Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Breaking Down The Cardinals End Of Season Press Conference

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

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Everything we learned from the Cardinals' end-of-season press conference plus reactions to it all and what it means moving forward for this franchise on today's episode of Locked-on Cardinals. You are Locked-on Cardinals, your daily St. Louis Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey there, Cardinals fans, I'm J.D. Haffern, and I'm a national radio sports anchor born and raised in the Lou and a lifetime Cardinals fan. And I'm your host for Lockdown Cardinals, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network covering your team. every day. You can follow me on Twitter X at JD Sports Radio as well as the podcast at L0 underscore Cardinals. What I think those of you who make Lockedong Cardinals your first listen every day, we are free and available wherever you get your podcast as well as on YouTube. Make sure you come on by, like, subscribe, comment, and hit that notification button so you know when the new episodes

are posted. This is a show serving Cardle Nation and giving the best fans in baseball, all of the info about the birds on the bat. This episode is brought to you by prize picks. Download the app today and use code locked on MLB to win $50 instantly when you play your first $5 lineup. Price picks, run your game. So the St. Louis Cardinals' end-of-season press conference took place yesterday, and there was plenty to talk about when it comes to what was said by ownership in the front office. I want to go through some of the quotes from Bill DeWitt Jr., as well as John Moseilock.

Get your actions to what was said and how it was said. some people were put off by the way that how they answered questions and how they didn't answer some of the questions that were given to them. But we're going to get to that because a lot of people replied on Twitter X. So thank you to all of you who gave us a little feedback there. And we'll get to that. So let's start off with the news portion of all of this. Let's gather everything that we learned in the press conference yesterday. Number one, president of baseball operations, John Moseylock, will finish out his contract, and then 2025 will be his last season in this particular role.

We kind of learned about that the day before yesterday, before this press conference took place. So that wasn't really a surprise, but, you know, it's official now. Heim Bloom will then take over following the 2025 season. This is something that most of us figured was going to happen as soon as Heim Bloom was brought. into the Cardinals organization, kind of like, why not just bringing them in to kind of hang out

and just be an advisor. Like, this is the guy that's probably going to take over, right? But they never said that. They were just kind of like, well, you know, he's here and he's doing some stuff. But now it's a done deal.

Like, Heim Bloom is going to take over as soon as John Mosea lock is done next year. They also announced that Bloom got a five-year deal with the club and that he will retain the title of advisor for now. And then that five-year contract

won't begin until the 2026 season. So he's going to be your new man that is going to lead you into hopefully the Promise Land for the Cardinals here in the future. We've talked about the good and the bad with Heim Bloom. Just recently talked about it in a previous episode about he had a lot of good stuff happened with him in Tampa Bay. There are some good stuff that happened while he was in Boston. There was some bad stuff too.

So feel free to go back. check out that episode and, you know, if you want to learn more about what Heim Bloom did, but he was very good in both places at building up their farm systems. That was what he was really, really good at. He excelled at that particular part of the jobs that he had at both places. As recently as August, MLB Pipeline put out their new ratings on different farm system. The Ray's have the number one farm system. And then Boston was number seven. Okay. So both places that he went, the stuff that he implemented, even after moving on from the raise, they've continued that. And they continue to churn out solid players over and over and over in a city that doesn't have a very large payroll,

doesn't seem to have a great baseball following if you watch any of their games on TV. So they have to do it that way. They can't go out and just buy free agents. And this is, what the plan is, you know, Boston Red Sox apparently had a horrible farm system until Heim got there. And look at them now. They're number seven. The Cardinals, meanwhile, are at number 19. All right. Yeah, there is some talent in the organization, but they're number 19, okay? There's work to be done. Bloom is going to oversee that. And his immediate job will just be to try and improve that situation. Okay. Now, when he was asked about Mo returning, Owner Bill DeWitt, the third, said that our number one priority is to build up our player development system.

