Are the Cardinals doomed to mediocrity in the super-team Dodgers era?

Not that anyone should be surprised, by the rich got richer this week when the Los Angeles Dodgers added Blake Snell to their rotation, and I'm sure the inequality gap between them and mid-market teams will only grow by the offseason's end.

Questions will continue to be asked regarding what role Major League Baseball needs to play in stopping the Dodgers from dominating the game. Do teams around them simply just need to catch up with their spending? Does the new collective bargaining agreement need to include measures to prevent the massive deferrals that the Dodgers (and other teams) use? Are we heading toward the implementation of a salary cap or floor?

The answers to those questions will have massive implications on the future of the game, but no matter what is decided, the St. Louis Cardinals have to find a way to adapt and adjust if they want to compete in today's game.

It does make you wonder though - can the Cardinals pull themselves out of mediocrity and compete in the age of super teams and wild spending?

Having the kind of money that the Dodgers have to spend is a massive advantage, and even if the Cardinals matched that level of salary expenses, Los Angeles will always have the leg up with location over teams like St. Louis in the Midwest. But if we are being honest about their situations, what makes the Dodgers special isn't the amount of money they can spend, it's the fact that they do that on top of being the class of baseball in scouting, analytics, player development, and all of the little things that make an organization great.

No matter how many stars the Dodgers collect on their roster, baseball has a funny way of evening the odds more than we'd expect. Yes, Los Angeles is doing everything they can to stack the deck in their favor, and rightfully so, but when you get to the postseason in a three, five, or seven-game series, there's no true way to guarantee success in October.

There should come a day when the Cardinals' organization feels pressure once again to commit more and more money to their payroll, but they are not going to be able to throw money at a few big-name free agents right now and fix all of their problems. The Cardinals' issues run deeper than payroll, and until they have successfully revamped their player development system and how they evaluate talent, payroll concerns are a secondary issue.

Just look at the Dodgers themselves. Back in 2012, the organization was coming off an 86-win season, was bought out by new ownership after going bankrupt, and brought in the top executive behind the Tampa Bay Rays revamp, Andrew Freidman, to revamp the organization from top to bottom. Friedman had the advantage of money to accelerate this process, but ultimately the most important thing he did to get the Dodgers back on track wasn't signing big stars, it was getting back to being a powerhouse in drafting, trading, and player development.

Chaim Bloom must follow that same track for this Cardinals' organization. If his plan is successful, then St. Louis should join the bidders in free agency to go after big names. No, they won't spend like the Dodgers, and that will be a real hurdle if MLB does not step in, but they'll have a much better chance of competing with them in the long run.

I plan on sharing some deeper dive looks soon at how Bloom did this same type of rebuild with the Red Sox recently, and although he was let go by the organization at the end of the 2023 season, we are seeing the fruit this offseason of Bloom's labor in a real way.

Cardinals fans should be crossing their fingers that Bloom is leading them in that direction too, as if he does, contention will be here sooner than you'd think.