Awful ranking for Cardinals front office proves that John Mozeliak's time is up

In a ground-breaking piece at the conclusion of the 2024 season, Katie Woo of The Athletic tore down the steel walls of the St. Louis Cardinals organization. A franchise that is as buttoned-up as any had its doors opened just a crack thanks to Woo's reporting and anonymous clubhouse members speaking out about what has gone wrong for the franchise.

For almost two decades, the St. Louis Cardinals were one of the best-run organizations in the sport. They were consistently winning games and making postseason appearances. The major-league roster was always being backfilled with capable players who could be stars. From 2004-2019, the Cardinals had the third-best winning percentage behind only the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers, two teams whose markets far exceed that of St. Louis.

John Mozeliak and his staff's methods were copied the league over, and what the Cardinals were doing was the envy of nearly every other franchise in the sport. Few clubs could draft and develop the way the Cardinals did throughout the 2010s.

However, that all came crumbling down not much later. The Cardinals couldn't produce capable pitchers, and they had to build a roster via free agency, a costly and sometimes inefficient method of building a team.

The steady stream of MLB-caliber players was running dry, and the underbelly of the organization was beginning to crumble.

Following COVID, the Cardinals dramatically cut staffing. An outdated player development system paired with a player development team that paled in comparison to contemporaries caught up to the Cardinals as the decade flipped over. According to Katie Woo, "But in recent years, team insiders say, the Cardinals failed to keep up as rival teams increased the size of their staffs. Not including affiliate coaches, special advisors, or medical coordinators, the Cardinals have five full-time minor-league instructors, which marks their leanest staffing level in the past decade."

With the 2025 season in full force now, the Cardinals' flaws are becoming widely recognized throughout baseball.

For the second year in a row, the St. Louis Cardinals' front office isn't seen as one of the best in baseball.

The Athletic conducted a poll that aimed at identifying the best front offices in the sport. To no one's surprise, the Los Angeles Dodgers were voted as having the best front office across Major League Baseball. An exorbitant payroll and a farm system that has consistently ranked in the top third of the league sure help.

The St. Louis Cardinals, however, didn't receive any votes as a top-five MLB front office in baseball.

It's not all doom and gloom for the Redbirds, however. The Tampa Bay Rays were voted as the second-best front office in baseball. Chaim Bloom helped build this farm system when he was named Senior Vice President of Baseball Operations in 2016.

Bloom's next stop in his career was with the Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox received a total of three points in the poll run by The Athletic.

The Cleveland Guardians finished fourth in voting. This past offseason, the Cardinals and Chaim Bloom hired Larry Day, a former coach, manager, and coordinator for Cleveland, to be the team's Director of Player Development. Bloom also hired Rob Cerfolio from Cleveland to be the Cardinals' Assistant General Manager of Player Development and Performance.

Matt Pierpont, another new executive for St. Louis, was hired from the Seattle Mariners' front office. The Mariners scored four points in the survey conducted by The Athletic.

While the Cardinals haven't received votes the last two years as a top front office in baseball, the executives hired by Chaim Bloom are signs of a changing tide, something that is long overdue in St. Louis.