The weather has warmed up this weekend, which leaves many baseball fans longing for spring training.<\/p>\n
But if you\u2019re a St. Louis Cardinals fan, you probably aren\u2019t minding the five more weeks of winter we still have to endure.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t remember a year where I have been less enthusiastic about the upcoming baseball season. As someone who is approaching middle age, I shouldn\u2019t be complaining. That means my team has had a pretty darn good run.<\/p>\n
But alas, I am going to complain, because it has been a rough couple of months.<\/p>\n
The Cardinals\u2019 offseason has been the equivalent of a fire sale. Sonny Gray, the team\u2019s ace pitcher? Traded. Willson Contreras, the failed heir apparent at catcher? Traded. Nolan Arenado, the future Hall of Fame third baseman? Traded.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s Brendan Donovan, the only remaining All-Star on the team. Guess what happened to him last Tuesday? Yep, traded.<\/p>\n
You have to give credit to newly minted president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom. He certainly is a proactive executive, a 180-degree turn from what his predecessor, John Mozeliak, showed in his final few years with the Cardinals.<\/p>\n
But when it comes to the 2026 season, thanks to this fire sale, I\u2019m not feeling very inspired to watch this team.<\/p>\n
Looking at the Cardinals roster, no player has more than eight years of MLB service. In fact, only two players will be 30 years or older on Opening Day — Riley O\u2019Brien (31) and Ryne Stanek (34), both of whom are journeyman relief pitchers.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s \u2026 not ideal, especially for manager Oli Marmol, whose contract expires at the end of the season.<\/p>\n
This offseason, the Cardinals have done almost everything possible to dump payroll. Is it because of their restructured TV contract that will bring in less money? Is it because there were more empty seats at Busch Stadium than ever before (aside from the 2020 COVID season)? Is it because they\u2019re trying to tank?<\/p>\n
OK, that last one was excessive, I\u2019ll admit. It probably has more to do with reason No. 1, followed by reason No. 2.<\/p>\n
According to Jason Martinez of FanGraphs, the Cardinals are projected to have a payroll of $99 million for the 2026 season. Their highest-paid player? Free-agent pitching acquisition Dustin May, who has a career 19-20 record. Yikes.<\/p>\n
The Donovan trade was St. Louis\u2019 best offseason move, getting two first-round draft picks in return. But the other three trades I mentioned? The Cardinals had to offer to pay $46 million of their 2026 salaries just to move them.<\/p>\n
Paying players not to play for you? That\u2019s a losing mentality.<\/p>\n
So again, I\u2019m looking for a reason to watch a team that will be young and unproven. FanGraphs has the Cardinals projected to finish 2026 with a 74-88 record, but to be fair, it also projects the Rockies will only lose 97 games, so it\u2019s definitely a \u201cglass half-full\u201d outlook.<\/p>\n
The \u201cCardinals Territory\u201d podcast talked to Michael McGreevy last week about the pitching staff\u2019s identity in 2026. McGreevy is projected to be the No. 4 starting pitcher for a rotation that lacks an ace.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe built this rotation to be band of bad (expletive),\u201d McGreevy said. In that syntax, I\u2019m assuming \u201cbad\u201d means good. Otherwise, he needs to work on his salesmanship.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019ll end this on a high note for Cardinals fans. If you\u2019re looking for a team leader this season, it needs to be shortstop Masyn Winn, who will likely have to be this team\u2019s representative in the All-Star Game.<\/p>\n
During last month\u2019s Winter Warmup in St. Louis, Winn had to answer some tough questions about the franchise\u2019s rebuild that is going to be a multiyear project. He admitted he wants to be in St. Louis his whole career and he has complete confidence in Bloom.<\/p>\n
He was asked what he would say to sell the team to the fans, such as myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you just look at the broad picture, if I\u2019m a fan, I\u2019m excited for this,\u201d Winn said to reporters. \u201cIt might not be this year, it might not be the next year, but we\u2019re building for something in the future. We\u2019re offloading a bunch of money and a bunch of guys, but it\u2019s to build for the future. It\u2019s to put this organization in a good place for the next 5-10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
After listening to Winn\u2019s 20-minute interview, I think we have found the new face of the franchise.<\/p>\n
The 2026 season will be bleak for St. Louis, but I\u2019ll do my best to see the future through Winn\u2019s eyes. I\u2019m ready to be proven wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The weather has warmed up this weekend, which leaves many baseball fans longing for spring training. But if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2403],"tags":[5,160,4,673,67,4311,4310],"class_list":{"0":"post-560888","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-cardinals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cardinals","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-st-louis","12":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","13":"tag-stlouis","14":"tag-stlouiscardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116033995622683291","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560888","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=560888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}