The Bernie Miklasz Show

If the St. Louis Cardinals aren't in position to contend in 2025 -- and why would they be? -- it makes sense for the club to explore trades. What could the Cards receive by shopping several players and letting other teams know that St. Louis was willing to make a deal for the right return? Acquiring premium prospects and/or young major-league talent would secure future assets, which is always the goal for a team that's rebuilding, resetting, regrouping, retooling -- or any other "R" word you prefer to use.

The most obvious trade candidate is closer Ryan Helsley. He had a career-best season in 2024. He was fully healthy from start to finish for the first time in his major-league career. Helsley has a full season remaining (2025) before he's eligible for free agency. He would be a high-impact addition for a bullpen-needy contender that has a chance to go all the way in '25.

It makes no sense for the Cardinals to keep Helsley for 2025. His trade value has never been higher. If the Cardinals keep him with the idea of moving at the 2025 trading deadline, that's risky business. Suppose Helsley suffers a major injury during the first few months of the '25 season? His trade value would

The St. Louis Cardinals are entering a rebuilding phase, and at the moment it is difficult to predict how it will go. Major rebuild? Moderate? Minor rebuild? We'll know soon enough. But if the Cardinals want to do it right to get it right, they can learn a few things by looking across the state to the Kansas City Royals. KC lost 106 games in 2023, but the baseball operations leader, J.J, Piccolo, continued to hire very smart people who could help him modernize the organization. And while the Royals are relentless in their approach to analytics -- and very good at implementing them -- there is plenty of room for more traditional baseball philosophies. They have a brilliant first-time manager, Matt Quatraro, who combines a heavy emphasis on analytics with common-sense, old-school sensibility. Piccolo and Quartraro are showing that it is possible to live in both worlds -- and you don't have to make a choice between analytics and old-timey baseball. You can have both.

And the Royals are proving that the best way to go is (1) Get very smart; and (2) then spend money on free agents to avoid throwing money away by making stupid payroll decisions.

Oh, and it also helps to play the Chicago White Sox, their fellow AL Central resident, 13 times per season. The Royals got into the playoffs (in large part) by going 12-1 against the woeful White Sox.

The Blues open their 2024-2025 season on Tuesday afternoon at Seattle. Good luck to The Note. It's good to have the hockey season to look forward to and enjoy. The Blues are a compelling team. GM Doug Armstrong had a positive summer, making moves to that upgraded the roster. The Blues enter the season as a younger, faster, fresher group that is layered with a lot more depth. These are all positives. And Drew Bannister, preparing for his first full season as Blues coach, used the offseason to get to know his players much better on an individual basis. The Blues responded well to Bannister after he replaced the fired head coach Craig Berube; the team was 13th overall with 67 points after the change. Bannister likes a faster-paced game, and this roster is more compatible with his preferred style.

After missing the playoffs for the past two seasons, will the Blues return to the tournament? In this video I discuss the things I really like about this team -- and I share some of the questions that are on my mind. Please add your own opinions in the comments section. Enjoy the season!

Mostly because his close association with John Mozeliak and the stigma that it carries among "Mo's" aggressive critics, Oli Marmol is an unpopular manager among Cardinals fans. Not all of them feel this way, but the negativity is obvious. And that's OK. Fans can like who they want to like. They can dislike who they want to dislike.

But here's my opinion, which no one has to agree with: I'm fine with Marmol staying in place for 2025. My reasons are obvious, and in this video I took the time to explain them. Some examples ...

The Cardinals outperformed their run differential and expected win total by 7 wins, foraging for 83 victories instead of 76. That was the best margin by an MLB team in 2024. Marmol won as many games (83) as the heralded Craig Counsell in Counsell's first season of leading the Cubs.

Marmol won the same number of games as Counsell despite the Cubs outspending the Cardinals by $46 million in the 26-man payroll accounting this season.

Marmol and Tony La Russa have something in common that may surprise you a little.

When Chaim Bloom takes over as president of baseball operations a year from now, he will be given a clean slate (and a fresh start) to select his own manager -- if he wants to. It's better to wait for the Mozeliak-Bloom transition to be completed before committing to a new manager.

The Cardinals are firing batting coach Turner Ward, who oversaw an offense that ranked 22nd overall and 12th in the National League in runs per game this season. The Cards were dreadful offensively in too many areas -- and especially futile when batting with runners in scoring position.

And in this video, I detail the specific failures of the team's flawed approach at the plate. The Cards made the right decision to move on from Turner Ward. They have to bring in a new batting coach (or two) who can identify the underlying issues, make corrections, and give the St. Louis hitters a more focused and coherent philosophy at the plate?

But what happens if the hitters don't respond and improve under a new batting coach in 2025? What if the bad habits remain? What would this tell us? One possible answer: the hitters aren't good enough, and that can't be blamed (only) on the hitting instructor.

