Cardinals, John Mozeliak chase results while building transitional runway

New York Times

09-05-2025

As the St. Louis Cardinals close in on the quarter mark of the 2025 season, there's still uncertainty around their direction.
A season-best five-game winning streak has propelled the team back to .500 after spending the majority of April three to four games under that mark. Their 19-19 record has them in striking distance in the National League Central, just three games behind the first-place Chicago Cubs. Multiple players have taken several encouraging steps, including Brendan Donovan, Victor Scott II and Matthew Liberatore.
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Still, the 2025 season is six weeks old. It's too early to draw definitive conclusions about the Cardinals, from either a team or an individual player standpoint.
Throughout the offseason, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak reiterated that the Cardinals would be undergoing a transition season. Granting playing time and opportunities to an array of the organization's young or up-and-coming players would be the priority. It's why the organization was mostly inactive in the free-agent market, and why the majority of their traction in the trade market involved the idea of offloading key players (such as Nolan Arenado), not acquiring them. But Mozeliak never advertised a tanking season, and he went to great lengths to avoid using any reference to the term 'rebuild.'
In fact, Mozeliak preached the opposite. Despite the emphasis on in-house talent and player development this season, Mozeliak doubled-down and pledged the 2025 Cardinals would still try to compete. The strategy would just look (vastly) different than his usual operations.
And so the defining question for the season was born: Can the Cardinals balance runway and results at the same time?
'Right now, we're trying to straddle that fence,' Mozeliak said in a recent interview with The Athletic. 'By mid-June, there might be a fork in the road for us, but at this point we can at least provide ourselves that opportunity to try (to do both).'
In other words, allow the next several weeks to answer that question.
The Cardinals have played somewhat consistent baseball. Their starting rotation's 4.08 ERA is higher than the league average, but it ranks fifth in MLB in innings pitched (337 and 2/3) and has done a respectable job keeping games within reach. They are a much better team offensively than they were last season: Entering play Thursday, St. Louis ranked first in team average (.260), sixth in on-base percentage (.334) and 11th in both slugging percentage (.401) and OPS (.740).
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Their bullpen has plagued them, but the Cardinals feel confident about some newly restructured roles, which will see Gordon Graceffo and Steven Matz play shorter relief stints ahead of set-up men Kyle Leahy and Phil Maton, then closer Ryan Helsley.
They feel they have the pieces to remain competitive — at least within the division — but that doesn't mean things are perfect.
'We do feel like our starting pitchers are keeping us in games,' Mozeliak said. 'We do feel like we have an excellent closer. We need to find the right formula in our bullpen, but we do have an array of options internally where we can keep reshuffling that deck. From the position player standpoint, it's creating that chance for these guys to grow.
This is a hard league to grow, right? You either do or you don't. But we've been very clear this year that we are going to try to have that patient hat on, and from that standpoint, we're going to give it some time. But some things we're measuring might not simply be a box score result.'
Jordan Walker and Nolan Gorman, that's your cue.
Mozeliak pointed toward an assortment of position players off to encouraging starts this season, acknowledging Scott's play on both sides of the ball. He also highlighted Lars Nootbaar's health and the poise of both catchers in Pedro Pagés and Iván Herrera (who has missed a month of play with a left knee bruise, but is set to be activated off the injured list Friday ahead of the team's three-game series against the Washington Nationals). Still, Mozeliak knows Walker and Gorman are the two players facing the most scrutiny this season.
'Jordan Walker, from a defensive standpoint, he's made major strides,' Mozeliak said. 'From an offensive standpoint, you still want to see more consistency. Throw in Nolan Gorman, we were challenged to try to find him at-bats early on, but I think we've navigated that a little better and I hope he makes the most of it.'
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Intentional or not, Gorman, 24, and Walker, 22, are the designated faces of this transition. Perhaps it's their pedigree as former top prospects and first-round draft picks, or the fact that both players have floundered in the big leagues since debuting in 2022 and 2023, respectively. Either way, as the Cardinals focus on 2026 and beyond, they need to know if they can count on Walker or Gorman as consistent offensive contributors. That's why Mozeliak and manager Oli Marmol identified them as the players who will see the most opportunity early on, regardless of results.
Neither player has seized the moment, however. Gorman has played in 22 games after missing roughly two weeks with a minor hamstring strain in early April. He's hitting just .182 with an OPS below .600 and has struck out 23 times in 81 at-bats. Walker hasn't fared much better. In 31 games, he's hitting .196/.262/.268 with a 31 percent strikeout rate. Both are still battling the issues that afflicted them in prior seasons. Walker is struggling to lay off pitches outside of the zone and hit the ball in the air. Gorman is struggling to make consistent contact.
The Cardinals were prepared for a situation like this. The benefit of giving both players continuous playing time is that Gorman and Walker will have ample chances to make changes without the looming sense of a possible demotion. But that runway has a limit.
'It's an important year for both,' Mozeliak said. 'You only get so many chances this year. That's not to say that because of their ages, they won't get more, but ultimately, trying to have personal success as well as team success is always the needle you're trying to thread. For them, they have to make the most of their opportunities, and you hope to see incremental growth throughout the season.
'We are trying to win out here. We did state we're going to be patient, and so we are. But there are some strategic things that these young men need to be doing to start showing they're making those changes. We can't continue to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome. Yes, they are going to be given a long opportunity to try to get themselves where they need to be. But it's not infinite.'
The Cardinals will continue with their current plan for the foreseeable future. But Mozeliak's comments suggest that if St. Louis has a chance to contend for the division, he will deviate. There is no set blueprint for how Mozeliak will navigate the team approaching the trade deadline — it's much too early to know whether the Cardinals will buy or sell come July. But the team's play over the next six weeks or so will certainly help dictate those choices, and Mozeliak hopes that process won't be easy.
'Things will be determined by how we play and what our record is,' Mozeliak said. 'We hope we're in a position where we're adding to our club. But if we're not, we have a lot of exciting pieces that teams would value as we get closer to July 31. Time will tell. But I think it's a fun team to watch, I think it's entertaining. And I hope we have to make some really hard decisions.'
(Top photo of John Mozeliak: Justin Ford / Getty Images)