John Mozeliak's call for patience with this Cardinals team is paying off so far

Even as someone with one of the more optimistic outlooks regarding the St. Louis Cardinals entering this season, it was very difficult to see how this team was going to overcome it's frustrating start after dropping to 15-24 during a seven game losing streak on May 11th.

Well, as things currently stand today, I and many others are believers in this team once again, and I think it's fair to say that John Mozeliak has been proven right, at this moment in time, that we needed to have a little more patience.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think anyone was wrong, myself included, for sounding the alarm just a few weeks ago. Things looked dire, and it took an awesome stretch from St. Louis to climb out of that hole they were in. Frankly, there are still major question marks for this team. They lack a fifth starter right now and appear to not trust their depth in Memphis, their high-leverage arms continue to be worked hard and need to avoid breaking down, Nolan Arenado still looks lost at the plate, and it's hard to know which units of this club will continue to perform at a high-level as the summer goes on.

But again, at this moment in time, this Cardinals team looks like the kind of club they described themselves as in Spring Training, and the expectation should be they are competitive for the remainder of the season.

There's this concept called the "Infinite Game" from Simon Sinek that rings true with this conversation. There are two ways to look at things in this life - either as a finite or infinite game. A finite game is something you play to win (like an individual baseball game), while an infinite game has no ultimate "winner", the goal is to survive and thrive in order to continue playing.

A major league baseball team balances a season full of 162 finite games, that make up a finite season, but ultimately, the "success" of an organization is an infinite game. Major League Baseball cannot be "won", there will not come a day when they say "Oh hey, the New York Yankees have won Major League Baseball. We no longer play this game anymore". Instead, front-office executives have to balance both worlds a bit. How do we win these finite games and ultimately win a finite season (the World Series) while also maintaining this infinite game that is the St. Louis Cardinals?

When Mozeliak preaches patience, yes he is talking about individual results, but oftentimes, the frustration directed toward him has to do with the "infinite game". Mozeliak is trying to steer this team back into immediate contention, but he also must be careful not to hurt the organization's ability to "survive and thrive" as a long-term contender as well.

Now, we can talk all day about how he's doing with this infinite game. I'm not here to get a disortation about the club's long-term outlook, that is a conversation for another day.

But in terms of the St. Louis Cardinals' ability to contend in 2024? So far, patience is proving to be the correct call. That doesn't mean there isn't a need for urgency in some areas (cough, cough, figuring out that fifth starter spot), but overall, this club is not heading toward that retool that we thought was coming down the pipeline.

Well, at least for now. We'll see what the tune is here in a few weeks!