I’ve been asked, more than a few times, why I strongly believe Chaim Bloom is an excellent fit for the Cardinals as the new president of baseball operations.
Here are a few quick answers before I move into another connected area that’s important.
1. Bloom is highly intelligent and will use advanced technology, analytics, and every other tool that applies to the modern game instead of allowing the Cardinals to slip below industry standards. It’s 2025, folks. There’s no reason to fear information and put it to good use.
2. Bloom’s proven strengths are drafting and player development and that’s exactly what the Cardinals need the most. With payrolls soaring in the big markets, teams in smaller markets need to have improved payroll efficiency by developing their own players and pitchers. And by having good, cost-controlled players, it leaves more payroll space for free-agent upgrades or trades for players that have a more expensive salary. Bloom’s first job for the Cardinals – renovating an outdated player-development and minor-league model – is already producing positive results. FanGraphs recently put the Cardinals at No. 1 in the 30-team farm system rankings.
3. Bloom has superb communication skills, and he will keep everyone in the baseball operation involved, and he will keep the major-league operation fully coordinated with the minor-league operation so that all parts of the organization are fully synchronized. A key part of this? Encouragement for others to speak openly, to challenge his ideas with their own ideas, and express dissent. Bloom will not be running a dictatorship. He wants smart people. He wants smart people to share – or even push – their ideas. The Cardinals have been missing that since Jeff Luhnow and his analysts left the Cardinals when Luhnow accepted the GM job in Houston.
That’s just a brief outline.
On top of that, I look at the background. I look at where Bloom got his baseball education. I look at Bloom’s influences – some of the people in Bloom’s close orbit when he was a young and aspiring front-office executive. When you work with brilliant minds that have helped revolutionize the way teams are built and how they play – well, the cutting-edge, new-world mindset can give your team an advantage over organizations that are glued to the past.
Just look at the Tampa Bay Rays for most of those answers.
And take a look at the current MLB postseason to see the Rays’ influence in the shaping of other teams.
And take a look at some of the people Bloom worked with at Tampa Bay from 2005 through 2019.
And keep in mind this is only a partial list.
– Andrew Friedman, currently president of baseball operations, Los Angeles Dodgers.
– Matt Arnold, currently Senior VP and general manager, Milwaukee Brewers.
– James Click, currently VP of baseball strategy, Toronto Blue Jays.
– Matthew Silverman, currently senior advisor to ownership, Tampa Bay Rays.
– Erik Neander, currently president of baseball operations, Tampa Bay.
– Peter Bendix, currently president of baseball operations, Miami Marlins.
– Chaim Bloom, currently president of baseball operations, St. Louis Cardinals.
That’s the Tampa Bay connection. That’s the Tampa Bay tree. I could add more names to the list, but the Tampa Bay influence is profound.
Friedman guided the Rays to an American League pennant against all odds. He’s guided the Dodgers to two World Series and counting. His Tampa Bay teams routinely outperformed larger-market teams that possessed significant revenue advantages.
Tampa Bay baseball comes down to this: take an underfunded team with a bottom-three MLB payroll, think outside the box with player acquisitions and roster construction. Have the gift to identify undervalued talent and savvy trades to compensate for financial limitations. Mine for talent in the international market. Innovative front-office strategies. Prioritize player development. Cultivate the smartest advanced metrics department in the majors.
Matt Arnold is a leader of the “Milwaukee miracle,” by putting together consistent winning teams on a small budget. The Brewers have competed in seven of the last eight postseasons, and they do it with a shrewd all-around team that can adapt to any style of baseball.
– After working for years in the Tampa Bay front office, James Click was GM of Houston’s World Series champion in 2022.
– Neander, who learned under Friedman in Tampa Bay, continues to carry on the “Rays Way” of winning more than a low-budget team should. The same applies to Matthew Silverman, who recently moved into a different post as the liaison to Tampa Bay’s new franchise owner.
