The Cardinals' main issue heading into the Chaim Bloom era

The St. Louis Cardinals are getting closer to the end of the current John Mozeliak era. The team succeeding in 2025 has the front office in a predicament for how they will approach the trade deadline. Will the organization acquire talent to give the 2025 team the extra push it needs to reach the postseason? Will the team retool by capitalizing on expiring contracts in trades to other contenders? Or will the organization solely focus on building for the future in any potential deals? All avenues are appropriate for the organization to explore, and they will be better making any of those moves versus standing pat like the off-season. But the future of the organization has a glaring issue that needs to be recognized and addressed either this trade deadline or in the upcoming off-season.

The 2025 starting rotation is at the core of the glaring issue that lies ahead. Two of the five starters are on expiring contracts in Miles Mikolas and Erick Fedde. If the team decides to trade them at the deadline, that leaves two holes to fill for 2025 and two holes to permanently fill heading into 2026 and beyond.

Given their recent performances, the Cardinals would be better off cutting ties with these two players and opening up the opportunity for their younger players to prove themselves. Michael McGreevy is the next man up, but has been given very limited opportunities to start in 2025, which is supposed to be the platform season for young players. Getting rid of these two veteran players seems to be the only option for this to happen. But if the Cardinals have not been confident in opening this runway for McGreevy in 2025, are they confident he is ready to take this role on in 2026? If they have not shown he is ready to take this next step, do they expect their other young starting pitchers to also take this next step? It is expected for Tekoah Roby, Cooper Hjerpe, Tink Hence, and Quinn Mathews to take over the future rotation, but it is starting to look more bleak given all of their injury history and the lack of opening up the runway for these guys to really prove themselves.

After addressing the two veteran spots in the rotation, there are really three spots that need to be addressed. Andre Pallante has been serviceable to fill this gap, but he is not likely a future starter heading into the next era of Cardinals baseball. He has been fringe in his role and is more likely to find himself back in the bullpen. For 2025, it will work and should not change, but 2026 will look different for the rotation and for Pallante.

So, heading into 2026, only two rotation spots appear to be addressed with Sonny Gray and Matthew Liberatore holding down the top of the rotation. It is good to know you have the 1 and 2 of the rotation penciled in for the future, but with 60% of the rotation to fill in plus depth pieces being of question, the team needs to seriously focus in on what the future holds for what a competitive starting rotation will look like.