bsomething \u200bwe \u200btake \u200ba \u200blook \u200bat?’<\/p>\n

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\u200bI \u200bwould \u200bnot \u200binterpret \u200bthe \u200blength \u200bof \u200bthese \u200bnegotiations \u200bas \u200bbeing \u200b\u200bSt. \u200bLouis \u200bdissatisfied \u200bwith \u200bwhat \u200bSeattle’s \u200boffer \u200bis \u200bor \u200bwhat \u200bthe \u200bGiants \u200boffer \u200bis. \u200bAs \u200byou \u200bknow, \u200bthat’s \u200bjust \u200bhow Chaim \u200bBloom, \u200bwho’s \u200bhead \u200bof \u200bbaseball \u200boperations \u200band \u200bCardinals, \u200bdoes \u200bbusiness. \u200bHe’s \u200bknown \u200bas \u200bthe \u200bmost \u200bdeliberate \u200bfront \u200boffice \u200bperson \u200bin \u200bthe \u200bsport. \u200bAnd \u200bI \u200bthink \u200bhe’s \u200bgoing \u200bthrough \u200bhis \u200bprocess \u200band \u200bI’m \u200bstill \u200breally \u200bcurious \u200bto \u200bsee, \u200byou \u200bknow, \u200bwill \u200bthe \u200bMariners \u200bland \u200bBrendan \u200bDonovan?”<\/p>\n

We’ve talked a lot about this over the last few months. Is Chaim Bloom too deliberate? During his time with the Boston Red Sox<\/a>, he was known as a leader who struggled to make tough decisions and wouldn’t make them unless he was winning the transaction in a landslide. The question here is “is he appropriately playing hard-to-get because he doesn’t have to move Donovan?” Or, is he falling into old traps and reverting to his old self?<\/p>\n

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Because he’s already moved Arenado, Gray and Contreras, the inclination is that he’s handling this situation right, but we’ll see where things move over the next 10 days until players begin reporting to spring training.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals finished fourth in the National League Central in 2025 and are now going through a rebuild.<\/p>\n

Remember to join our CARDINALS on ROUNDTABLE community, which is FREE! You can post your own thoughts, in text or video form, and you can engage with our Roundtable staff, as well as other CARDINALS fans. If prompted to download the Roundtable APP, that’s free too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to the St. Louis Cardinals, fans are just waiting to see what the final resolution…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2403],"tags":[5,48,4492,6453,160,10149,31214,4,1028,66,65,1587,673,67,4311,4310,409],"class_list":["post-545003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-louis-cardinals","tag-baseball","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-brendan-donovan","tag-buster-olney","tag-cardinals","tag-chaim-bloom","tag-espn-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-nolan-arenado","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-seattle-mariners","tag-sonny-gray","tag-st-louis","tag-st-louis-cardinals","tag-stlouis","tag-stlouiscardinals","tag-willson-contreras"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115981438562245447","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}