Chaim Bloom led off his first Q&A with the Cardinals’ amateur media with a pledge to be candid. As special advisor to John Mozeliak for the past two seasons, Bloom watched his predecessor’s tenure end on sour terms with St. Louis fans weary of front office apathy – real, perceived, or both – to mounting losses.
The tone, if not the substance, was different on Saturday. Opportunity – not patience – is Bloom’s favorite buzz word.
“There’s 29 other people that get to (direct an MLB front office) and that’s our competition, because you wake up every day and go kick their ass. You never really know if you did it, but like, if that’s your role, what does that mean you have to get out of today? And if you ever lose that edge, it’s like you put a timer on yourself.”
Bloom isn’t satisfied with the Cards’ better-than-expected start to 2026 but his sights are firmly set on the organization’s long-term retooling.
“Hey we’ve gotten off to this good start, but this is not the goal, like we haven’t accomplished a damn thing,” he said. “I think the objective reality is that we’re not anywhere close to where we really need to be. But also, like, the way I’m wired, I will just probably never feel (satisfied). But that, to me, that’s the fun.”
On Early Contract Extensions for Wetherholt, Walker
“When you talk about extensions for young players, like, I think these get portrayed as we’re rewarding guys, right? And yeah, obviously we have to have belief in the player but also belief in the person. But it’s also a risk-sharing arrangement, right? When a player starts his career, the risk is all on him. And when we enter into one of these (extensions), we’re sharing the risk with the player – and we’re sort of going into an arrangement to do this together, and there’s a lot of factors that go into that. Even when everybody wants it, still figuring out the right time, right terms, it doesn’t always come together. Sometimes it does, and those are great. But really for me, its more belief in the player and belief in the person as far as who we approach.”
On Maintaining Progress and Tradition
“Every organization is going to figure out who they are and being the best version of themselves. And it’s on us to do that. When we look at the history of the Cardinals, it’s not something the Cardinals haven’t done – it has to be a little new and a little different every time you want to (have success) again.”
“It’s kind of tough for me because I’m actually a huge baseball history nerd. Like, I love this (stuff)…and the best way we honor that history is by not trying to rinse-and-repeat but trying to figure out what’s next.”
On the use of Artificial Intelligence in Baseball
“Candidly, we still have some work to do to figure out how to leverage this really well. This is one of those things, it’s actually scary in some ways – not just because I don’t see how this doesn’t end with the robots killing or enslaving (us) – like, you know, when I become a battery for a machine, I’d like to have a World Series ring on my finger. So until that happens, we want to try to do everything we can to leverage it to win.”
On the Looming CBA Impact to the Cards Rebuild
“It could (offer opportunities). You know, it’s hard to know what motivates everybody, whether teams or players – when they’re thinking about decisions they have to make – and sometimes if you see opportunities there you want to ask yourself, why are people behaving the way that they do? Could it have something to do with how they’re thinking about (MLB’s economic model). But I think from our end, this comes up every few years when there is a CBA out – could there be changes? What might they look like? There are always opportunities that emerge from that, but the fundamentals of what makes a good organization and what’s winning baseball, those change over time, but I don’t think they usually change because of the CBA…you are probably getting too cute if you start to get too far away from the things that make good organizations.”
