2025 St. Louis Cardinals New Year's Resolutions: Fan Edition

With each new year comes a new promise to better yourself in the form of resolutions. While these can revolve around health, habits, and behaviors, I decided to take a look at what St. Louis Cardinals fans can do to promise a happy and healthy 2025 season.

Resolution #1 : Move on from previous trade blunders

Adolis Garcia. Zac Gallen. Sandy Alcantara. Lane Thomas. Tyler O'Neill. Randy Arozarena. Dylan Carlson and the "cold dead hands" statement. At this point, it's clear that these moves were missteps but also moves that all made sense at the time of their making. Garcia was DFA'd and passed up by every other team on the waiver wire and then still did not blossom until two years later. Gallen and Alcantara were seen to be dealing from depth for the massive-sized hole in the order. Arozarena and Thomas were both seen as depth pieces in a crowded outfield, with Arozarena netting a former top left-handed pitching prospect in Matthew Liberatore and Thomas getting veteran Jon Lester for the Cardinals' playoff push. Carlson was never going to net Juan Soto and that quote is too commonly misused and the O'Neill situation was to the point where a change of scenery was best for both parties.

These moves have stung in the past, but the reality is that nothing can change those decisions and the outcome of those transactions. At the time of the majority of these deals, the fanbase was in agreement with the decision-makers, even priding the new organization strategies of trading homegrown depth for proven pieces. Of course, just because the moves look good on paper, that did not guarantee results from those players.

However, these were made under the management of John Mozeliak, who is known to be giving way to Chaim Bloom after this season. Mo's time as the top decision-maker for the Cardinals has to be seen as an overall model of consistency despite the major success in terms of championship banners. Under his tutelage, the Cardinals had 15 consecutive winning seasons and a 2011 World Series ring. With this changing of the guard, it is finally time to change the tone from "what could have been" to "let's see what this team is" in 2025.

The reality with each of the above decisions is that those players were not seen as ones that could push the current team into the championship level the fans and city expect. The constant success from Mozeliak's teams raised expectations to yearly division winners at minimum which forced management's hands to focus on making the major league club the strongest possible. Those decisions come at the cost of minor league depth and development, but those were seen as short-term sacrifices that would be overshadowed by bigger-picture success. The other idea was that the Cardinals had such a string of success in player development that they thought they could draft, develop, trade, and replace in a constant cycle of talent.

2025 has already been announced as a different year, and that should allow fans to push past the heartache whenever one of those former Cardinals finds success. The new focus should be put on the current team and the direction new management has planned for the future of the franchise.