{"id":182083,"date":"2025-10-01T08:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T08:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/182083\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T08:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T08:23:07","slug":"chaim-bloom-on-marmol-arenado-gray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/182083\/","title":{"rendered":"Chaim Bloom On Marmol, Arenado, Gray"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chaim Bloom was officially introduced as Cardinals president of baseball operations at a press conference on Tuesday morning. He takes control at a time when multiple reports have suggested they\u2019re moving to a rebuild that\u2019ll put Nolan Arenado<\/a>,\u00a0Sonny Gray<\/a>,\u00a0Willson Contreras<\/a> and others back in trade rumors.<\/p>\n

While Bloom pointedly avoided the term \u201crebuild,\u201d his meeting with the media did little to dispel the overall notion. \u201cWe have talent here. We have more talent coming, and we have some of the makings of that core, but we need more. Our top priority will be to build our talent base for the long term,\u201d he told reporters (link via Katie Woo of The Athletic<\/a>). \u201cThat may mean hard decisions and short-term sacrifices, but to get where we want to go, we can\u2019t take shortcuts \u2014 and we won\u2019t.\u201d Bloom subsequently added that while they\u2019ll \u201chunt moves and decisions that allow (them to win) right now,\u201d the focus will be on the long term if they need \u201cto choose between short-term gratification and our bigger goal of contending consistently.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of that comes as a surprise. Arenado, Gray and Contreras have all confirmed they\u2019d spoken to Bloom late in the season and understood where the organization was going. That\u2019s the impetus for all three players saying they\u2019re willing to consider waiving their no-trade clauses in the right circumstances (though Contreras said he\u2019d still prefer to stay<\/a> and be a veteran mentor).<\/p>\n

Oliver Marmol will continue to oversee things in the dugout. Bloom confirmed the manager will be back for a fifth season (relayed by Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch<\/a>). Marmol is under contract through the end of next season. Bloom indicated there haven\u2019t been any extension talks to date but didn\u2019t dismiss the possibility of having those conversations at some point.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also an uncertain timeline on the club\u2019s GM hire. Former general manager Michael Girsch was reassigned to vice president of special projects last offseason \u2014 a move that came in conjunction with the team\u2019s announcement that Bloom would replace John Mozeliak as baseball operations president going into 2026. Bloom will eventually hire his own top lieutenant with the GM title but indicated that might not happen this offseason (via Jeff Jones of The Belleville News-Democrat<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Of course, most of the focus will be on the team\u2019s expected roster turnover. The Cardinals will be motivated to try to trade Arenado, who is signed for two more seasons. They\u2019re on the hook for $22MM of next season\u2019s $27MM salary (though another $6MM of that is deferred) and his entire $15MM deal for 2027. They\u2019d need to pay down the bulk of the money given Arenado\u2019s declining offensive production. Bloom spoke of a general openness to kicking in cash in the right trades but definitively shot down the idea that they might simply release Arenado if no trade presented itself.<\/p>\n

St. Louis would also need to eat some money on Gray. That\u2019s less an indictment on the right-hander\u2019s performance than a reflection of his contract structure. His three-year, $75MM free agent deal was heavily backloaded. Gray will make $35MM next season and is guaranteed a $5MM buyout on a $30MM option for 2027. It\u2019s a $40MM commitment for one year, the kind of salary that has been reserved for late-career aces who were still performing at Cy Young levels (e.g. Justin Verlander<\/a>,\u00a0Max Scherzer<\/a>,\u00a0Zack Wheeler<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Gray remains a very good pitcher but isn\u2019t at that level. Assuming the Cardinals are willing to eat some of the money, there\u2019d be plenty of teams intrigued by the idea of adding Gray to the rotation. The three-time All-Star has already acknowledged<\/a> he\u2019s willing to think about waiving his no-trade clause. Bloom said the front office will \u201csee what\u2019s out there, and if there\u2019s something that could make sense for us that furthers our goals that he also wants to do, then we\u2019ll explore\u201d trade possibilities (via Woo).<\/p>\n

However, he contrasted Gray\u2019s situation with Arenado\u2019s and implied that the Cardinals are a little less motivated to trade the former. \u201cWith Sonny, the situation is a bit different in that we do have a clear fit for him here,\u201d Bloom said. Even in a non-competitive year, the Cardinals will need some level of veteran presence in the rotation. They\u2019re not going to keep Gray for that reason alone, but they\u2019ll already have ample opportunity for pitchers like Matthew Liberatore<\/a>,\u00a0Michael McGreevy<\/a> and\u00a0Kyle Leahy<\/a> to stake claims to rotation spots. The Cards aren\u2019t going to be major players in free agency, but Bloom said they\u2019ll be in the market for pitching depth in both the starting staff and the bullpen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chaim Bloom was officially introduced as Cardinals president of baseball operations at a press conference on Tuesday morning.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,6591,116776,24614,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-182083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-nolan-arenado","12":"tag-oliver-marmol","13":"tag-sonny-gray","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}