Jeff Jones

Ran into Pete Kozma with his kids at Wrigley a couple weeks ago. Doing great!

MLB Trade Rumors is out with their arbitration projections:

There is new music from The Format…and it’s good? Oh, it’s an incredible day to be 38 years old.

Cardinals stay the course with Marmol as MLB managerial carousel spins One former Cardinals player signed on to manager the Texas Rangers and another legend is the favorite to take over the Los Angeles Angels.

Skip Schumaker has a new job. All signs point toward Albert Pujols having one soon. That’s not a surprise to anyone with the Cardinals (or anywhere else in baseball), but it is an indication of the multiple, overlapping variables which led them to stand pat:

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Keeping a respectful eye on lots of posts about good old team-first Canadian boy Connor McDavid today so that when he takes 8x$24M from Anaheim in two years we can do a compare and contrast.

I covered this game and have no memory of this, primarily because by the end of the fourth in that game I was fully dug in on a season obituary.

This is a preseason game.

You know who’s having a killer weekend? Jack Antonoff

Texas making it official with Skip Schumaker officially puts the Cardinals on Jon Jay Watch.

Can Bloom restore Cardinals’ winning standard without big spending on payroll? And what challenges do possible MLB labor strife pose at the end of next season?

The things Chaim Bloom said he hadn’t yet gotten into and the things he didn’t say were some of Tuesday’s standouts, but even without conceding anything, it is clear the Cardinals are prepared for short term pain:

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Win or go home baseball is so much fun because managers just start Doing Stuff. There are simply almost never buttons that go un-pushed. Gimme a messy scorecard.

…unless it’s that Jack. If it’s that guy, Guards are cooked.

Guards, Cubs, Yanks

The AL Central games have been so fun and it also feels like the Mariners are going to hit 16 homers against whoever advances.

If you are laboring under the delusion that he will not be the manager on opening day, you need to get that sorted out.

One more relevant note from today: I asked Bloom if the team was comfortable going into the season with Oli Marmol on the last year of his contract or if they’d talked about an extension. They have not:

Not really, outside of Bill III talking about ongoing development in the context of working with the city on safety issues.

Bloom takes helm of Cardinals with challenge of reigniting a winning culture “We are not where our fans expect us to be, and we are not where we expect ourselves to be,” said the team’s new president of baseball operations.

In his first public comments as the Cardinals’ new president of baseball operations, Chaim Bloom said the organization historically “sets the standard for the rest of baseball.”

And now, he added, “we get to do it again”:

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Among the many notes from a follow-up conversation with Chaim Bloom:

- releasing Nolan Arenado is “not an option”
- Cardinals expect pursuing pitching depth, primarily a starter, in free agency
- GM hire will come eventually but may not be this winter

Fernandez was a horse for them last year. He made 11 appearances in 25 team games (one of which was a double header) and then he got optioned. He didn’t make a single leverage appearance after April 9.

I’m not trying to change hearts and minds here but the suggestion that his bullpen and pitching decisions are “typically very bad” just flies in the face of reality.

Oli Marmol has arrived to be in the audience for the presser, which is not the sort of thing a person who is about to be publicly fired does.

Back at Busch for today’s official introduction of Chaim Bloom. Would expect the unveiling of a clear path for the coming years as well as news and notes as far as staffing goes. Not expecting a managerial change to be among those notes.

‘Nothing planned’ tomorrow: Mozeliak makes a clean break from Cardinals Having a fresh voice, a different perspective, new ideas will be healthy for the St. Louis Cardinals,” he said.

Most of Mozeliak’s remarks today focused on his gratitude and reflection of his 30 years in the Cardinals front office. When he spoke about the economics of the current game, it was a reminder of his and the team’s place in the spread of baseball’s consultant class:

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Enormous congratulations due to Cardinals radio voice John Rooney, who is a finalist for this year’s Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame.

So too to the late Skip Caray, father of current TV voice Chip Caray.

I was incorrect. Both Bills DeWitt are present. Starting momentarily.

Hello from Busch, where there is one chair and one microphone set up on stage, as well as a podium with a microphone. The setup would suggest no ownership today, just Mozeliak.

Yadier Molina shared this on Instagram yesterday afternoon:

The end of the season brings the end of an era. What’s next for the Cardinals? “You want to take your shot and you want to play in October, so it’s always disappointing.”

After two years of respectful remove and behind the scenes maneuvering, this weekend in Chicago was striking in part for Chaim Bloom’s constant physical presence. The visual cues were everywhere — one book is slamming shut, another is about to be written:

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I would be stunned if he’s not.