The St. Louis Cardinals have been in purgatory for the past few seasons, desperately hoping that their increasingly fragile structure would last another year. But if Katie Woo’s article in The Athletic (subscription required) is any indication, the Cardinals might finally be ready to remove the supporting Jenga block and start over.

The Cardinals have held on to their history as a successful franchise, but as opposing teams have surpassed them in state-of-the-art technology and effective coaching and scouting, the Cardinals’ reputation has declined among players and fans alike. Supporters of the team have been asking for the team to stop treading water and hit the reset button, and the Cardinals may finally be ready to oblige. Fans may see this as cause for celebration, but they should not be too quick to proclaim that the team is on the right track.

Getting the Cardinals back on track will require buy-in from the entire organization. The Cardinals have just five full-time minor league coaches, among the fewest in the league, and the team needs to add catching, infield and outfield instructors to that number. They need to build the pitching lab in Florida that they seem to have put on the backburner for the last five years. The Cardinals must commit to using their budget in ways that are foreign to this team. And therein lies reason for concern.

Front office members will likely say they will reallocate the team’s resources toward coaching and technological improvements, but it is not possible to prove whether they will actually do so. The only publicly available information about a team’s expenses relates to salaries. So the Cardinals claim that they will invest the money that used to go to players into reinventing the minor leagues, but there is no way for anyone outside the organization to know that this commitment is real or merely a possibility for the Owners to conceal the reasons for a reduction in payroll.

Public relations isn’t the Cardinals’ strong suit, but if the Cardinals become less committed to the major league team, that equates to the front office being transparent about what’s going on in the minor leagues affecting the team in the long term to improve running. The Cardinals are devastated, and honesty and openness from the people running the team will be required by fans as they embrace the potential lack of success at the highest level next season.

2025 could be a painful season, but with a fresh face in Chaim Bloom taking a more prominent position in minor league direction, the Cardinals have a chance to recalibrate and replenish their largely dried-up talent pool. There is reason for optimism, but the team has damaged its reputation so badly that fans should also have a healthy dose of skepticism.