So having Heim in that role is really critical. Meanwhile, Moe's done an excellent job over many years and his record speaks for itself. I think we have the best of all worlds here. Moseilock is going to see his tenure through and Heim is going to jump in and try to improve what we've done on player development. We're really well set this year and beyond. This is something that I alluded to in yesterday's episode, that keeping Mo in place, you know, what was the thought process behind that? And I was like, what if it's just to kind of not bombard him with everything at once,

that this was kind of the plan all along, like that they were always going to keep Mo. He was never going to get fired, even if they had had an even worse season, like a season like they had last year, if they had done that again, he probably wasn't going to get fired. He was probably going to, they were going to see it through, let him finish off his contract through 2025. And while Mo is kind of finishing off shaping the roster with trades and signings and things like that, Heim can focus on what he's been best at in his career. And that's farm system stuff.

And then after this next year in 2025 is up, hopefully Heim is ready to take on all of the aspects of what John Moseilac does. And that makes sense to me. It does make sense to me. As much as everybody wants change and we want Mo gone and you want Ollie gone, just abruptly doing it and then throwing Haim into the fire and saying, you're up, figure it out, probably not the smartest thing, right? Probably not the best way to go about it. So having a year with Mo around still to help them through it all, not a bad idea.

Not a bad idea, in my opinion. Number two, John Moseilac will also be taking on the day-to-day general manager role. All right. Former GM Michael Gersh, he has been reassigned, and he's now going to be the vice president of special projects, a title that nobody really knows much about. All right. Well, I'm sure they'll explain it to us at some point, at least I hope so. But either way, that's what he's going to get paid to do now.

Whatever the special projects are, maybe it's stuff that's going to go on in Jupiter, and things are going to be building for the facilities to improve player development. Maybe those are the special projects we're talking. I don't know. I really have no idea. Nobody does yet. So that is something. Also, Mo mentioned that payroll is going down due to the investment in more player development

staff and improved technology. We found out recently that over the years, Mo kind of had to make a choice between team payroll or player development when spending the money that. ownership allowed him to have. They're like, here is, you know, whatever amount, divvy it up the way you see fit. If you want to go 50-50 on these things, go ahead. But if you want to put more towards another portion, you want to go MLB roster and take away from player development, it's your call. We're going to let you roll with it. He chose to invest more of that money into the on-field product, which is one of the reasons their system has fallen behind.

Now, it also, think about it on the other side, though. It might also be the reason the Cardinal State as competitive as they have for as long as they have. But it seems now that they've fallen behind to a point that they just can't ignore it anymore. You know, it's a problem. And now they're going to address it. What does the payroll going down mean for the high price talent on the current roster? That is something that we're not entirely sure of yet. we don't really have the answers to that because they didn't let us know what payroll is going to meet.

They never gave any specifics on that. Here's what Mo said about it in the, let's say, is this the John Denton article on MLB.com said, we don't know what that payroll number is. So in terms of who we might have to trade, that's premature. Yes, this is a reset. And yes, we're not going to be focusing on building the best roster. or we can, but we're also excited because we have a bunch of young players and we do have some emerging stars at the minor league level, how we augment that over the next few months.

Time will tell. And part of me finds that hard to believe that you don't know what your target payroll for 2025 is yet. I find that hard to believe. I find it a little shocking that you don't know yet, but we have to take his word for it. We don't really have a choice. But that's essentially what we found out.

Not exactly a whole lot of new information was revealed. They seemed very excited about what they're going to do, player development-wise. They also did a lot of, well, we weren't that bad type of stuff, which I found a little bit annoying, you know, saying things like, well, you know, we were a winning team this year. We won 83 games. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they just part of it that bug me was that there wasn't,

What I wanted to hear was like, look, this is what has happened and this is how we admit it. We screwed up. And we should have done it this way. And we made a poor decision there. We tried it. The reason we did it was because of this. And now it's time to rectify things and try to get back to doing it this way. That's what I want to hear.

I think that's what a lot of fans wanted to hear. Take accountability for the mistakes that they've made. that's why we got to where we are. But they never did that. They never said anything like that, which I think upset a few people. I was a little bugged by it. We've got more from Mo because not only did he talk at the press conference, but he talked to media members afterwards. So I want to share some of that stuff with you as he explains in further detail about their plan. Plus, we'll get into the reactions from you, the listeners, not only to what they said, but how they said it, and how it made people feel because it rubs some fans the wrong way.

