Is St. Louis once again a destination for MLB players who want to win? Waino thinks so.

Adam Wainwright and Jason Heyward are good friends, which made it just a little bit harder when Heyward decided he’d rather be an archrival.

After all, it wasn’t like the money in Chicago was better. After his stellar 2015 season, Heyward simply decided the Cubs had a brighter future and looked like a more likely place to win.

“I’m not saying he was wrong,” Wainwright said Sunday during his Winter Warm-Up media session. “We missed the playoffs the next three years, and he went over there and won a World Series. He was seeing what was actually happening.”

Now, the Cardinals are convinced the worm has turned. Wainwright vehemently agreed when asked if he felt like the addition of Willson Contreras was a full circle moment.

Contreras spoke at his introductory press conference of a desire to join the Cardinals which sprang from seeing Albert Pujols celebrated. He started to dream of red while he was still in blue. Whatever culture or cache changed or slipped has seemingly been righted.

“Every year it was like, dude, if you could get me out there, I would love to come play with St. Louis,” Wainwright recalled. “There was a couple of years there where it stopped being that way. Just talking to other players, now it’s back. And I love that.”

At the center of that transformation are Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt, just as the clubhouse is at the center between them. The weekend’s open tours did some creative reorganizing of the room to allow fans to wish cast photos at their favorite players’ lockers, but in its normal configuration, Arenado and Goldschmidt sit on opposite walls.

Together, in formation, they’re pillars. And as the team transitions away from its longest-tenured stars, they’re left to hold the whole thing up.

“I came here because I wanted to stay here, and I fell in love with the place since I’ve been here,” Arenado said Saturday, Jan. 14, publicly addressing for the first time his decision to opt in to the five years remaining on his contract. “I’ve loved it ever since I’ve been here, and I love playing with my teammates.”

“We’re gonna need everyone. It’s not just about us,” Goldschmidt said when asked about the leadership from the infield corners. “As close as we are, we have different personalities, different strengths, different weaknesses. And that’s why it’s a team game, and there’s other guys on this team as well that are going to lead and they’re going to play well, and we’re going to need to play well.”

Each of the two, the 2022 NL MVP and its second runner up, spoke of their relationship in the context of a brotherhood. That bond formed while playing for Team USA in the 2017 World Baseball Classic, and they’ll do so again this spring. It deepened while playing as teammates over the last two seasons, and has calcified as a roster and culture have shaped around them.

Getting back to normal

Indeed, it was right around the time of Arenado’s desire to become a Cardinal — a reality in early 2021, but strongly encouraged behind the scenes for several years prior — that coincided with Wainwright’s observation that things might be getting back to, by his estimation, normal.

“Certainly in that timeframe,” he acknowledged. “When players like that are here, other players want to come and be a part of that.”

The retirements of Pujols and Yadier Molina, paired with Wainwright’s own pending departure and the uncertainty of John Mozeliak’s future in charge of baseball operations, could have thrown the culture back into chaos and allowed for a backslide. A team that managed to reboot could have relapsed.

Fresh perspective a good thing?

Instead, while maintaining the traditions important to those in charge, the pillars at the corners are building on what was laid before them and crafting a stable identity that aims to buck some of baseball’s team building trends while still relying on its valuable traditions. Insularity has its benefits, but from time to time, needs to be challenged.

“The fresh perspective sometimes is really good,” Wainwright said. “It’s a really great thing. Both those guys have brought a lot from their other organizations, from other coaches, from other managers, from other hitting coaches, from their other fielding coaches.

“The way they broke down film, the way they looked at hitters, the way they looked at pitchers, the way they looked at swings, all that was different. They brought it in. We got a whole different perspective to add to our perspective.”

Destination St. Louis

There are many around the club who believe that perspective was in need of a strong refresh.

Part of the identity of the Cardinals is reliance on those in leadership positions who have been fully molded by the organization, and as a result, run the risk of replicating some flaws that instead could be stamped out.

With a new era, and new leadership, comes another opportunity to remake that which has been a superlative success. The Cardinals are a destination again, and now they have an opportunity to stay that way.