– Tampa Bay alum Peter Bendix, new to the Marlins, put together a 2025 team that won more games than expected. And his franchise rebuild is in the early stages. Among his heists: giving up little to the Orioles in a trade for the young power-hitting outfielder, Kyle Stowers, who bashed 25 homers this season despite missing significant time to injuries.
Since 2008, this group of young front-office executives in Tampa Bay have collectively produced this resume as part of the “Ray Way,” which Bloom wrote.
– No. 3 in the majors for most regular-season wins behind the Dodgers and Yankees.
– No. 9 for most postseason victories, with 28. That’s more postseason wins than the Braves, Mets, Cubs, Padres, Tigers and other larger-market clubs.
– No. 7 for most postseason games played (64) with only the Dodgers, Astros, Yankees, Phillies, Cardinals and Red Sox having more.
– Competed in 11 World Series games, which is tied for 8th most since ‘08.
– Since 2008 the Rays have appeared in as many World Series, two, as the Yankees and Cardinals.
– Since 2008 the Rays rank 2nd overall in starting-pitching ERA and total team ERA.
And all of this with a bottom-three payroll, a terrible stadium, poor home attendance, and any other disadvantage we can think of.
The Rays’ young minds should have set up a laboratory to conduct experiments. They came up with ways to shock the MLB system – like starting a game with a reliever to gain a first-inning matchup advantage, then handing the ball over to a starting pitcher.
The Rays did not fear being unconventional … because unconventional worked for them. They weren’t going to outspend opponents – but they could outthink them. Especially opponents who were stuck in the statistical stone age.
As Bloom once said in an interview: “If you do something conventionally and it doesn’t work, you don’t take the blame. If you do something differently and it doesn’t work, you’re going to be under a microscope, and people are going to be pointing fingers at you. We were unafraid to risk that.”
Bloom elaborated in that interview.
“It’s easy to come up with an idea,” said Bloom. “The trick is implementing the idea and communicating it and getting buy-in and getting everybody on board.” In other words, rather than treating players like cogs in a machine who can be manipulated at will, one has to treat them like human beings.
“Our field staff did such a tremendous job of that. They were willing to put in the hard work of communicating to the players: This is what we’re doing, and why. Here’s how we think it can help you, and how we think it can help us win games.”
Oh, and the “boys” wanted to have fun.
With Arnold’s team (Brewers) competing against Friedman’s team (Dodgers) in the NLCS, the Tampa Bay memories are sweet and flowing. Those times when the Tampa Bay boys were all together.
As relayed by the MLB web site, Arnold recalled mornings at the office, sitting around a big table, having coffee with young, gung-ho executives that included Friedman, Bloom, Neander, James Click and Arnold. As Arnold joked, this was before they became grownups.
“We had a Nintendo in the office. It was that kind of place,” Arnold said. “It was kind of the kids running the asylum a little bit.”
In speaking with MLB’s site, Arnold offered an analogy.
“We were able to run the Rays like an Etch A Sketch,” he said. “You could shake it up and say, ‘Let’s try this.’ We were the Rays, you know what I mean? It was like, ‘We haven’t been very good, so let’s try something new.
“There’s always a blessing and a curse, right? Obviously, our payrolls were very, very low. But we had the opportunity to be super creative and try off-the-wall stuff. There were no bad ideas.”
Yeah, and that’s why I like knowing that Bloom will be running the Cardinals. Bringing creativity, new ideas, unconventional thinking, enthusiastic group discussions on how to make the Cardinals better.
So bring in the Nintendo.
Bring in the Etch A Sketch.
It’s time to shake it up in the offices at Busch Stadium. And having fun is allowed.
Thanks for reading
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STLSportsCentral, catch him weekdays on the “Gashouse Gang” or "Sports Open Line," or "Sports Rush Hour” or "Sports On a Sunday morning at KMOX. As a treat, you can catch a weekly “reunion” segment here at STL Sports Central with Bernie and Randy on the Randy Karraker Show.