The 7 biggest issues that led to the demise of the St. Louis Cardinals

#6 - The erosion of trust from the fanbase

While this is due to every other issue I'll bring up in this story, I think one of the club's biggest blindspots in recent years has been its public relations with fans. No, I'm not at all talking about the Cardinals' communications department. I'm talking about how the front office and ownership addresses this fan base.

Kilcoyne's conversation with Bill DeWitt III this past week is a strong example of that. I know he's also frustrated with the club's performance, but DeWitt sounded a lot less worried about fan support and far less urgent about on-field performance than I would have thought (or at least than I think he should have felt). His comments along with those of Bill DeWitt Jr. at Winter Warm-Up this year sounded similar, as they both seemed to gloss over real issues that reporters in that room were bringing to their attention.

Mozeliak has not won many fans over in his own right in recent years. Sometimes he'll say something that's true, but the way he goes about it just drives an even bigger wedge between him and the fan base. It is Mozeliak's job to preach patience and to keep people from jumping overboard even when the ship is sinking, but his inability to even acknowledge the potential for a season like 2023 until it was too late was concerning. Now this year, there's more of the same, and with the season perhaps already being unrecoverable, the front office has yet to make any significant changes to itself or the coaching staff.

Frankly, winning helps cure a lot of issues, and so if the club had been doing that the last two years, the noise is probably more muted. Heck, even if they could have advanced further in the postseason since 2019 or managed to make another World Series since 2013, I think fans could have whethered a bit of the losing recently.

Instead, the front office and ownership carry itself like a championship organization, when it fact it has not been close to one for over a decade now. I am not one to scoff at their ability to consistently have a winning product on the field from 2008-2022, but this is a "What have you done for me lately?" business. 2023 and 2024 have been a mockery to this franchise, and they are too far out from the glory days to ride those coattails.