Last off-season, everything that the St. Louis Cardinals did fell into place relatively quickly. They signed Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn by Thanksgiving and then added Sonny Gray the next Monday. They traded Tyler O’Neill two-and-a-half weeks before Christmas. Even the Matt Carpenter signing, which felt like a checkout aisle impulse buy, happened on January 19th–only the Brandon Crawford signing, in February, fell later on the calendar than we currently sit, and even those who were optimistic about the signing weren’t inclined to consider the addition a major one.

On January 9, the Cardinals claimed pitcher Bailey Horn off waivers from the Detroit Tigers, a move that fits squarely within the “okay, they picked a guy up that a team was giving away for free” tier of exciting free agent signings. And aside from the inevitable declarations of free agency in October–Gibson, Lynn, Carpenter, Andrew Kittredge, Keynan Middleton, and most notably Paul Goldschmidt–that’s been the extent of the Cardinals’ off-season. And it has been utterly baffling.

It is not uncommon for Major League Baseball teams to make minimal big-league moves during the off-season, but typically, one would assume that this would come from an already-successful team without many holes to fill or it would come from an already-depleted roster that is still rebuilding. But the Cardinals don’t really exist in either of those spaces–they finished six games out of a Wild Card spot in 2024, which was still a marked improvement from 2023, but neither team was exactly a credible contender for the title of absolute worst team in the sport.

There is a compelling case for the Cardinals to move either direction. On one hand, the core of the team is growing older–they already fielded a strikingly veteran starting rotation last season, Paul Goldschmidt was already set to walk in free agency, and the likes of Nolan Arenado and Willson Contreras, while still productive, are squarely on the wrong side of thirty and not expected to materially improve going forward. On the other hand, the Cardinals have a lot of young players who have shown flashes–the club has not given up, say, on Jordan Walker or Nolan Gorman, despite mixed-at-best results–and if a handful of guys in their twenties can have breakouts akin to 2024 Masyn Winn, supplementing them with a handful of reliable veterans could put the Cardinals into playoff position. But the 2025 Cardinals, as they stand at this moment, exist in purgatory.

At the recent Cardinals’ Winter Warm-Up, John Mozeliak admitted that the highest organizational priority at this moment was the much-rumored trade of Nolan Arenado. This trade would suggest that the Cardinals plan to rebuild–Arenado, although his performance has dropped the last two seasons, is certainly still a more reliable option than the Cardinals’ internal replacement candidates, but said candidates are younger and certainly cheaper. That they are outright admitting their desire to trade Arenado also suggests that the organization isn’t trying to necessarily entice a can’t-miss offer as much as a best-we-can-get one.

When it came to the trade which brought Nolan Arenado to St. Louis, the Cardinals had the easy job once the willingness to spend the necessary money was established. Give up a handful of inessential prospects, commit to paying an All-Star third baseman less than his contract is worth, profit! The potential downside of Nolan Arenado–that he was already in his thirties and that his gaudy power numbers (five consecutive full seasons with no fewer than 37 home runs) were likely at least exacerbated by playing at Coors Field–were essentially non-factors in the short term. But in the long term, the Cardinals now have (and were always likely to have) a good but not MVP caliber third baseman who is earning more money than he would currently command on the open market. And that’s fine–it’s still a good trade–but the Cardinals may not be realistic about what they can get back. If a prospect package headlined by Austin Gomber was enough to get a discounted Arenado in early 2021, his value is certainly less four years later.

Why the trading of Arenado, which admittedly does seem a bit more complex than the trading of a pre-free agent such as Ryan Helsley, would preclude them from making other moves is beyond me. Based on the salaries that relief pitchers are commanding as free agents, a year of a relatively inexpensive Ryan Helsley could warrant a worthwhile return for the Cardinals. Less adamantly rumored but still cited from time to time is a potential sell-off of Sonny Gray, who was effective when healthy and could generate some legitimate buzz.

What’s irritating from a fan perspective is that while holding on to Arenado, Helsley, and Gray suggests some confidence in the club going forward, replacing 40% of last year’s rotation as well as the team’s offensive focal point with absolutely nothing suggests a lack of seriousness in competing immediately. Paul Goldschmidt returning to the Cardinals was never even suggested as a remote possibility, and it wasn’t as though there were rumors of a pursuit of Christian Walker (or, present tense, rumors of a pursuit of Pete Alonso)–just move Willson Contreras to first base and pencil in the offensively uneven Pedro Pagés to split time at catcher with Ivan Herrera, who himself spent material time with the Memphis Redbirds last season. As it stands, the Cardinals’ rotation would be Sonny Gray, Erick Fedde, Miles Mikolas, Andre Pallante, and Steven Matz; it’s the kind of rotation that with even one more reliable starter would simply look that much tougher and deeper. And there were plenty of good starting pitchers available–Corbin Burnes, Roki Sasaki, Blake Snell, Max Fried, Shane Bieber, Nathan Eovaldi. A reunion with Jack Flaherty, which would improve the team but it should be reminded that it is no longer late summer 2019, is just about the best case scenario that the Cardinals could hope to reach.

I tend to believe that Cardinals attendance woes are a bit overblown–attendance has dropped throughout baseball, and the corporate ticket base for the Cardinals remains relatively steady even if the tickets aren’t being used as frequently as they once were–but the dips do reflect apathy. And I get it–the Cardinals may be a .500ish team in terms of talent, but they are so much more boring than that record would suggest. They need to either improve the team or at least create some kind of compelling argument why the team is worth monitoring–a genuine sense that the club has a strong young core emerging would help, even if it does not translate to overwhelmingly positive on-field results just yet. At this point, any move would be a welcome change of pace.