For players new and old, ‘Cardinals Mystique’ is a source of hope for the new season

Asked when he first started considering the importance of focusing on acquiring players who were explicitly interested in being St. Louis Cardinals, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak answered in form more befitting the middle of the season than an opening press conference on Valentine’s Day.

“Probably about 20 years ago,” he answered, significantly drier than the moist Florida air. “When you look at over the course of those years, some of those decisions we’ve made that have been positive versus negative, there is definitely a common denominator of people that truly want to be here.

“In the free agent world, proxy tends to be dollars or years and dollars, whereas there are times where people just really truly want to be a part of this organization, a part of the St. Louis community, and it usually ends much better that way.”

“It’s helpful when you have a ton of players who want to be here, be in St. Louis, be Cardinals,” manager Oliver Marmol added. “Know what we stand for, get back to winning baseball after last year.”

That explanation for roster building could be construed as convenient, fit to the facts rather than the other way around, but it does underline the speed with which the club moved on three new starting pitchers.

Sonny Gray has spent the opening days of camp fitting in observation and connection between his own work, taking time Wednesday to watch prospect starter Gordon Graceffo throw a bullpen session. Kyle Gibson was distributing chocolate valentines in teammates’ lockers, and Lance Lynn’s spin through fielding stations on the backfields was met with a fan calling out to Lynn that it was nice to see him back in Jupiter.

“Thank you,” Lynn answered. “Good to be back.”

Perfunctory or not, that is the message that’s being emphasized in an attempt to get the most out of the winter’s new and old additions. While spending last summer planted at the far end of the bench in San Diego, Matt Carpenter kept track of his old team and their struggles. Players talk, he said, and by his recollection, the reaction to the failed season in St. Louis was near consensus.

“It wasn’t like, ‘yeah, what would you expect,’” Carpenter said. “It was more like, ‘man, I can’t believe that’s happening.’ The message that I told Oli and told the guys that are here, the mystique of this team is still here.

“There’s a lot of respect for this [clubhouse], and that’s not going to go away in one season.”

The central question facing the Cardinals is whether Carpenter is correct in his assessment that 2023 was a one-year blip or whether it was instead the culmination of a broader downward trend. That suggestion is frequently met with heavy resistance, seemingly dismissed out of hand despite no postseason games won in the championship series or later since 2014.

Adam Wainwright’s retirement last fall left St. Louis with no players in the organization who had represented the team in the World Series. Now, with Carpenter and Lynn’s return, there are two.

Asked how rewarding it would be to help restore the status the Cardinals held for so long, Carpenter said, “it would be awesome, but not for me, for us. For the fans and for the people that support this organization and for the front office and coaching staff. There’s so many people that are involved in this, and…baseball is better when the Cardinals are where they should be. I know I’m biased, but that’s just the way I [feel].”

That sort of commitment – the belief that St. Louis is a special baseball market with a well-regarded place in the competitive landscape – is what the Cardinals were after this winter, and it’s indicative of the attitude and leadership that the club believes players like Carpenter can provide.

It’s also, viewed unfavorably, the vague sort of entitlement that causes those in the orbits of countless other teams to roll their eyes relentlessly at the aura around Cardinals baseball.

“People from the outside love to watch a place like this kind of go up in flames,” Carpenter admitted.

The task now is to contain and extinguish that fire.

Following the start in which he won his 200th career game, Wainwright quoted fellow country singer Maren Morris from the podium at the Busch Stadium press room in a clip that the team shared again this week on social media.

“The house don’t fall when the bones are good,” goes the lyric, and with pitchers and catchers having completed their first official workouts of 2024, confidence and optimism are spring-high that further disasters will be averted.

“Really, the theme of this camp is [to] forget about last year, this is anew,” Mozeliak said when asked about the potential of veterans to rebound. “Just be yourself, because these guys are super talented.”

And, perhaps most importantly, they are precisely where they want to be.