6 Cardinals front office missteps that put the team in this terrible position

We are approaching the halfway point of the 2023 season and it is fair to say that the St. Louis Cardinals are not having a great time. In a National League Central division that looks like the second worst division in baseball (wow does the AL Central look bad), the Cardinals haven’t come close to contending so far and even a .500 record this season seems like a lofty goal at the moment.

Look, the Cardinals aren’t going to win the division every year and it is important to note that other teams in the division have a say in where the Cardinals place. The Pirates have somehow become an actual force to be contended with at times although their recent losing streak took some wind out of their sails. The Brewers and Cubs have turned inconsistency into an art form as they have averaged out to be decent if unexciting. As for the Reds, they are showing real signs of life especially since they called up Elly De La Cruz and they have rode a massive win streak all the way to first place.

However, that doesn’t explain why the Cardinals are off to one of their worst starts in decades this season and like with most things, the answer is complicated. Some of it can be explained by waving one’s hands around and saying “baseball is weird sometimes”, but there were clearly missteps small and large that have combined and cascaded into what has become a glorious dumpster fire of a first half for St. Louis.

Some of these mistakes looked like mistakes at the time and we wonder what the team was thinking. Others seemed like fine decisions at the time, but have turned out poorly because baseball is hard and guys (especially prospects) that seem like they SHOULD perform ended up flaming out. In the end, though, all moves have to be judged on their results and, well, the results haven’t been great in 2023.

Without further delay, here are six mistakes that the Cardinals' front office has made in recent years that have helped to put the team in the terrible position they are in right now.

Not being proactive last offseason

This one has been beaten to death by just about everyone, but can’t be ignored here. The Cardinals were a pretty good team in 2022, but certainly not good enough to tread water for this season and expect the wins to come like candy. The rotation’s viability and injury concerns were known going into the offseason and the only real move they made for pitching was to bring back the 41 year old version of Adam Wainwright.

It hasn’t helped that the one big move the Cardinals did make last offseason, the Willson Contreras signing, hasn’t panned out so far and has also caused a bunch of organizational drama. Replacing what Yadier Molina meant to the team was always going to be a tall order, but Contreras has still fallen well short of what St. Louis was hoping for when they signed him. 

It seems like the Cardinals were at least semi-interested in signing other big names like Carlos Rodon and Dansby Swanson last offseason, but they got neither of them nor did they make any other moves to improve the roster beyond the bare minimum. That's a problem. 

The 2016-2019 Drafts

Look, the MLB Draft is very often a crapshoot and every team makes picks that don’t work out. However, when looking at the Cards’ 2023 roster, one cannot help but look at the 2016-2019 drafts which, in theory, should be contributing at some level to the big league club now and seeing some missed opportunities with their day one picks. This is especially true when we look at the total lack of pitching depth on the Cardinals' big league roster right now..

While the 2020 draft class is looking quite good with Jordan Walker, Masyn Winn, and Tink Hence coming from the five round draft, the previous few years are looking decidedly less kind. In 2016, the Cardinals spent their first pick on Delvin Perez who was rumored to have failed a PED test and subsequently flamed out in the minors and is now in the Yankees' organization. 

The Cardinals lost their first and second round picks in the 2017 MLB draft because of the hacking scandal and they didn’t get anyone of note the rest of the way. Nolan Gorman is showing a lot of promise from the 2018 class, but St. Louis doesn’t have much to show beyond that and 2019’s top pick, Zack Thompson, was converted to the bullpen and hasn’t exactly shown out there. Four draft classes being that shallow and not getting a single arm of note for the big league roster is pretty rough. 

Tommy Pham Trade Return

The deal that sent Tommy Pham (along with $500,000 in international bonus pool money which is not a small deal) to the Rays is a weird one because deals like this end up flaming out all the time, but this one uniquely compounded the Cardinals’ existing problem of not using their assets efficiently. Pham had real trade value back at the trade deadline in 2018 and should have provided St. Louis an opportunity to shore up their minor league ranks.

Instead, they got a few players that have made minimal impact in a Cardinals uniform. Justin Williams was banged up for St. Louis and was granted free agency a couple years later after doing next to nothing. Genesis Cabrera has turned into a decidedly medium reliever with issues walking too many guys. Finally, we have Roel Ramirez who made one (bad) appearance in the big leagues for the Cardinals and ended up getting claimed off waivers by the Mets. 

Trading Pham wasn’t the sin here. The issue is that the return looked weird back then and now we know for certain that it wasn’t good and cost St. Louis some prospect/youth depth all these years later.

The Marcell Ozuna Trade Disaster

Yeah…you probably knew this one was coming and at the time, it looked more like a very aggressive move for a high upside bat and not a trade that could haunt St. Louis forever. For all of his faults in recent years, Ozuna was a very, very highly prized bat back during the offseason after the 2017 offseason. So, the Cardinals struck a trade with the Marlins to nab him with St. Louis giving up Sandy Alcantara, Zac Gallen, Daniel Castano, and Magneuris Sierra.

It is not hyperbole to suggest that this trade has a strong argument as one of the worst trades in franchise history. Ignoring Sierra and Castano because they don’t really matter in this, losing Alcantara and Gallen for two mediocre years from Ozuna feels really, really bad right now especially given the state of the Cardinals’ rotation.

In the interest of fairness, the organization’s relationship with Gallen wasn’t great at the time and neither pitcher was considered to be an All-World talent per se. In fact, Gallen would be moved AGAIN in the trade that brought Jazz Chisholm to Miami. We’ll never know for sure how Alcantara and Gallen would have developed in the St. Louis farm system, but having both the 2022 Cy Young winner and one of the prohibitive favorites to win it in 2023 in the organization would be really nice. 

Look, no front office is going to get every move right and the Cardinals are no exception. Hindsight analysis can often be pretty unfair, but it is the front office's job to make moves for the benefit of the organization. Sure, there have been good moves along the way and those should be lauded. However, it is impossible to ignore that these missteps have heavily contributed to St. Louis occupying the cellar of the NL Central this year.

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