From Ozzie to rookies: Cardinals build one clubhouse, one culture

Monday marked the first official full-squad workout of spring for the St. Louis Cardinals and, as per tradition, chairman Bill DeWitt Jr., manager Oli Marmol and other senior officials gathered in the clubhouse before the team went out for the day to offer encouragement and set expectations for the coming season.

In a typical year, reporters would then scatter to the corners of the clubhouse in search of the reactions of veteran players, taking in what they took in and getting a sense of a message that was more or less always the same.

When the two most experienced players in camp are each in their first springs with the Cardinals and the rest of the roster is still in the nascent stages of a career, it becomes fair to wonder where the veteran perspective might come from.

“That’s a really good question,” Marmol quipped. “I feel like that’s the equivalent of me asking you what reliever you would’ve brought in.”

It didn’t take a call down to the bullpen to bring in reinforcements on Monday, but they were present in camp all the same.

Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith and soon-to-be Hall of Famer Yadier Molina both joined the club for the first full-squad workout, and both were in the room as Marmol attempted to weave together the strands that connect a storied championship history with a developing, resetting present.

Among the many things being built in St. Louis is, ideally, a culture that reflects the things Cardinals baseball has traditionally reflected while also refusing to be so stubborn as to be left behind a development path that is accelerating even in their absence.

“It wasn’t that different because we had the same message,” Molina offered. “We’re gonna compete. We’re gonna try to win the [World] Series. We’ve got a bunch of new faces, a bunch of new guys, young guys. They don’t know about our tradition, about how we go about it, the Cardinal way. That’s what the message was.”

It’s finding a way to harness that message and letting it land fairly and without judgment on countless sets of young ears that becomes the challenge. A tour around the fields on Monday morning would’ve revealed Smith huddled up with JJ Wetherholt and Masyn Winn, discussing life in the middle infield. Jason Isringhausen took a quiet moment with Tink Hence to have a conversation about professionalism and ownership of a career. The full complement of the starting rotation gathered behind a screen to support Matthew Liberatore as he threw to hitters.

It was a group composed of everyone talking to everyone else, and in that way, the new physical layout of the buildings has encouraged a camaraderie that’s designed to break down some of those communicative walls.

“I guess the word is ‘inclusive’ of the minor league side, more than it was when I was down there,” said right-hander Kyle Leahy. “When I was down there, we were on separate sides of the building, different places eating, different weight rooms, all of that. Now we’re sort of in the same areas. It’s just so different, you don’t even really notice that there’s no old guys.”

Utility player José Fermín noted much of the same things and drew comparisons to his time in the Cleveland Guardians organization. That facility, he explained, was set up in much the same way as the Cardinals’ new buildings. A state-of-the-art performance center and a full-service kitchen area are open for all players at all times, and the natural mingling that accompanies those areas draws players into conversations they may not have otherwise had.

“Those were guys that back then, those were the guys I looked up to,” Fermín said of the Cleveland veterans. “To be able to talk to them and learn from them was pretty good.”

Dustin May, one of the rare veterans in camp, is also in his first spring in a new organization after spending the vast majority of his first decade in pro ball with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Their camp was separated out in the same way the Cardinals’ was previously, and he called the change “definitely a little different.”

“I’m intrigued to see how this spring flows for me,” May added. “This is my first one for integrated big league and minor league camp together, sharing spaces.”

Packy Naughton has been here for big league camp, for minor league camp, for injury rehab camp and for every sort of event in between. After nearly 2 1/2 seasons missed with a variety of arm injuries, he’s a popular teammate throwing pain-free and challenging for a lefty spot in the bullpen.

He also has the unique perspective of having seen every corner of the spring operation and found himself tremendously encouraged by the way things have worked in the early going.

“It’s a little bit more cohesive,” Naughton said. “The organization feels as one. It doesn’t feel like there’s a big league and a minor league. Everyone jives together, everyone likes to spend time together. If you look in the food room at any point, you’ll see big leaguers sitting with Low-A guys, big leaguers sitting with rookie ball guys. That’s how it is now, and it brings a sense of community.”

That is a vital feeling for an organization that insists it won’t concede on-field results while simultaneously making clear that success and failure in 2026 will not be defined by this season’s win-loss record. For Marmol, getting through a year with those challenges in mind requires conviction in the method — something they have in heavy supply — combined with buy-in from the players.

Finding that can come from everyone pulling the rope in the same direction, and that’s the most important message Marmol had to deliver.

“We’re stepping into a new chapter of Cardinal baseball, and the people in that room, everybody gets to play a part in defining that,” Marmol said. “It was interesting to see certain chapters that have already been written standing in the room, like Ozzie and Izzy and Yadi, but then to not even challenge the group, but just set the expectations for how we’re going to do that moving forward.

“You get to shape the culture inside that clubhouse and also the style of play outside of it, in between the lines. That’s exciting.”