Don’t say ‘rebuild’: DeWitts promise continuity amid Cardinals change

Even with the roster reduced to its youngest and most inexperienced pieces, and with a payroll balance nearly equal between salary paid to players on the team and salary paid to players on other teams, St. Louis Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. gently chided a reporter on Sunday for describing the team’s current position as a “rebuild.”

“When you say ‘rebuild,’ it’s ‘build,’” DeWitt Jr. said. “I don’t know about rebuild. But Chaim [Bloom]’s a draft and development GM, or president of baseball ops ... We’re on the same page with what he plans to do, which is build, don’t give up draft choices, try to accumulate draft choices. You know, it could take some time, hopefully not long, and we’re excited.”

DeWitt Jr., 84, took the stage next to his son, team president Bill DeWitt III, to field questions about the franchise’s current state and the challenges of a financial landscape that now features uncertainty surrounding local media rights. Without knowing yet which network will broadcast Cardinals games in 2026, DeWitt III pledged that fans “shouldn’t see much disruption at all,” aside from a possible change in the channel on which the games air.

“From an internal business standpoint, it’s fairly disruptive in the sense that we’re trying to figure out whether we do another deal with FanDuel Sports and have the status quo, albeit at a revised rights arrangement, or move over to MLB Media, which a number of teams have done when their [regional sports network] situations have fallen apart,” DeWitt III said. “Both options are on the table still.”

The collapse of the television deal comes at a relatively less painful time for the Cardinals, who are entering a period of reduced spending just as they are seeing lower revenues at the gate and from media rights. The traditional metrics for success may not apply to the 2026 Cardinals, but they are not immune to the business forces now affecting them as they slide down the standings.

“It’s hard to quantify, to say what would success be,” DeWitt Jr. said. “We’re building, and success is a winning season and getting our core to do well.”

Identifying that core — and determining whether any of the players currently on the roster will be a long-term part of it — is one of the main tasks for Bloom’s baseball operations group. That, too, is subject to the whims of the marketplace and the shifting nature of talent acquisition around the league.

With the current collective bargaining agreement set to expire at the end of the 2026 season, anxiety is rising throughout the sport about the possibility of an owner-led lockout that could threaten to impact games in the 2027 season. The media rights framework feeds some of that anxiety, but less so than the growing gap between franchises in major media markets — with the Los Angeles Dodgers chief among them — that benefit from greater financial resources.

“Competitive balance is a huge issue, probably the commissioner’s primary issue heading into the agreement,” DeWitt III said. “The ways in which you can achieve that are multiple. “I do think it’s a key labor agreement. Probably one of the more significant ones we’ve experienced, just because that disparity has exacerbated over the years,” he added.

The passage of years is also relevant to the state of the franchise’s ownership. While the team keeps its full ownership structure private, there have been quiet sales of minority shares in recent years that have provided modest capital infusions. DeWitt III nodded to his plans for long-term stewardship, expressing a hope that the current Busch Stadium will be the last the team plays in during his lifetime, and his father was more explicit about the family’s plans for maintaining control.

“Our family’s – count my father – been in baseball a long time, and I think it will continue. That’s the plan,” DeWitt Jr. said. “I’m getting to an age where I’m not going to be around forever. Bill the third is at a perfect age to continue on for a long time. So, you know, that’s our goal. We’re baseball people, and third generation here, probably fourth underneath him coming along somewhere.”

The current landscape, both financial and competitive, is unlike anything the DeWitts have experienced during their ownership. The climb back from the lost 1990s into an era of excitement and success generated a remarkable amount of goodwill that became the backbone of a brand the Cardinals have carried for more than two decades.

Now, a necessary seismic shift in that brand image may be coming, and the DeWitts spoke Sunday as a united front prepared to weather storms they may not yet see. Whether that sustains will depend on the strength of the foundation built in these early days of an unknown process.

“Our fans are smart,” DeWitt III said. “I’ve heard some things this weekend already that many of the fans are glad that our strategy has clarified and is very focused, and it’s very intentional ... There’s a sense of relief that we’ve embraced the clarity of it and are doing everything we can in support of that strategy.”