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this episode. The word being used to describe the Cardinals of like what they're doing right now. It's not the R word that most people don't like to hear, which is rebuild. Instead, they're going to go with the word reset. But make no mistake. Make no mistake. This is going to be a different looking team in 2025. We just don't know how different yet. You know, when talking about slashing payroll and going down, you know, obviously there are ways to do that with people who are already going to be free agents, Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson, Paul Goldschmidt, Andrew Kittridge, Keenan Middleton,

just a few of them off the top of my head. Obviously, you're not going to have Brandon Crawford's not around anymore making $2 million. So there is going to be a dip. And some of those roles, specifically I would think the relief pitcher roles, are going to be filled by younger guys. The other spots seem like they're going to be done by people who are already on the roster, you know, over first base. We've talked about the Luke and Baker, Alec Berluson combo in the starting rotation. If you're just losing Lynn and Gibson, you've got Palante and McGreeby ready to roll, you know, along with Fetty and then Michaelis and then Sunny Gray. So you've got some guys that you already feel good about in those spots. Derek Gould at the Post Dispatch got some quotes from Bill DeWitt Jr. saying that the message

is we are going young. That's what they're going to do. It's something that I think a lot of fans welcome, you know, but they want to make sure that the guy, the young guys are bringing are ready to go. That's the fear is that it seems like you bring up a Nolan Gorman and a Jordan Walker and they don't look ready, you know, for some reason, they're not prepared properly and they fizzle out at the major league level. That's the biggest fear is that you're going to bring these guys up and put your trust in them and they're not going to perform and the team's going to tank because of it. So that's something that makes fans nervous for sure. Mo says, yes, this is a reset to get more quotes from Mo here because he talked a lot after the press conference, Derek Gold.

Yes, this is a reset. Yes, this is going to be. where we're not focusing on necessarily building the best possible roster we can. I'd like to set us on a course to get back to consistent winning. Focus on the buildup of our baseball operations. Invest in new infrastructure and technologies. See the groundbreaking of improved facilities in Jupiter, Florida. You may ask yourself two simple questions. What is this and what is it not?

What it is is a multi-year strategy, a focus on player procurement and development. It's a long-term investment in the organization's future. What is it not? It's not a Band-Aid solution. And this is not an excuse. Focus on the word change. Change.

We need to make change to realize our ultimate goal. He continues, saying there are some fundamental things. We want to do differently in this organization. And then as we have continued success at the minor league level, at the player procurement level, then we can time it right and try to reinvest at the Major League. level. You can't put a dollar amount on it yet because I don't know exactly what our revenues are going to look like. Ownership is committed to letting us take the first step to make that

investment in the player development. Now personally, and I've said this before, I'm glad they're finally picking away. I'm glad they finally made a choice. We're going one way or we going the other. Instead of just kind of sitting in that middle road and not doing either or and still not winning at the major league level. You know, that's a bad spot to be. If what they're doing at the major league level was still winning them games, like if they won 90 games this year with the model that they had been following, if they got division titles, they're probably not making this change, you know, that we're seeing.

Which, again, is like kicking the can down the road. You're still not fixing the real problem, which is down here in your minor league. system and developing players to come up. That way you're not always having to go by guys, you know, but the last few years of disappointment, and I'm sure the fan's lack of attendance had some movement on what's going on here, has kind of forced them to take the plunge and fix this problem instead of just masking it. And, you know, masking it with bloated contracts to guys who aren't moving the needle at the major league level.

You know, when you go to free agency and you see these guys that you can get and bring them in, and you know the difference makers, you know, the Trey Turner's, you know, Aaron Judge was a free agent. You know, what Juan Soto is going to do for wherever he goes. Like those are difference makers, but they're so expensive. And instead, you're spending more money on guys who are just kind of there, you know, and they're not going to win you championships. They're just going to keep you competitive, but you're overpaying. You're overpaying for them, you know. What the Cardinals used to do very, very well is they would have homegrown talent come up to their system, and then you would supplement that talent with a couple of free agents here and there with a trade here and there. And that's how they used to win ball games. And over time, that process has been reversed, really, that instead of homegrown talent coming up, they kept buying and buying and buying and getting players from other places, either free agency or by you, what homegrown talent they had to make trades like the Marcello Zuna trade. They gave up a significant amount of stuff there.

