The Bloom Is Still on the Rose

Save for an interruption for that pesky global pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the Cardinals have graciously hosted bloggers since 2011, an event which has expanded to include podcasting given that far more of us flap our gums than pound our keyboards these days. While it has morphed and evolved over the years, the one constant was that the focal point would be a Q&A with John Mozeliak. Mo would give an opening statement, then take questions from the assembled crew. He was usually self-deprecating, fairly open, and often demonstrated dry humor. (And, somehow, he often wound up with a cutting comment when I was asking questions, I’m not sure how that happened.)

Saturday, the Cardinals invited us to Busch for the first Blogger and Podcasters Day of the post-Mozeliak era. While we were all relieved the event wouldn’t stop with the change in front office personnel, I think we were all interested to see what it would be like with Chaim Bloom in the chair instead.

I’m not going to necessarily go through all the questions in this writeup. Viva El Birdos has audio up from it and I know Diane at Women Who Love Cardinals Baseball always puts her legal secretary background to work and generates a transcript at some point. I’ll touch on some, most likely, but it’s the atmosphere, the vibes as it were, that we’ll really focus on.

Let me be clear—while the event Saturday was different in a lot of ways, I don’t say anything below as an implicit criticism of how things were before. The Mozeliak sessions were always great. There was just a different vibe in our first interactions with the new POBO.

For one thing, we didn’t get to see Bloom in the chair. While communications maestro Carson Shipley had set out a chair for Bloom to use, he never sat it in. The only thing he used it for was to set his water bottle down. (Which led to a humorous incident right before the questions started. Carson saw the water bottle there and thought it was someone else’s, so he moved it while Bloom was talking. However, Chaim didn’t see him and then turned around later, trying to figure out where his bottle had disappeared to.)

Just the idea that he stood the whole time brought a different energy. He moved around, focusing on one side or another depending on where the question was coming from. He was also a little more casually dressed with a polo and slacks compared to Mo’s usual sports coat look.

I’m not sure that Bloom was more transparent than Mo was, because they both had similar limitations. (It was fun for Bloom to say “ask me anything” and then the first two questions were things he couldn’t really talk about specifically.) Bloom got different questions, though, given where the state of the franchise is now versus where it was under Mo. (Mo got a lot of legacy questions last year, for instance, and the team was trying to put 2023 behind them and contend when we were there in 2024.)

Bloom got questions about process, how you balance competing with long-term planning, and things of that nature. Our friend Jake Wood asked about a couple of the front office hires of the offseason and Bloom went deep on what that meant, what those guys might bring, and things of that nature. I believe it was Andy Carroll’s son (who, IIRC, asked the first question last year) who started things off asking about how you decide which player to extend. (When Bloom left, he commented to the effect that he thought he’d go with the kid because it’d be an easy start “and then it was Misiorowski 103 right out of the gate”.)

I asked him what he’d learned in the last couple of years that he wished he’d known in Boston or Tampa Bay. While he said there have been so many things, but the focus of building programs that not only minimized injury but brought a more wholistic approach to the player was something that he’s gained a significant appreciation for in St. Louis. He talked about movement, which feels like has been an interest of the organization for a while. Google fails me now, but I want to say a number of years ago they had an artist in spring training sketching how the pitchers looked, moved, things like that. Obviously with high speed cameras and other technology that’s not something that’s helpful now, but it shows that they’ve been looking at this idea of efficiency and health in movement for a while.

There were a lot of other good questions and you’d be well served to listen to the whole audio. I liked part of his answer to Kyle Reis, who asked about the salary cap issue of the upcoming CBA negotiations. While Bloom didn’t feel able to say one way or another, he did say that the club can never make anything like that an excuse for not competing. They have to work with whatever is out there, either to overcome an obstacle or use it to be better. In response to another question (or maybe this was part of Jake’s question as well), he talked about how Cardinals pro scouts do more work than almost anyone in the league in terms of reports filed, but now the front office is working with the scouts to help them see how that information is used, which should help them improve their already good reporting.

As he wrapped up, it was time for the National Anthem. That’s happened before, either in the midst of the talk or at the end, and Mo’s stayed through it just like Chaim did. After that, though, instead of heading for the exits and his perch above the field, Bloom shook hands, took pictures, and generally talked ball with people one-on-one for a while. I think it was the third inning before he finally left—and I mean left, not was able to leave, because he seemed to truly enjoy the interactions with these engaged fans.

As first impressions go, I think Chaim Bloom was Mark McGwire, who hit a home run in his first home game as a Cardinal in 1997. I look forward to all the podcasts that will come out with analysis of the event, but I’d be surprised if anyone was disappointed. The only bad part of the day was the fact that the Cubs won 6-1 and Pete Crow-Armstrong was a large part of that win. Otherwise, 10/10, no notes.

The Cardinals have always been connected to the fanbase—like I said, we’ve been doing this event since the early days of blogging—but I think there’s been more of an emphasis placed in recent years for three reasons. One, a younger front office, people that grew up or were formed in the blogging and podcasting era. They naturally gravitate to those things in a way that older generations might have turned to newspaper, radio, or television. Two, the downturn in the team’s fortunes (and, relatedly, attendance) spurs a greater need to find a way to connect with fans. Three, the reduction of the more traditional press coverage—no Athletic writer, a part-time (no slight intended to Mr. Schaeffer, but I don’t think he’s traveling constantly) MLB.com writer, etc.—might have them wanting more outlets to get their message across.

Whatever the reason, they are definitely being more open with things. We had our talk with Oli Marmol earlier in the year and I know Chaim has been on at least one show. (He seemed to think it was mine in his answer to me, and I’m very willing to make that actually the case at some point!) Rob Cerfolio, one of the assistant general managers, has made a number of appearances on different shows. I know the club is trying to determine best practices, because you have to draw lines somewhere and not just anybody with a mic should get access to the POBO, but I do think they want to be as open with this “new media”, as it were, as much as possible. It might be interesting, in that line, if they eventually get to a sort of credentialing system, not equivalent to what the traditional media have (can you imagine the Talking About Birds guys in the same press box as Derrick Goold, for instance?) but a way of granting access to those that have put in the work in this area.

This came up a couple of times on Saturday, but the official record of Blogger Day games is 8-6. I’m not counting the 2020 Zoom call that sort of substituted for an event that year, though if you want to they lost to the Twins that year.

We’ve seen the Padres, the Brewers, the Pirates, the Phillies (twice), the Reds (four times), the Nationals, the Diamondbacks, the Rockies, the Dodgers, and now the Cubs.

The biggest win was 2022, when they beat the Reds 11-3. The worst loss was the 2013 9-0 shutout by the Pirates.

A few photos from the day:

A shot from our suite. It’s hard not to watch the TVs since they are right there!

Two of the best: Kyle Reis and Alex Crisafulli.

My Musial co-host Allen Medlock had a lot of things relating to baseball culture that he wanted to discuss with Mr. Bloom.

My goal here was to get as many of those folks attending that had filled Allen’s chair this year as a guest on Musial. From left: Mr. Medlock, Alex Crisafulli, Ben Godar, Eugene Parker, Scott Plaza, Jake Wood, myself, Nate Heininger. Kneeling: Ben Simorka, JD Hafron. We missed Kyle Reis and Josh Jacobs in this one, unfortunately!

There’s a lot of things that we should talk about regarding the actual team—roster moves and the like—but we’ll do that another time!