Grading the St. Louis Cardinals offseason using 3 different perspectives

It's not often that the St. Louis Cardinals offseason is effectively eight months long.

Since the Cardinals were arguably out of contention in June and officially waved the white flag on the 2023 season in July, all eyes have been on the 2024 for some time now.

There were pretty big expectations set on the club going into the offseason to turn the ship around. Yes, there was plenty of talent already on the roster, but the clear deficiencies on the pitching side of things created a massive to-do list for the Cardinals' front office. They came into the offseason wanting to add three starting pitchers, two established relievers, and some more pitching depth on top of that.

They achieved each of those things, leading to some pretty solid grades from most national outlets:

USA Today: B-

The Athletic: C

FOX Sports: B

While the national outlets seem to rate the Cardinals offseason somewhere between average and good, the feeling around St. Louis seems wide-ranging. Some believe the offseason has been a complete failure and the club is destined to fail again, while others have been really excited about the team they've put together. Most fans fall somewhere in between.

Now that Spring Training games are underway, I wanted to give my final offseason grade for the Cardinals, but I wanted to add two other perspectives as well. While the third grade you'll see here is my overall opinion of the offseason, I thought it was too important to acknowledge two other realities as well.

The first grade I'll give is based on the expectations that many of us had going into the offseason. While some fairly doubted the Cardinals' ability to make splashy moves, they were certainly talking the talk in a way they had before (you can see my points on why their rhetoric was different from prior offseasons here), but they ultimately underwhelmed many of us.

The second grade I gave was based on the constraints that ownership gave the front office. While Bill DeWitt III started the offseason with a promise that they would "climb in the payroll rankings", it became clear as the months went on that the payroll they were giving John Mozeliak to work with was much lower than most of us thought.

And finally, the third grade I'll give is my official grade, the one that factors in all of those realities and grades the Cardinals based on the totality of the offseason, which is a reflection on both ownership and the front office.

Here are my grades based from those perspectives and my official grade for the St. Louis Cardinals' offseason.

Based on expectations: C

I was tempted to make this grade even lower, but the way the Cardinals constructed their bullpen as well as some of their front-office additions were too impressive for me to grade them much lower, even with how disappointing the overall rotation rebuild was.

Let's start with the rotation. It always felt like Sonny Gray was going to be a Cardinal, so there was no surprise there. In all honesty, Gray continues to go under the radar amongst many fans with just how good he is. I am a huge fan of the move for him and can't wait to see him on the mound for St. Louis this season. Gray has the potential to put up the best individual season from a Cardinals' starter since Jack Flaherty's electric 2019 run.

But it was the two starting pitchers the Cardinals signed before Gray that really frustrated many who follow the club. While the additions of Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson have grown on me and I'll explain so later in my grades, grabbing both of those guys instead of adding another front-line starter to pair with Gray was a massive whiff from the Cardinals. Again, I like what both Lynn and Gibson can provide the Cardinals, but with Steven Matz and Miles Mikolas taking up the other two rotation spots, the Cardinals really needed two of the three starters they acquired to be high upside.

While talks of Yoshinobu Yamamoto were real according to people like Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat, the Cardinals ultimately folded from the conversation as the prices skyrocketed. Tyler Glasnow was someone they apparently called about, but the Dodgers gave up a ton of trade capital to acquire him. Talks of a potential Dylan Cease or Jesus Luzardo trade have continued, but the White Sox and Marlins seem to have their asking prices too high.

Still, other names like Eduardo Rodriguez, Shota Imanaga, and Marcus Stroman were available to sign. Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery are still available. And yet, the Cardinals appear to be done adding to their rotation.

Still, the Cardinals went out and made a lot of really promising additions to their bullpen mix this offseason. Keynan Middleton and Andrew Kittredge are two veteran arms who can play high-leverage roles for the club. Riley O'Brien, Nick Robertson, and Ryan Fernandez have really interesting upsides as well. Many thought the Cardinals may cut corners when it came to bullpen targets, and yet, they seemed to be really aggressive and shrewd with those moves.

That may be at least in part due to the hiring of a new front office advisor, Chaim Bloom, who was a home run move this offseason. Bloom, who was let go from his role running baseball operations for the Red Sox, is one of the most well-respected executives in the game today and was a huge part of building the Rays' pitching development infrastructure, something the Cardinals desperately need to replicate. He's also someone who has a long history of identifying under-the-radar arms, hence why four of the relievers the Cardinals acquired have ties to Bloom in their career.

Bloom may be the heir to Mozeliak's leadership in St. Louis, and that alone may be the best move the Cardinals made this offseason. On top of that, the Cardinals poached an exciting executive on the business side of things from the Toronto Blue Jays and added another advisor to the mix who you may have heard of before, Yadier Molina.

While the overall rotation moves may be closer to a C- or a D+, the bullpen and front office additions are much closer to a B+ or A-. Based on expectations, I have to say this was a pretty average offseason. There was so much more they could have done, but instead, they settled for some safer upgrades.

Actual offseason grade: B-

Overall, all things considered, I would grade the St. Louis Cardinals offseason as a B-.

Given the constraints the front office was given, I thought they did a really nice job addressing a ton of needs with the resources they were given. But as I've already alluded to multiple times, it's a failure on the part of ownership to not be willing to spend big, especially after a disaster season in 2023.

I get that there is uncertainty with the RSN revenue beyond this coming season. I understand that they lost out on some revenue in 2023 based on their poor performance. But you're the St. Louis Cardinals. If there was ever a time to excite the fanbase and spend bigger than you have in recent years, it's when you desperately need to rebound from the mess you found yourself in last season.

The rotation, as unexciting as it is, should be much improved. It's not a top rotation in baseball, but the odds of it being the dumpster fire it was last season are low. The bullpen was a mess in 2023 and now could be one of the better groups in baseball. The offense, though it underperformed last season (particularly in the second half), did not need much attention and the Cardinals are right to expect progression from young talent and some rebound seasons from their cornerstone corner infielders.

The Cardinals had the worst record in the National League Central last year and should now be the favorite to win the division in 2024. I get that winning the NL Central is not something worth bragging about, but increasing their win total from 71 in 2023 to 85-90 wins in 2024 would be no small feat.

And yet, with all of that being said and the very exciting front office additions they made, they can't be much higher than a B- to me because they missed out on acquiring the second most important item on the agenda this offseason - a second front-line starter. Now, the Cardinals never said they were going to get that guy, but we all know it's the difference between them being an NL Central pennant contender and a true contender in the National League.

Sure, maybe they go out and get that guy at the trade deadline, and if they do, the Cardinals can quickly right this wrong. But that will also require a bold move they typically don't make, and after shrinking back from the challenge this offseason, it'll be tough to convince fans they'll step up to the plate if the opportunity arises in July. Sure, they did what they needed to do, but not making that extra move that signals they are truly serious about being a great team now is what continues to frustrate Cardinals Nation.