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.