Winter Meetings: St. Louis Cardinals Trying to Teach Us Patience

Patience is a virtue or so I’m told. All I can say is that it better be as many of the St. Louis Cardinal faithful have watched the MLB Winter Meetings come and go with barely a whisper of anything meaningful getting done. Instead of fast-tracking deals, it appears that new President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom is holding seminars on that dreaded patience word.

Unless something happens soon, the St. Louis Cardinals lone transaction during the MLB Winter Meetings will be Rule 5 pick Matt Pushard. I have no doubt that Matt is a fine individual and is loved by his family, but this isn’t exactly the result that many of us hoped to see this week. I’m talking to myself as much as I am to you or anyone else when I say that we really do need to be patient.

What we can’t know is what’s been happening behind the scenes. There have been reports that multiple teams have interest in Brendan Donovan including most recently the San Francisco Giants. Frankly, it would be bigger news if a team wasn’t interested in Donovan. That is the lone rumor I’ve seen reported since the Winter Meetings started a few days ago. No rumblings about a new baseball home for Nolan Arenado, Alec Burleson or Willson Contreras.

Before you grab the pitchforks and storm the St. Louis Cardinals castle demanding more immediate results, I’d highly recommend listening to Stl Sports Central’s stream of Chaim Blooms brief presser regarding the Brendan Donovan rumors yesterday. It’s enlightening into how our new baseball overlord is thinking.

To paraphrase some of what Chaim Bloom said, he and his team are being very deliberate in accessing the offers for Brendan Donovan and/or other players. The question was asked about when he knows the time is right to act on an offer is key. There’s no one right answer and it’s different for every player and situation. Would you rather that he rush into the first decent offer or wait for the one that might change the St. Louis Cardinals for the better for years? Pretty sure most of us would prefer waiting over a fast deal or a wrong transaction.

I’m not trying to sugarcoat my own disappointment that the St. Louis Cardinals have not moved on anything this week. I really thought they would get a great deal for Brendan Donovan done at the very least. We know there’s intense interest in him from numerous teams. Let’s hope that the silence we’re hearing on the surface doesn’t represent a lot of backroom activity and discussion. I think it was the introductory press conference the St. Louis Cardinals had with Chaim Bloom where he mentioned patience would be required for him to reshape the team into a perennial winner again. This week is proof that he wasn’t kidding.