And you saw Zach Gallen and Sandy Alcantra move on to have great success. You know, that's what it cost them to go get that bat because they hadn't developed a bat like that on their own. And so what they ended up doing is they spend all of this. And then they have to supplement those expensive players with the cheap pieces from their minor leagues. guys weren't good enough. They weren't good enough. And prices keep going up and up and up. And if you pay the wrong guys, you get trapped. And that's essentially what has happened here is that they spent $175 million on payroll and you're just not getting the benefits of how much money you're spending. You know, not a single starter in the rotation this year when the season started came up through the cardinal

system. They bought their whole rotation. They went out and bought. Coney Gray, Kyle Gibson, Miles Michaelis, Lance Lynn, and Stephen Matt's, one of the most expensive rotations in all of baseball. But none of them are considered one of the best pitchers in baseball. And no offense to Sunny Gray, he's very good. But I don't think you're eliciting him as a top 10 guy. I just don't think you are. Like he had an incredible season in Minnesota last year. This year, a very good season with the Cardinals.

But upper echel. I mean, it wasn't even an all-star. Aronado, you know, 10th highest paid player in 2024, $35 million. Goldie was tied for 27th, $26 million. Neither lived up to those numbers. Miles Michaelis, you've heard me complain about him plenty. 23rd highest-paid starting pitcher in baseball. Yet, he's one of the worst, statistically,

in the league. Nats is 45th in the league in payroll. Gibson 48th. Len and Sunny are at 52, but Sunny's contract spikes big time this upcoming year and the following year after that. He's going to go to $25 and $30 million. Outside of Sunny, none of them. None of them should be making more than what Eric Thetty makes, who is 67th in the league at $7.5 million. But because of the price of agency. It's just so high. You get these bloated deals because it only takes one team to overpay for one guy and then everybody's got to overpay for guys. It's that domino effect. And these guys aren't worth it. They're not worth it and you're not winning with them anyway. It would only be worth it if you were coming home with titles and they're not. They're just barely getting by 500. So

change had to had to be made. Changes have to come. And I'm glad it's happening. I am glad it's playing at the major league level might suffer because of it. But again, at the same time, we're not talking about a roster that was winning that many games anyway. You know, the fear is like, oh my gosh, we're going with the youth. We're going to suck.

Maybe not. It's not like this team that we just had was that great. It wasn't. So shedding this payroll and stuff, it may not be as bad as we think. But it could get worse. You know, if they end up training away,

Aronado, Sunny and Contreras, and are like, everybody goes. And it's all youth guys that things might get back into the 70 win range in 2025. So that's a scary thought, obviously. We don't want that, but we'll see. We're not quite sure what payroll is going to be yet. And I think the fan sentiment is if you're going to be a 500 team, if you're just going to be the middle of the road, then at least make it worthwhile.

and while we're in this funk, go fix the issues in your system that you have going on. And that's what they're doing. That's what they're doing. I want to get into the fan reactions. I want to do some of those yet. I've got a couple of more reactions of my own about what we saw yesterday and what we heard yesterday.

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I was more involved in the press conference stuff going on with the Cardinals than I was watching those games. of that first game was bonkers. And you can go find the link to Lockdown MLB in the description so you don't have to search. But stay up to date, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. And obviously, we're going to talk playoffs here on the Lockdown Cardinals podcast here, where we'll do that as well because even though the Cardinals aren't there, we're baseball fans, right? So that's what we'll be doing.

We'll have some stuff going on about the playoffs here. How about reactions to the press comments? All right. So my personal feelings on this one. I'm never a big fan of the smugness. I don't even know if that's a word of John Moseilac at times. I don't hate him. And I'm sure he's a nice guy. Never met him personally.

But some of the arrogance and stuff that just is the way he is, it just rubs me the wrong way sometimes. Like when he comes out cracking jokes, you know, I guess you're stuck with me for another year. You know, sorry. but like, I don't need to hear that stuff, man. It's kind of annoying. It's not really funny.

This isn't a joke what you're doing right now. Like, our organization is a mess. Like, why are we joking to open up your press cabinets, man? Just give me answers. They kept talking about how good things used to be. And hey, you know, things suck now. But like, remember like 10 years ago we were awesome? Like, yeah, we know.

