Cardinals President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom admitted that while he is happy about the strides that the 2026 team made while staying in contention most of the season, he doesn't want the organization to relax or grow content this offseason.
While praising the 2026 St. Louis Cardinals squad for better defining the club’s core and culture moving forward and also continuing to point to the work that still needs to be done to get the organization back in World Series contention, president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom admitted that his emotions were a bit conflicted a day after ending the regular season.
“There are a lot of good things right now that I’m proud of, and we should be proud of them, but I can say out loud that we’re not where we want to be yet,” Bloom said on Monday from Busch Stadium after the Cardinals wrapped up a 77-85 season that left them fourth in the National League Central Division. “(Fans) heard me say last year that when we are at our best, this organization sets the standard for the rest of baseball and I can’t say that we’ve done that yet. The standings sure as hell don’t say that we’ve done that.”
Bloom said the worst thing the rebuilding Cardinals can do now is to continue to congratulate themselves on staying in Wild Card contention most of the season before fading down the stretch. Even though the Cards were as high as nine games over .500 early in the season and sat just two games back of the final Wild Card spot in early September, the harsh reality still is that the club finished 26 games behind the Brewers in the NL Central and went 2-11 against the Milwaukee squad that had the NL’s best record.
To try and close that gap, Bloom stressed that the Cardinals must continue to grow in their player development departments and with how their resources are deployed at the Major League level. While there might be temptations to try and plug holes via free agency to shorten the rebuilding curve, Bloom would prefer that the Cardinals don’t skip steps or get lax in any way. After all, the club went 27-40 after going 50-45 before the MLB All-Star Game, and a 9-15 September where the bullpen seemed gassed and injuries hit the regular rotation hard was particularly unsightly.
“What that means is we need to challenge ourselves more. This is a dangerous time, especially during the summer when we were playing well and I heard plenty of comments about how we were back on schedule and maybe ahead of schedule. We may have exceeded some people’s expectations, but in my view there’s nothing that has happened this year that should tempt us to lose focus on our goals. We need to keep building and do it the right way without shortcuts.”
Bloom continued to throw his support behind fifth-year manager Oliver Marmol, who hasn’t guided the Cardinals to the playoffs since 2022. The Cards have gone 78-84 and 77-85 over the past two seasons – the franchise’s first two-year stretch with losing records over full seasons since 1958-59 – but Bloom likes the culture Marmol helped to shape in the clubhouse and the manner in which he held players accountable while refusing to use their youth as excuses.
“(Marmol) is a huge part of what we do with the environment he creates and how he challenges the staff to put the players in the best positions to succeed,” said Bloom, who wrapped up his first full season of being in charge of the front office. But I have been pleased with that and (Marmol’s) leadership in the clubhouse and the growth in our partnership.”
Bloom lauded the growth and production of heart-of-the-order hitters Alec Burleson and Jordan Walker – both of whom posted career-best numbers across the board this season. Burleson, 28, became the first Cardinals player since Joe Torre in 1971 to lead MLB in RBI with his 116 runs batted in, and he also hammered 37 doubles and 26 home runs. Walker, 24, became a first-time All-Star and MLB’s Homer Run Derby champion while shedding his struggles of the past three seasons. The 6-foot-6, 250-pound slugger set new personal highs in games (158), hits (164), homers (29), doubles (33), RBI (102) and stolen bases (22) while slashing .269/.327/.466/.793.
However, the Cardinals president of baseball operations stopped short of suggesting that the club would be pursing long-term contract extensions with the two sluggers similar to the eight-year deal the team reached with standout rookie JJ Wetherholt that could be worth as much as $132 million if all incentives are met. Bloom pointed to the uncertainty with the Collective Bargaining Agreement, which is set to expire at midnight on Dec. 1.
“Every time the CBA is up, there is the possibility of changes, and you can speculate on the front end about what those changes might look like,” he said. “You really don’t know. Generally speaking, with respect to anything around the expiration of the CBA, my general thought is let’s not get too cute and get too far away from the things that are fundamentally in line with building this organization. We don’t know what the changes are going to be, but the fundamentals of what good organizational building looks like will still be fundamental to good organizational building.
“But we’re always looking for guys who want to be a part of this for a long time. But there are a lot of factors that go into whether you can reach those agreements or not. But it’s a fair assumption that we will always be contemplating and exploring those types of (long-term contract extensions) to some degree.”
Bloom didn’t sound like a front-office executive poised to chase veteran additions in free agency because of the timeline and arc of his youth-filled roster. While refusing to ask fans for patience, he insisted that the Cardinals still want to build their future around a strong core and culture.
“I love to expedite the learning curve for those players, but I just think the game sometimes punishes you for trying to skip steps,” said Bloom, referring to top prospects Rainiel Rodriguez (19 years old) and Liam Doyle (21 years old). “I don’t think you want to put a ceiling on somebody, but when you look at players who have excelled in Double-A and then you try to make judgements on them in Spring Training, you can get burned and it will take you time to get out of that hole. … We just have to make sure we’re not getting ahead of ourselves.”
