I’ve been writing and yapping about St. Louis Cardinals baseball since 1985, and I’ve never seen the fan base so polarized in how it sees a franchise that opens the 2024 season on Thursday in Los Angeles.
The Cardinals are …
+ A highly successful franchise that, since the start of 2000, leads all National League teams in regular-season wins, postseason wins, postseason games played – and has made the playoffs more times than any NL club … or a team that went 71-91 last season, is living in the past, doesn’t receive any credit or benefit of the doubt consideration as related to the past, has let the once-proud franchise slide into a humiliating pit of mediocrity. This is all that matters. So the anger is legit.
The Cardinals are …
+ A proud and recovering contender that’s determined to prove that they’re still a team to be reckoned with … or a joke, a complacent also-ran, that takes the fans for granted and isn’t committed to winning.
The Cardinals are …
+ A franchise that in 2024 is spending the most money it’s ever invested in the 40-man payroll, at an amount of $212.8 million … or a cheapskate organization that knows the fans will still show up for home games – the usual 3 million-plus again this season – and expectation kills ownership-management incentive to spend more and aim higher.
The Cardinals are …
+ A team that quickly and aggressively boosted an ailing starting rotation with the signings of free agents Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson … or the play-it-conservatively team that was too cheap to go “all in” on the most heralded free-agent starters – choosing quantity over quality when it could have had both.
The Cardinals are …
+ A team that understands the value of having starters crank out a high volume of innings, and knows that a more bountiful supply of deeper starts will raise the winning percentage by a considerable amount – a theory that’s 100 percent supported by the stats and facts … or a team that uses this “innings” strategy as a spin to justify the unwillingness to be more aggressive and ambitious about spending big money to win big.
The Cardinals are …
+ A team that absolutely, positively had to sign starting pitching Jordan Montgomery or their entire season would wither and die even before it began … or, they are a team that almost always stays out of the Scott Boras market to avoid getting dragged into his slow-playing, drawn out negotiation tactics that can leave them stranded when his top clients sign elsewhere.
The Cardinals are …
+ A pragmatic, grounded-to-reality operation that uses a foundational approach that’s worked very well for them through the years – even with some disappointment mixed in … or a musty operation that has fallen behind the rest of the industry and now must catch up in staffing, technology, analytics, etc.
The Cardinals are …
+ A team that smartly added the presence of respected leaders Matt Carpenter, Brandon Crawford, Lance Lynn, Sonny Gray and Kyle Gibson to enhance the clubhouse culture … or a team that put too much emphasis on vibe and mood and brotherhood and feelings instead of upgrading the roster with a larger dose of elite talent.
The Cardinals are …
+ A team that should win the NL Central … or a team that won’t make the playoffs – and besides, even if this flimsy team did make the playoffs they’d get bounced and embarrassed (again) in the postseason.
The Cardinals are …
+ A team that’s slipped because it doesn’t commit larger funding to constructing an outstanding rotation … or an organization that has a much bigger problem, one that has little to do with money: their failure to draft and develop quality, sustainable homegrown pitching – a strength that was their hallmark for many years and kept them rolling to the most success by a NL franchise since the turn of the century.
The Cardinals are …
+ A team with a front office that doesn’t know how to choose and evaluate managers and has drifted since Tony La Russa retired following the 2011 season … or a team with a front office that has still managed to rank second in the NL in regular-season wins and third in the NL in postseason wins, and second in the league in most postseason games played since La Russa left. But they’ve only won a single NL pennant (and no World Series) since 2012. But it’s not like this franchise has been submerged in a hopeless swamp and disappeared from sight since TLR departed. It could be a helluva lot worse.
The Cardinals are …
+ An organization that is doing much better in the quest to draft and develop position players. Examples include Jordan Walker, Brendan Donovan, Nolan Gorman, Lars Nootbaar, Victor Scott II, Ivan Herrera, and, before that, Tommy Edman … or they’re an organization that constantly screws up their assessments of outfielders. It is a chronic and bewildering failure that keeps them spinning around in dizzying circles.
(Or maybe both things are true?)
I don’t know where you stand on all of this, but both sides are convinced their opinion is right, and anyone who doesn’t see it that way is wrong, and there is no middle ground in this argument. In other words, this is just part of Extreme America in 2024.
The Cardinals have much to prove in 2024. They have a lot of questions to answer in ‘24. They could be a comeback team, or they could stay stuck in decline. In terms of a body of work – and considering the sorry state of the franchise from 1990 through 1995 – chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. has been a terrific owner for 28 seasons, and it’s ridiculously unfair to ignore or dismiss that. But it’s also true that DeWitt and president of baseball operations John Mozeliak could have done a lot more to prevent the freefall of 2023. And more than anyone, it’s up to them to make things right in ‘24, and use that as the beginning of a relaunch to another wave of high-level success. And it’s also true that the Cardinals are a bit stuck in their ways at the management-ownership levels. That’s why 2023 happened.
That said, I don’t see why any Cardinal fan should declare the 2024 campaign a failure before the squad has played even one regular-season game, and I see a lot of that going on. We live in rancorous times. And we are immersed in a culture where grievance rules, even if it’s unmerited.
Fans have the right to complain – and should – over the mess in 2023, and this franchise continues to receive exceptional, generous fan support. But how much anger is fair – or for that matter, unfair? I can’t be the kind of person who dismisses nearly 30 decades of (mostly) prosperous, on-field results during the DeWitt Era. Pushing the Cardinals to do better is not only reasonable – it’s valuable.
But expressing outrage just to be outraged may win some sort of imaginary social-media trophy, but that isn’t the way to hold the Cardinals to a higher standard. Truth is, the fans have the power because they buy the tickets and the merch and the ballpark goodies. They watch the games on TV, and are responsible for putting the Cardinals near the top (or at the top) of distinguished industry ratings.
I guess what I’m trying to say is this: the Cardinals and their fans have enjoyed a wonderful, mutually happy relationship for a long time. If we’re comparing good times to bad times, it isn’t a contest. The DeWitt decades have been mostly positive – and much more positive than most MLB teams can claim. As awful as the fan experience was in a lost and pitiful 2023, there’s no reason to blow up the bond that’s been so strong, for so long. There’s no value in overreacting to the extreme. If there’s a bottom line here for me, I’d put it this way: it’s up to the Cardinals to reinforce their fan loyalty instead of allowing the DeWitt Era to fade away.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie hosts an opinionated and analytical sports-talk show on 590 The Fan, KFNS. It airs 3-6 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 4-6 p.m. on Friday. Stream it live or grab the show podcast on 590thefan.com or through the 590 The Fan St. Louis app.
Please follow Bernie on Twitter @miklasz and on Threads @miklaszb
For weekly Cards talk, listen to the “Seeing Red” podcast with Will Leitch and Miklasz via 590thefan.com or through your preferred podcast platform. Follow @seeingredpod on Twitter for a direct link.
All stats used in my baseball columns are sourced from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, StatHead, Baseball Savant, Baseball Prospectus, Sports Info Solutions and Cot’s Contracts unless otherwise noted.
For the last 36 years Bernie Miklasz has entertained, enlightened, and connected with generations of St. Louis sports fans.
While best known for his voice as the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch for 26 years, Bernie has also written for The Athletic, Dallas Morning News and Baltimore News American. A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has hosted radio shows in St. Louis, Dallas, Baltimore and Washington D.C.
Bernie, his wife Kirsten and their cats reside in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood of St. Louis.
