Who deserves the most blame for the Cardinals 2023 collapse?

Bill DeWitt Jr.

The first person people are going to want to blame is John Mozeliak, and it's easy to understand why. However, there is one man in particular who deserves the most blame out of everybody here, and that is the team's owner, Bill DeWitt Jr.

While Mozeliak has certainly made plenty of mistakes, which we'll get to, DeWitt is ultimately the man in charge here. People tend to forget that he is the one who makes the final decisions on everything. He gives Mozeliak a certain budget to work with each offseason. He's the one that gives Mozeliak the green light to pursue certain free agents based on how much they cost.

Yet DeWitt has been unwilling to flex the team's payroll muscle. There were plenty of opportunities for the Cardinals to branch out of their comfort zone and spend some money on pitchers this offseason. However, DeWitt continues to act as if the Cardinals are broke and is afraid to even get anywhere close to top-level free agents.

As such, the Cardinals made little to no adjustments to their roster heading into 2023, despite generating extra revenue from the farewell tour of Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina. Now, they are a last-place team.

John Mozeliak

DeWitt certainly deserves the most blame for all of this, but Mozeliak is also somebody who should be held accountable here. It all started when Mike Shildt was fired after a 17-game winning streak.

The Cardinals president of baseball operations has been in the organization for several years. He is the architect of this year's team and previous teams. He made a good move by signing Willson Contreras, but that's all that he did this past winter.

He ignored the obvious need to add starting pitching and ultimately assembled one of the worst rotations in recent Cardinals history. One of the biggest blunders he made was bringing back Adam Wainwright after his decline last September.

Like all Cardinals fans, I love Wainwright and hope that he can finish his career strong by reaching 200 wins. But he's 3-10 with an 8.10 ERA and Mozeliak gave him $17.5 million. In turn, the Cardinals did nothing else to improve the pitching staff.

We must also unpack some of Mozeliak's recent blunders in free agency. Sometimes, it's not that he doesn't spend money, but rather that he overpays players who aren't worth the amount of money. Some recent examples include Brett Cecil and Steven Matz.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Mozeliak was adamant this year's pitching paradigm would hold up, even going as far as to say that the Cardinals' front office knew what they were doing and arrogantly claiming that the team had six starters.

Oli Marmol/The Coaching Staff

Manager Oli Marmol and the coaching staff ultimately aren't the ones who put together this team. They were dealt a bad hand by the front office, and fans should be cognizent of that.

However, this doesn't mean that they're free from any blame. In Marmol's case, we've seen a manager who has made poor in-game decisions countless times. Examples include his constant use of Taylor Motter, even with guys like Nolan Arenado and Nolan Gorman available, and more recently, his decision to use Drew VerHagen in the ninth inning on Saturday, which ultimately cost the Cardinals the game.

In addition, we've also watched what was once a top defensive club completely collapse. This isn't just on Marmol. The entire coaching staff deserves the blame for this. They didn't double down on fundamentals like Shildt had during his time here, and they paid the price.

The coaching staff's over-reliance on what they call analytics has not served the Cardinals well. We've seen Marmol use the same lineup for several consecutive games even when things aren't working.

It's clear that things need to change. Ownership, the front office, and the coaching staff must work together this offseason to ensure that something like this doesn't happen again.