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4 lessons the Cardinals can learn from the World Series champion Dodgers

The Los Angeles Dodgers have won the World Series. Here's what the St. Louis Cardinals can learn from them.

By Andrew Wang |
World Series - Los Angeles Dodgers v New York Yankees - Game 5
World Series - Los Angeles Dodgers v New York Yankees - Game 5 / Elsa/GettyImages
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The 2024 season is over, and the Los Angeles Dodgers are World Series champions once more. The St. Louis Cardinals are bracing for darker days ahead. As payroll cuts loom and a front office overhaul begins, here are four lessons the Cardinals can learn from the newest World Series champions.

Lesson 1 - Spending big is important, but so is spending smart.

It's no secret that the Dodgers were big spenders this offseason, and there's no way the Cardinals will ever reach the level of spending of the 2024 Dodgers, but the Cardinals actually spent more in 2024 on their Opening Day rotation than the Dodgers. The Cardinals didn't also sign Shohei Ohtani and Teoscar Hernandez, but they spent similarly in terms of pitching. While LA was able to acquire high-powered names such as Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, they were also supplemented by homegrown talents in Bobby Miller, Walker Buehler, and Gavin Stone. Meanwhile, the Cardinals imported their entire rotation as free-agent acquisitions. Miles Mikolas earned over $17 million in 2024 and Kyle Gibson earned $13 million. Those two earned more in 2024 than the combination of Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Gavin Stone, a much more effective duo.

Of course, the Dodgers rotation would go on to suffer injuries to most of their arms throughout the season, but their next-man-up mentality and ability to churn out consistent pitching talent kept them afloat throughout the season. Rather than patching a broken development system with mid-tier free agents, the Dodgers were able to allocate their resources to a few All-Star caliber pitchers while supplementing their roster with quality arms from their pipeline.

Were the Cardinals able to churn out consistent talent for their rotation, perhaps they would've been in talks to acquire more of the top-end starting pitching options, rather than targeting arms such as Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson. The Cardinals may have had one of the most expensive rotations in baseball, but it certainly wasn't the best.

As payroll cuts begin in St. Louis this offseason, rather than lament the lack of spending, consider what the Cardinals may learn. Of course, spending big will become important as they look to get back into World Series contention, but this rebuild may help them spend smarter as well. This way, when payroll climbs back to normal, the Cardinals may have the flexibility to splurge on a big contract for a star such as Shohei Ohtani one day.

Lesson 2 - Winning on the margins is critical.

Even though the Dodgers defeated the Yankees in five games, the series was much closer than results would indicate. With two high-powered offenses full of MVPs, future Hall of Famers, and All-Stars, many were disappointed by how quickly the Bronx Bombers lost the series. However, nearly every Dodgers win came down to a few key plays where the Dodgers executed better fundamental baseball than the Yankees. As reported by the New York Post's Joel Sherman, Dodgers hitters were told "that if you run the bases with purpose and aggression, the Yankees will self-inflict harm" and "the value was very high to put the ball in play to make the Yankees execute."

In Game 1, the Dodgers forced extra innings on a pair of sacrifice flies by Will Smith and Mookie Betts. However, a runner was only allowed to advance to third base both times because of sloppy defense from right fielder Juan Soto. He was charged with an error when Shohei Ohtani advanced in the 8th inning but misplayed a liner off the bat of Kike Hernandez that was hit just 93.2 mph resulting in a triple earlier in the game. While Freddie Freeman's 10th-inning grand slam was ultimately the difference, the eventual World Series MVP never would've had a chance without Soto's defensive mistakes.

In Game 3, though the Dodgers dominated for most of the night, a perfect relay from Teoscar Hernandez to Will Smith to nab Giancarlo Stanton at the plate changed the entire face of the game. Stanton's poor baserunning killed a much-needed rally that could've given the Yankees a much-needed victory. With Alex Verdugo's eventual two-run shot in the 9th inning, the Yankees were much closer to staying in the series than the box score indicated.

Lastly, in the infamous 5th inning in Game 5, the Yankees completely unraveled. Judge's missed catch, Volpe's poor throw, and Gerrit Cole forgetting to cover first base let the Dodgers back into a 5-0 game that all but guaranteed the series head back to LA for Game 6. However, the five unearned runs allowed by the Yankees gave them just enough to return home to a parade rather than a game.

The Cardinal Way has long been synonymous with an emphasis on fundamental baseball, and they must return to that to remain a winning franchise. Players such as Brendan Donovan certainly help, but the Cardinals' overall dominance in both defense and baserunning has declined in recent years. Tommy Edman's dominance in the Postseason, helping the Dodgers win games on the margins, was the prime example of this. Unfortunately, it was the Cardinals who shipped him off to Los Angeles to thrive in his new environment.

