Turbulent times ahead, but Cardinals fans can be thankful as rebuild takes flight
Pilots of high-performance aircraft sometimes describe a feeling of being “behind the airplane” when learning a new piece of equipment. The laws of physics are constant and predictable, but the way a piece of hardware interacts with them can be nuanced and difficult without the kind of intuitive feel that comes from countless hours at the controls.
It’s the sort of uncertainty that seemed to permeate decision-making around the St. Louis Cardinals in the period following the pandemic. If executing a faultless trade for Nolan Arenado was the moment the throttles were advanced, then most of what followed — save for the Albert Pujols bombing run — has been a struggle to regain stability, a reality of reacting a fraction of a second too slowly to the inputs and pressures from the buffeting airstream.
The air is not yet smooth. There is turbulence ahead. But as Cardinals fans sit down for the holiday, they can at least be thankful for real signs that the team is no longer being operated from behind the power curve. If those in control are not yet ahead of the aircraft, they at least seem to have a sense of why they are behind it and the techniques necessary to regain control.
There is more torquing and groaning of the airframe still to come, but there is a heading toward a patch of clear sky.
What the Cardinals are now going through — what they kicked off unofficially with Tuesday’s trade of Sonny Gray to Boston — is a process that is entirely unfamiliar to the fan base. Even those with memories of the dreadful 1970s teams, or the not-much-better squads from the first half of the 1990s, haven’t quite endured a full-on rebuild in the way they are about to experience.
The process simply didn’t exist in the form it does now, tracking in the shadow of the Houston Astros and Chicago Cubs, who repeatedly bashed into standings’ brick walls until viable draft picks fell out.
Indeed, even that path no longer exists in the same way it did a decade ago. The economics of the game are now too sophisticated and described in different terms. The perverse novelty of losing 110 games and drawing a zero in television ratings has been appropriately replaced by intense skepticism around the need to bottom out. The plane does not have to impact the ground before it can be sent aloft again.
“We have somewhere we need to go,” president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom said Tuesday, following the Gray trade. “We’re not there now, and the way to get there is through building on our core of talent and having promising young talent that can be with us for many years and that have their best ahead of them, we hope.”
Gray has started 330 games in the majors. The starters remaining on the 40-player roster after his departure, including newly acquired Richard Fitts, have combined for a total of 148, or 14 games short of one full season. Four of the 17 pitchers on the 40-player roster have yet to make their major league debuts, and a fifth, left-hander Nick Raquet, has a grand total of two big league innings.
Four months ahead of opening day, there is no expectation the roster will remain static, and Bloom professed confidence that there will be additions throughout the winter to provide stability and support to an exceedingly young group. Still, it is not difficult to imagine a 2026 starting rotation anchored by Matthew Liberatore and pieced together by the sorts of tertiary talent that could develop into a formidable group, but is not yet particularly close to reaching its potential.
There’s no need to hit the ground, but sometimes there is a need to trade altitude for speed and to get uncomfortably low to reclaim lost lift.
If none of that sounds like a reason to be thankful, then it should be considered in comparison to previous years spent clinging to the trailing edge of the wing, focused on the horizon while trying to ignore the feeling of slipping off entirely. It’s foolish to ask a fan base to accept years wandering the wilderness and taking endless body blows of losses before expecting real progress in the standings, but that is a fate that could have been avoided with yesterday’s decisions, not with tomorrow’s.
The Cardinals sent $20 million along with Gray to Boston to offset his salary and improve the return package of talent. That is one of the largest one-year offsets in league history, and it suggests a forward-looking commitment from ownership that has been ominously lacking over the last half decade.
A rebuild can often be a thinly veiled excuse for owners to simply cut costs over an extended period. Tuesday’s action doesn’t take all the sting out of that posture for a fan base, but it does at least strongly imply a more positive vision.
It is far too early in the process to judge whether the plan, as constituted, is going to work, but it is not too early to say there is a plan. If nothing else, that is something Cardinals fans can be thankful for. And it’s good to keep that in mind before grabbing the ejection handle and punching out.
Even if it feels like a spiral, there is now a pilot at the stick who seems to understand the necessary maneuvers.