I keep chuckling at the people who feel so compelled to tell us that Chaim Bloom wasn't all that great as a front-office baseball executive at Tampa Bay because the Rays never won a World Series .... Oh ... in this video, I try to explain why the Rays did such a sensational job of winning with an average annual budget that ranked 27th among 30 teams over a 13-year period. And the Rays were frequently 28th, 29th or 30th in the rankings. They were also near the bottom each year in home attendance.

What would you say if I reminded everyone that the Rays won as many pennants (2) as the Cardinals (2) during Bloom's primary seasons at Tampa Bay. What will you say when I tell you that the Rays -- with Bloom playing a critical role -- drafted and developed and built rosters that put the Rays in more World Series (2) than the financial-behemoth Yankees (1) from 2008 through 2020? What Bloom and his front-office associates did in Tampa was a baseball miracle -- a team shouldn't be this good when operating at a severe financial disadvantage in the MLB spending wars.

And I'll show you how the Cardinals have been the opposite of that -- winning only 25 more regular-season games than the Rays over 13 seasons despite out-spending Tampa Bay by more than $700 million in payroll.

Chaim Bloom is an ideal hire by Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. Why? A simple reason: they both share a love of drafting, player development and building a thriving minor-league system.

DeWitt's baseball DNA goes way back to accompanying his father -- who ran and owned the Cincinnati Reds -- on scouting trips. The young DeWitt Jr. also installed a database for the Reds' scouting department years before other MLB teams did something similar. DeWitt was, in some ways, ahead of his time.

And if you think this is a bunch of hooey, then answer me a question: did you enjoy the results when DeWitt did something unpredictable and unusual by hiring an analyst named Jeff Luhnow out of the corporate world to put in a new and advanced system for scouting, drafting and player development? Was that OK? Did you like all of that winning and winning and winning?

DeWitt got away from his love of player development for reasons that I still don't understand. He let the minor league systems slide and become outdated. But at age 83, DeWitt is fired up by the addition of Chaim Bloom to the baseball organization. Bloom will not only rebuild and modernize the STL minor-league operation, but he'll also reenergize Bill DeWitt's love for player development -- a longtime DeWitt/Cardinals strength that lapsed into weakness.

The Cardinals are in denial. They insist they're not rebuilding. Except that they are rebuilding, and still can't play it straight with the fans. It's strange. And that's not all.

Not only is John Mozeliak staying in the role of president for baseball operations in 2025, he's also taking over the GM position after the Cardinals moved GM Michael Girsch to another role. (VP of special projects, whatever that is.) All along, we thought there was a chance of Chaim Bloom being promoted to president of baseball ops immediately, in place to chart plans for the team's 2025 season.

Instead, Bloom will spend 2025 immersed in the massive restoration project of the team's minor-league and player development system -- and then he'll succeed Mozeliak as the head of the baseball department following the 2025 season.

The Cardinals have tested their fans' patience -- again! -- by keeping the highly unpopular Mozeliak in charge. And now they've doubled down on Mozeliak, approving of his plan to also serve as the GM to go along with his other job. The Cardinals are still in denial about Mozeliak's low approval rating ... and this figures to cost them even more business in 2025.

The Cardinals acquired first baseman Paul Goldschmidt before the 2019 season. According to reporting from Katie Woo of The Athletic, the Cardinals are moving on from Goldschmidt. His contract is up, and he can become a free agent, signing with a new team that could give him a chance to win a pennant and World Series.

And with the Cardinals entering a rebuilding phase, it makes sense to go with young players, so we'll probably see some new faces at first base for the Cardinals next season.

Before the 2021 season the Cardinals made a stunning trade for third baseman Nolan Arenado, and the Goldy-Arenado infield cornerstones seemed set to lead the Cardinals to greatness. They even finished 1st (Golldy) and 3rd (Arenado) in the 2022 National League MVP balloting. But that was the highlight of their four seasons together from 2021 through 2024.

The Cardinals wasted the Goldschmidt-Arenado years. All in all they played in three postseason games together, didn't hit, and the Cardinals lost all three contests: the wild-card game against the Dodgers in 2021, and then got eliminated in 2022 in a two-game sweep by the Phillies in the wild-card round. Hopes of a World Series title never materialized, and the Goldy-Arenado tandem didn't come through in limited postseason opportunities.

According to reliable media reports, St. Louis Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. is staying with John Mozeliak as the team's president of baseball operations. DeWitt could have gone another way by installing newcomer Chaim Bloom as the head of baseball ops. It will be extremely difficult for DeWitt to convince skeptical fans that the franchise is headed in a new direction when the same guy, Mozeliak, is still in charge. I'm not sure why DeWitt expects fans to buy into a "new era" sales pitch as long as Mozeliak presides over baseball decisions.