Much has been made of the way the Tampa Bay Rays and Milwaukee Brewers are built, and plenty of that chatter has centered on payroll and process. But for the St. Louis Cardinals, the bigger lesson is simpler than that: even in smaller markets, World Series teams still need stars.
The Brewers are not just scraping together wins with an overachieving roster. St.
Louis knows that firsthand after going 2-11 against the National League champions this year. Milwaukee is fronted by Jacob Misiorowski, Jackson Chourio, William Contreras, Brice Turang, Jake Bauers, Logan Henderson, Trevor Megill, and others.
Their farm system is also described as one of the best in the sport, right there with the Cardinals and Rays.
Tampa Bay brings its own collection of high-end talent. The Rays posted the best record in their league in 2026, and that didn’t happen by luck.
Junior Caminero is one of the best players in the sport, while Yandy Diaz, Liam Hicks, and Jonathan Aranda are all very, very good hitters. Their pitching group is headlined by Drew Rasmussen, Freddy Peralta, Griffin Jax, and more.
That’s the part the Cardinals can’t ignore. Market size and payroll matter, but they don’t erase the need for top-end talent.
If St. Louis wants to get back to the World Series, it has to keep finding and keeping stars.
The Cardinals do not need to copy the Los Angeles Dodgers and collect name after name just for the sake of it. But when the pressure rises, championship clubs usually have some of the game’s best players on hand.
St. Louis’s last two World Series winners, in 2006 and 2011, were not regular-season juggernauts, but they still had Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, Chris Carpenter, and Adam Wainwright.
The 2006 team also had Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds. The 2011 club added Lance Berkman and Allen Craig.
Yes, those teams had clutch contributors such as David Eckstein and David Freese, but they were not built on a pile of journeymen suddenly playing out of their minds.
The current Cardinals may already have pieces who can grow into that kind of role. Jordan Walker, Alec Burleson, JJ Wetherholt, Ivan Herrera, Joshua Baez, and Leo Bernal are among the names on the roster who could fit the description, even if most still need to prove it first.
There are also more possible cornerstones coming. Rainiel Rodriguez looks like a superstar.
Liam Doyle and Tanner Franklin could become top-of-the-rotation starters. Tekoah Roby, Tai Peete, Jesus Baez, Brandon Clarke, and others all carry big upside.
Chaim Bloom and the Cardinals’ front office have already improved the organization’s odds by loading up on that kind of talent.
Still, internal development is only part of the equation. As St. Louis gets closer to contention, the front office will have to keep adding top-end talent and also find ways to retain the players it develops.
Milwaukee has shown plenty of routes to doing it. The Brewers drafted and developed Misiorowski, Turang, Henderson, Pratt, and others.
They signed Chourio in the international amateur market. They also traded for Christian Yelich, then extended him, and picked up William Contreras after he had already bloomed elsewhere.
At the deadline, they added arms like Dustin May and JoJo Romero to help fuel a World Series push.
Tampa Bay has taken a similar path in its own way. The Rays traded for Caminero while he was still in the DSL for the Guardians.
They also landed Diaz and Rasmussen when those players were undervalued by their former clubs. Aranda came through the international amateur route, and Peralta and Jax were acquired at trade deadlines as Tampa Bay tried to get over the hump.
There are plenty of ways to acquire stars, and the Cardinals have used more than one of them over the years. They have developed their own and traded for others. Free agency has never been their favorite lane, but they do have more financial muscle than Tampa Bay or Milwaukee.
And Cardinals fans at least have reason to believe the organization understands the point. Bernie Miklasz recently appeared on the Dealin' the Cards podcast and shared a story about DeWitt making it clear that stars matter in St.
Louis. DeWitt, according to Miklasz, respects the Rays’ and Brewers’ models, but also knows the Cardinals have to be able to keep their talent in a way those clubs often have not.
Who those stars end up being is still to come. The names can be debated later. The larger truth is already clear: if the Cardinals are going to chase down the Brewers, Dodgers, and whoever else stands in their way, they will need top-tier players leading the charge.
In Other News...
Cardinals Prospect Rainiel Rodriguez Is Creating A Tough Timeline Question
Rainiel Rodriguez has quickly become one of the more intriguing names in the Cardinals system, and not just because of the talent that already has evaluators talking. The clubs farm director, Larry Day, has pointed to Rodriguezs work ethic and preparation as traits that separate him from a typical prospect, even drawing a comparison to Jos Ramrez in the way he handles challenges and stays ready for them.
For St. Louis, the question is less about whether Rodriguez can play and more about when the path opens up for him. He is expected to begin the 2027 season at Triple-A, which puts the organization in a familiar spot with a premium young player whose long-term ceiling is obvious but whose timeline still has to line up with the big league roster. A prospect with franchise-player upside is a good problem to have, but it also means every step he takes from here will be watched closely. [Read more 🡒]
Cardinals Future Suddenly Feels Real For One Very Important Reason
The Cardinals may have missed the postseason again, but the organizations long view has started to look a lot more promising thanks to whats been happening in the system. With minor league clubs such as Springfield and Memphis showing real postseason success, there is a growing sense that the pipeline is producing more than just filler, and that the next wave of talent could eventually change the outlook in St. Louis.
Left-hander Michael Watson, who climbed through multiple levels of the system, said the rosters he encountered were competitive and packed with talent, which is exactly the kind of feedback an organization wants to hear when it is building for the future. Under Chaim Bloom, the Cardinals have made development the priority, and while that vision takes time, it is starting to feel more tangible with prospects moving closer to a meaningful role at the major league level. [Read more 🡒]
Oli Marmol Is Heading Toward A Defining Cardinals Season
Oliver Marmol enters this stretch with his Cardinals tenure already defined by the balance sheet as much as the broader arc of the job. Over five seasons in St. Louis, he has gone 402-408, a mark that reflects both the difficulty of keeping the club in contention and the reality that the standards here are never far from the postseason line. The Cardinals won 77 games in the most recent season, but the absence of playoff baseball for multiple straight years has only sharpened the focus on what comes next.
For a franchise that measures success in October, the pressure around Marmol is only going to grow if the team does not make a clear step forward soon. The speculation about his future is tied less to any single season than to the larger question of whether this group can finally turn a prolonged slide into a turnaround. In St. Louis, that makes the upcoming year feel less like another checkpoint and more like a defining test. [Read more 🡒]