Lesson 3 - Nothing will go according to plan. Champions overcome it.

Had Willson Contreras not missed half the year due to injury, and had Tommy Edman been ready when he was expected to be, the Cardinals would not have missed the playoffs, right? Probably, yes. But, the injuries and setbacks suffered by the World Series champion Dodgers were far greater than anything the Cardinals had to overcome this year. Every single member of their Opening Day rotation spent significant time on the injured list, and both Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman suffered major injuries and spent much time away from the team. It seemed like Shohei Ohtani and Teoscar Hernandez were the lone constants keeping the Dodgers running.

I'm not going to try to convince anyone that the Dodgers were somehow a scrappy underdog team, but nothing went according to plan for them and they still won the World Series. They simply had the depth on their roster to overcome the losses they suffered throughout the year. Unlike previous years where the Dodgers fell short, the 2024 Dodgers weren't favored nearly as much by baseball analysts. The Postseason rotation of Jack Flaherty, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Walker Buehler just wasn't deep enough with the need to throw a bullpen game in each series at least once. However, Dave Roberts masterfully managed the bullpen and the offense clicked just enough for the Dodgers to take down the Padres in five games and steamroll their way through the rest of the Postseason.

Building a Cardinals team with so little margin for error was never going to work out. The rotation worked according to plan, but one more injury to a starting pitcher or a high-leverage reliever would've sent St. Louis spiraling into the basement as they did in 2023. They simply couldn't afford to underperform offensively the way they did, and the combined struggles between Goldschmidt and Arenado as well as the injuries to Contreras and Edman were too much to bear. They put together a strong run but fell short because one gear in the cog came loose. The Dodgers fell apart and put themselves back together with supplementary pieces. The Cardinals ran out of extra pieces before the season began. Perhaps the "reset" or rebuild should've come after 2023 instead of right now.

Lesson 4 - Trades can't be judged fairly right when they happen.

When the Cardinals traded Tommy Edman to the Dodgers in a three-team trade with the White Sox in exchange for Erick Fedde, it was considered one of the best moves of the 2024 trade deadline for St. Louis. Trading an injured center fielder for a much-needed starting pitcher brought back memories of the 2022 trade deadline, where the Cardinals acquired Jordan Montgomery from the Yankees in exchange for Harrison Bader.

However, to jump to a similar conclusion regarding the Erick Fedde trade was rash. While pundits all across the national baseball landscape deemed the Cardinals massive winners of the trade deadline for acquiring Tommy Pham and Erick Fedde "for free," this trade was ultimately won by the Dodgers, and it wasn't particularly close.

It's true that Tommy Edman didn't return until the end of August from injury, but the Dodgers also acquired Michael Kopech, a staple in their rotation for the stretch run. Meanwhile, the Cardinals got a diminished Erick Fedde and a few weeks of Tommy Pham before he was put on waivers and sent to the Kansas City Royals for nothing. I'm not saying it was a poor trade by the Cardinals, as they took their shot at getting a flawed roster into the Postseason. For a team that had decided on trying to contend, it was a fine trade, but looking back at it, there's no way the Cardinals can be considered winners at the trade deadline.

Edman started off hot with the Dodgers, slugging four homers in a two-game stretch including a pair off Cubs ace Shota Imanaga, but cooled off towards the end of the season. However, his .237/.294/.417 was extremely respectable considering his splits against left-handed pitching. To the surprise of no one, Edman mashed lefties and recorded a 1.299 OPS against them in his brief regular season stint. For a Cardinals team seeking a lefty killer at the trade deadline, it turns out they had the best one on their team the entire time.

And lastly, in a cruel running joke from the baseball gods, Edman won Championship Series MVP. Again, it's no surprise one of the most clutch Cardinals hitters in recent memory led his team to important Postseason victories, but it was disheartening to watch yet another key player get away and succeed in the playoffs somewhere else. The versatile and underrated fan favorite had become a star on the game's biggest stage in the blink of an eye.

I'm not trying to say that the Fedde trade was a bad idea, or that the Cardinals should be condemned for moving Edman, but rather that it was an even more shrewd deal by the Dodgers that went under the radar until their World Series run. I myself am guilty of this, but in the future, we must wait before jumping to conclusions about trades that haven't fully played out yet. The Cardinals were outsmarted here, and the front office should look to make winning moves like the Dodgers going forward.

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