We would like to get back to that. Can you just kind of kind of, kind of, explain to us how you're going to fix it and how you're going to get us back to that spot. I also mentioned accountability. You know, like it meant that you messed up. Tell me where you, things went wrong. Go look, this is kind of where we were at. We decided to go here.

It didn't work. It didn't work. And that's on me. You know, I made a decision and we did not end up winning championships like I thought we were going to. And now we're kind of paying for it. We got to fix it. You know, we get back to doing things the way it used to be.

And we're going to. That's the goal and that's what we're attacking. That's what I want to hear. I don't want to hear about your war stories from back in the day and how good you were then. Like, it's about now. What have you done for me lately? That's what we need to hear. Not about the past.

And when asked about attendance, they just... they kind of mentioned it was a phrase that they had to sell this team to the fans they'd said that and I forget who said it and I was like what I was like don't sell me the team don't like you know don't polish a turd for me just be honest be honest about it I don't need your gimmicks I don't need your bobbleheads I'm sure that works for families and stuff whatever but I don't need that I need a winning baseball team, you guys. I need one that has some direction. I need something that plays well,

fundamentally good baseball on the field. That's what I want to see. And if you lose playing the right way and doing it the right way, Cardo fans are going to still support you because at least you're doing it the right way. I don't need your distractions to get me into the ballpark. I need you to fix the on-field stuff. I need you to figure out why you can't hit with the runners in scoring position.

Stuff like that. Anyway, let's go through some comments from the listeners out there because we had a lot of them. Brent, a lot of nothing was said. A lot of easy questions were Dodge. It sounds like Mo will be on autopilot running the MLB team while Bloom builds the development system. Ollie will have to treat this year like he is fighting for his job and do the best with the players he is given. Randy says, kind of sitting in the same limbo we were all in before the press conference. A lot of the business side of things.

To be honest, fans don't care much about the business side of things. I understand they're important, but now two years in a row, we're in the same boat. And that's one of the things is, you know, you're listening to a baseball podcast. So obviously baseball is a big deal to you. And there are nerds like us. I'm not, that's not a derogatory statement. Nerds like us that love all of the aspects of what it takes to. run a major league franchise, but a lot of fans only give a crap about what's going on on

the field. Like, why is somebody who sucks in my lineup every day? Stuff like that. And so I understand that. But there is a reason why certain things happen on the field because of the business side. So hopefully we're explaining some of it a little bit better for fans like Randy who aren't so much into the business side, but need. to understand why they have to do this to do this on the field.

So hopefully we've made a little easier here. Kason says, I thought it was okay. Mo deserves more credibility for moves he's made in the past, like Beltron, Hayward, Goldie, Nato. I'm very excited now for our future. Heim will be a great successor. We will be back. And that's the thing, too, is John Moseilock is going to get a red jacket one day.

Like he's going into this Cardinals Hall of Fame because for most of his tenure, things were really, really good. The back end here, the back nine are probably less than that. Your final three or four holes here, that's where the problems have been. And, you know, he's going to get this final year to help push everybody in the right direction and then he's going to float away and end up probably being an advisor of some sort. But he's trying to get it situated so Hime is not set up to fail. And I respect him for that. And I understand why he's coming back one more year. I get it. Aaron says, don't like Moe staying for another year, but I understand so Heim can focus on improving player development this season before taking

over president of baseball operations role. Feel good about what Heim can do, but worried about Bill DeWitt Jr. turning the payroll into Tampa Bay. Well, here's my thing with that. If you pull payroll down super low and you're talking like $100 to $120 million, you can still win with that if you are doing it right, if you're picking the right players. And that's essentially what John Moselle is supposed to be doing. I've said this before. He's doing the shopping.

He's picking out the ingredients to make dinner. And he's overpaying for a lot of ingredients that actually didn't work out so well with the meal that we were hoping to get. Right. And they're going to have to learn to do it a different way. Now, they're going to have to be a little more choosy. They're not going to get into bidding wars for guys who are making $300 million. You're not going to see that.

