Jeff Jones

3 weeks ago | bnd.com | Jeff Jones

Last May, after it became clear that Masyn Winn’s back was able to hold up to the strains and stresses of a major league season, Brandon Crawford racked up a mere 15 plate appearances and four starts in a month. He would linger on the roster a few months more as protection and insurance, but the St. Louis Cardinals spent most of the season playing, in effect, with a spot on the roster taken up by a player whose role didn’t pair with much need.

3 weeks ago | sports.yahoo.com | Jeff Jones

1 / 2Last May, after it became clear that Masyn Winn’s back was able to hold up to the strains and stresses of a major league season, Brandon Crawford racked up a mere 15 plate appearances and four starts in a month. He would linger on the roster a few months more as protection and insurance, but the St. Louis Cardinals spent most of the season playing, in effect, with a spot on the roster taken up by a player whose role didn’t pair with much need.

3 weeks ago | bnd.com | Jeff Jones

The St. Louis Cardinals finished April with a losing record, but their style of play demonstrated enough to their manager that he felt like more results were on the way. That showed up in May, when the Cardinals were a baseball-best 19-8. Show it. Execute it. Next – sustaining it. “That’s what this industry does, right?” Oli Marmol mused Tuesday from his Busch Stadium office. “Show the ability to do something, and they ask you to do it again.

3 weeks ago | sports.yahoo.com | Jeff Jones

1 / 2The St. Louis Cardinals finished April with a losing record, but their style of play demonstrated enough to their manager that he felt like more results were on the way. That showed up in May, when the Cardinals were a baseball-best 19-8. Show it. Execute it. Next – sustaining it. Advertisement“That’s what this industry does, right?” Oli Marmol mused Tuesday from his Busch Stadium office. “Show the ability to do something, and they ask you to do it again.

4 weeks ago | bnd.com | Jeff Jones

On the last day of last September, when the St. Louis Cardinals held the end-of-season news conference in which they formally announced the plan to transition the stewardship of baseball operations from John Mozeliak to Chaim Bloom, they were meticulous to avoid calling the decision a “rebuild.” Whether or not they believed that the market had the patience to put up with multiple years of noncompetitive baseball on the path to stockpiling draft picks, it was clear through their language that...