Ranking the 10 worst and most inexplicable Cardinals sagas under John Mozeliak

2. Commitment to an outdated pitching model

Look over at the Milwaukee Brewers, who for years now seem to have pitching that grows on trees. They draft and develop pitching with the best of them, know what arms to target from other organizations' farm systems, and sign and trade for the right veterans to complement their staff when needed.

Uh, that used to be the St. Louis Cardinals.

In the 2010s, the Cardinals were the organization that everyone looked at and wondered how they got so much pitching. While Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter headlined the rotation going into that decade, they were soon joined by the likes of Michael Wacha, Carlos Martinez, Shelby Miller, Lance Lynn, Jamie Garcia, Joe Kelly, Trevor Rosenthal, Kevin Siegrist, Jason Motte, Seth Maness, Mitchell Boggs, Fernando Salas, Marco Gonzales, Luke Weaver, Alex Reyes, and so many other young arms that came through their system.

They knew which veterans to target to maximize that group as well. John Lackey, Jake Westbrook, Edwin Jackson, Pat Neshak, Randy Choate, Edward Mujica, John Axford, Marc Rzepczynski, Octavio Dotel, Arthur Rhodes, and again, many more names helped the young pitching reach the heights that it did.

But then, over time, things changed. Lunhow left and took a lot of the Cardinals' staff with him, and the Mozeliak regime seemed to continue to lean on old systems and models that, for a time, continued to sustain them, but eventually fell behind the rest of baseball. Rather than adapting to the new way to draft, develop, and acquire pitching, the Cardinals dug their heels in, and pitching went from being their superpower as an organization to their Achilles heel.

Much of their issues post their incredible run from 2011-2015 have been pitching-related. They failed to develop their top arms, traded away future Cy Young contenders, and handed out terrible contracts to various free agents. Sure, they found ways to shore things up through timely trade deadline deals, but their pitching staff failed to match the level of excellence they achieved in the early 2010s, let alone even come close to it.

So even as the club finally acquired superstar bats in Goldschmidt and Arenado, they never had the pitching to truly put themselves in true contention. This is now the most pressing issue on Bloom's plate as he takes over baseball operations. Since 2020, the best starting pitchers the Cardinals have developed internally are Matthew Libeartore and Andre Pallante. That's horrible.

It has to change moving forward, and it is a shame that Mozeliak allowed this to fall apart under his watch.