Not that we ever really did, but you're not going to see that anymore. Not even like the thought that you're going to go into the offseason and be like, hey, you know, we could probably buy Blake Snell. Don't even think about it anymore. It's over. Those days are gone. They're not going to do it. The idea is to grow a Blake Snell and to build these kind of guys. and then continue on your way with them.

And then when they get priced out of range, hopefully you have another grouping of youngsters that are coming in next. It's a solid plan. The hard part is making sure you get the players to do this because you've got to make sure that they become good players. You can't just draft them and go, all right, we took them first rounder. He's coming up in two years.

It doesn't work that way. You got to be better down when you're developing players, and that's where they're going to put all this extra money. So instead of buying an expensive piece like a Stephen Mats or a Miles Michaelis or, you know, whoever, instead, that money is going down to player development instead. All right. And I think if that churns out a couple of good players instead, I think you're okay with that because you see some of the contracts that the Cardinals give out and you're like, really?

Really? Is that what we want to do? So anyway, that's kind of my thoughts on that one. And then a dangerous mind here. They refuse to be held accountable. And Mo refuses to step aside to a new role. And in effect, punts all the problems to 2026, which is beyond stupid. The accountability thing I talked about, I don't like that they can't just admit that they aren't perfect and that they've made mistakes.

Like, we know you did. Why don't you just say it? That's all people want to hear is like, hey, we're sorry. We screwed it up. But now we're going to go things and we're going to try to put it in a date. different way now and see if we can win that way. We don't want to do it this way anymore because it's not working. And as far as punting all the problems of 2026, it's got to start somewhere. Like you have to start somewhere. You can't just do it now and then expect them to win next year too when they're

making all of these different changes. It's going to take time to develop the young players. And you know, they brought that up in the press conference too. We're like, dude, we're excited about our youth. And there are some exciting pieces that they do have in their minor leagues. Like, you know, I know I saw that the, you know, ranked 19th overall. That's because there's not a lot of depth down there. But there are some good players that might become great players. Some of them may not work out. But I'm excited for J.J. Weatherholt. I'm excited for what I saw from Chase Davis this year, your recent first round draft picks of the Cardinals. McGreevy turning into what he's turned into. Super. I would like to see what's going on with Zach Thompson.

You know, I want to see what's going on with an Ian Biddell. Matthew Libert sort taking over that role in the bullpen and being as good as he was. I'm excited about that. Can they make some trades with some of these veteran guys to bring in more guys that are like that? You know, maybe there are some teams out there that are in a very much win now situation and are willing to take on a Miles Michaelis or, you know, I know these guys got no trade clauses, but Have a conversation with Nolan Arnado about going to the Dodgers to grab some of their prospects.

I don't have a conversation with Sunny Gray. If he doesn't want to be around for this, is there somewhere you would like to go? And maybe we can work something out. There are teams that would love to have them as they're number two or number three guy and be a dominant force. So they're tough conversations. It's a bummer that it's coming down this way. But this is the direction they've chosen. and it's going to take time, unfortunately, unfortunately.

But it doesn't mean the season's over. Like the 2025 is just going to suck. It doesn't mean that. What if some of these young guys all step up to the play and are able to perform at a higher level? Like, what if that does happen? It could? They could also suck.

It could happen too. But it's just that's what we got. That's what we got right now. And I'm sure we'll learn more as, things progress and move forward. Again, I'm hoping to have a lot of the people that covered the press conference to come on the show and chat with us and give us their thoughts. So more of your thoughts, let me know. Hit me up in the comments section. Hit me up on Twitter.

X. Would love to continue the conversations with all of you. Again, thank you for making Locked on Cardinals, your first listen every day. If you haven't already, give us a follow on Twitter X at Ella underscore Cardinals at a JD Sports Radio. Like, subscribe on YouTube. It helps push the channel out there. and that way more Cardinal fans can join in this conversation with us each and every day. Again, I got you covered through the whole offseason.

We're not going anywhere. We're still five days a week. That's not changing until late, late in the year. So don't disappear. All right, we've got plenty to get to. It's going to be an interesting off season. And I hope you stick with us for the entirety of it. You guys are the best fans in baseball for a reason.

And I will see you next time on Locked on Cardinals.