St. Louis has a new baseball rival, and this one comes with two very familiar names attached.
The Los Angeles Angels now have Enos Stanley Kroenke as owner, and they’ve paired him with John Mozeliak, the former Cardinals president of baseball operations, who has taken over that same role in Anaheim. For Cardinals fans, that’s a strange enough development on its own.
Add in Kroenke’s St. Louis roots - his parents named him after two Cardinals legends - and the whole thing feels even more pointed.
Mozeliak is being asked to do something he never fully had to do in St. Louis: tear a roster down and build it back up from the bottom. His Cardinals tenure was mostly a success, but he didn’t truly lean into a full-scale selloff until the foundation had already cracked in 2023.
His first crack at trading away pieces hasn’t exactly produced a gold mine. Adam Kloffenstein, Sem Robberse, Drew Rom and Zack Showalter fit the familiar mold of low-upside pitching returns, while César Prieto looks more like a Quadruple-A player.
There have been some brighter notes, though. Matt Svanson has already put together one strong season, Thomas Saggese has flashed, and Tekoah Roby still profiles as a decent prospect with a possible future in the organization.
Mozeliak has likely taken something from those mistakes, especially in a game that now leans hard toward power arms and three-true-outcomes bats. Still, his eye for the right kind of player could be tested without Cardinals President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom working alongside him.
Bloom’s arrival in 2025 brought a noticeable change in St. Louis’ approach.
The Cardinals started targeting higher-upside talent in trades and the draft, and several of those players already look on a path to the majors. Baseball America ranked the Cardinals’ farm system second in baseball, and Bloom is expected to keep feeding that pipeline during the offseason.
The Angels have gone in the opposite direction for years, pushing young players quickly through the system and into the majors. That approach has usually left them near the bottom of farm rankings, though recent trades for prospects such as Arjun Nimmala at the trade deadline have moved their system into the middle of the pack.
At the center of this matchup is a simple philosophical fight: draft and develop versus buy and spend.
Bill DeWitt Jr. and Bill DeWitt III have long sold the Cardinals on the idea that sustained success comes from building from within. They haven’t always stuck rigidly to that plan - the moves for Matt Holliday, Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado showed a willingness to spend prospect capital when the moment called for it - but the franchise still takes pride in growing its own winners.
Kroenke, meanwhile, could be ready to spend big. He is now the wealthiest person to own a baseball team, passing Steve Cohen, and it’s hard to imagine him buying a club without wanting to pour money into it.
Location matters too, and the Angels have a clear edge there. Southern California is a much easier sell to star players than St. Louis, and if Kroenke chooses to chase superstars the way the Dodgers have, he has both the resources and the market to do it.
That kind of spending would come with a major complication. The Dodgers’ huge outlays have already fueled loud calls for a salary cap, and if baseball eventually adopts one like the other major American sports, the Angels could be forced back toward the kind of draft-and-develop model Mozeliak worked with in St. Louis.
For now, though, the Cardinals appear to be in the better position. Their record and their farm system both point that way, and that edge would only grow if a salary cap arrived for 2028 and beyond to put a dent in Kroenke’s ambitions.
The Angels still shouldn’t be dismissed. Even with a cap, a better-run Anaheim club could climb faster than St.
Louis could overtake the Milwaukee Brewers, especially in a weak division. The aging Chicago Cubs may be easier for the Cardinals to pass, but the Angels could still reach October first if Mozeliak’s old line - “make the playoffs and anything can happen” - proves true again.
No one can say with certainty whether Bloom will guide the Cardinals back to 2011-level glory or whether Kroenke and Mozeliak will land the first knockout punch by bringing a title to Los Angeles. Mozeliak may even be eager to poach executives, coaches, scouts and former Cardinals players along the way, and an Angels dugout with Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina would make that sting even more.
For now, though, St. Louis still seems to have the upper hand. If Bloom keeps the Cardinals on the cutting edge, they may stay a step ahead of their newest and strangest rival.
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There is at least some hope coming from the system, where Josiah Ragsdale, Tai Peete, Won-Bin Cho and Trevor Condon are among the names viewed as possible future fits in center. The pitching side presents a different kind of debate, with several young arms on hand but a need for more certainty in both the rotation and bullpen, leaving the Cardinals with a familiar offseason balancing act between patience and urgency. [Read more 🡒]