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Too many executives shy away from dealing all of the veterans while rebuilding, trying to hold on to fan favorites, to popular players in the clubhouse, or just to keep from blasting another hole in the roster. Bloom, by making this last move, completed a process the Cards needed to go through. There were six Cardinals 28 and older who batted for the team last year. Three of them have been traded, one left as a free agent, and one was waived in-season. Yohel Pozo, a rookie last year, returns. Run the same calculation on the pitching staff, and you find that of the 13 pitchers 28 and older who pitched for the ’25 Cardinals, just five remain, mostly low-service-time relief pitchers.
As I write this, the Cardinals have 39 players on their 40-man roster, and just three of them will play the 2026 season at a baseball age of 30 or older: Riley O’Brien, Ryne Stanek, and Nick Raquet, all relievers. There isn’t a single position player on this team older than 29. Bloom has cleared a roster logjam that interfered, at times, with the development of young players. Those players now take center stage.