The end of the season brings the end of an era. What’s next for the Cardinals?
Jon Jay didn’t get a single plate appearance the last three times he stepped on the field in his rookie season, and his final at-bat of 2010 was an eighth-inning single in a meaningless home game against the Colorado Rockies.
Daniel Descalso, a mid-September call-up, started the last game of that season at third base, sandwiched in the lineup between Colby Rasmus and Matt Pagnozzi. He was eventually replaced by Pedro Feliz in what would turn out to be the last game of the veteran’s career.
A year later, both were on the field for the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, each at the center of the 10th-inning rally in Game 6 that bridged the gap between David Freese’s moments and kept the team, and the series, alive. It was the last moment of unadulterated glory for a franchise long defined by its ability to reach baseball’s ultimate mountaintop, with nothing else living up to that standard.
Fifteen years later, they are both coaches on Oli Marmol’s staff. These Cardinals, like those, were eliminated from postseason contention in the penultimate series and will finish within striking distance of a playoff spot. Does that make this season, in all its uncertainty and pieced-together stretches, a success?
“You want to take your shot and you want to play in October, so it’s always disappointing,” Marmol said from his Wrigley Field office before the season finale. “You’re close, and you’re doing it after trading at the deadline, you’re doing it while missing [Nolan Arenado], [Masyn Winn], Willson [Contreras], [Alec Burleson] and [Brendan Donovan] at different points in the season, sometimes all at once.
“That’s the part that’s encouraging—that we were still able to compete at a pretty good level with all that being the case. You have to be pretty consistent with your style of play and mindset to do that, or else you lose a lot more games than we did this year.”
The unknown—the intentionally unknowable—variable that will shape the organization’s immediate future stood alone in front of the visitors’ dugout on Sunday, hours before first pitch, gazing out over an empty field in a white shirt and dark jeans. The knowable and predictable—too known, too predictable—sprawled across a folding chair in a back hallway of the clubhouse, glowering at his phone and going out of his way not to engage in conversations on his last day.
Chaim Bloom is what’s next. John Mozeliak is what happened.
For all the principles and practices and stable predictability that have guided the Cardinals’ front office for most of the past two decades, this is where things stand. Two losing seasons in 18 years is impressive; two in the last three is a concern. The Cardinals under Mozeliak have constructed and lived by their own rules; whether those rules are useful, they brought the franchise to this uncertain present.
That uncertainty finally breached the clubhouse seal in recent days and began to seep into everything done as the season wrapped up. One staffer noted a piece of equipment that would need a simple fix before spring training, and a colleague fired back, “If you’re still here.” A joke, to be sure—but one with teeth.
Meetings with staff in the coming days, as well as press availability for both Mozeliak and Bloom, will help clarify some of the unknowns. Change is certain at all levels, including among the major league field staff, but it would be a stunning upset if Marmol does not return. He declined comment over the weekend on the specifics of his meetings with the new boss but has already participated in several discussions involving players central to future plans. Neither he nor the organization are behaving as though there’s any reason to doubt he is part of that future.
Willson Contreras confirmed over the weekend he, too, wants to stay in St. Louis—albeit with the caveat that he is somewhat more open to a trade than he was last winter. Nolan Arenado clearly believes being dealt is a fait accompli, and Sonny Gray’s pursuit of a World Series before the end of his career may send him the same way. The roster the Cardinals take into 2026 could be even more stripped down than the group that took the field in 2025. Whatever half measures were in place a year ago are likely to be replaced by a fuller reset in the coming months.
This season, then, could be as close as the Cardinals get to the postseason for a while. The drought has reached three years, and when Contreras spoke about his desire to serve as a veteran mentor, he nodded toward the possibility of another three to five years passing before real contention returns.
Bloom’s five-year contract doesn’t take effect until next season. By the end of it, he will have spent seven years with the organization, and if all goes as the Cardinals hope, he’ll be lauded as the executive who brought the franchise back to contention after wandering further into the wilderness than they realized.
When the lights go on in March, he won’t be standing on the field. He will be responsible for whoever is—and then, the time will have come for those experiences to start adding up to wins.
