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Beneath the surface of the Cardinals’ acquisitions a year ago to retrofit a losing team with improved pitching was how the roster came equipped with an ejector button. Other than Sonny Gray’s contract, the moves all had one-year lengths and few strings. If the results didn’t match expectations, the Cardinals had the ability, out of sight but within reach, to move on and do so quickly via trade or expiring contracts.

It’s not so subtle now.

Yet to make a substantive addition or trade this offseason, the Cardinals have made a priority to reduce payroll and increase playing time for youth while also streamlining the roster for what leadership called maximum “flexibility.� They aren’t looking to make commitments as much as clear them ahead of Chaim Bloom taking over the front office. That approach governs everything from their upcoming short-term offers to free-agent relievers to their appetite for contract extensions this spring training.

“My ultimate goal was to try and create a pretty clean slate for my successor and new management team,� president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said last week, tucking this revealing description into a longer answer. “So they would have the ability to do really whatever they wanted to do.�

Even as executives and players begin to flock this week to Jupiter, Florida, for next month’s spring training, the Cardinals continue to seek a trade fit for third baseman Nolan Arenado. Such talks have slowed or stalled in part because free-agent third baseman Alex Bregman has yet to sign.

Astros general manager Dana Brown told reporters in Houston on Saturday that he kept the door “cracked� open for ongoing talks with Bregman but called bringing back the All-Star a “longshot.� Arenado exercised his no-trade clause to reject a trade to Houston earlier this winter but sources say he’s open to a possible move to Boston. The Red Sox and Detroit are teams interested in Bregman, with Boston preferring a shorter-term deal that, if accepted, would take them out of talks for Arenado.

Arenado has not requested a trade — is not “begging to leave,� as chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. put it. But the Cardinals’ motivations are to find him a team closer to contending for a championship and cut some of the $74 million owed to him through 2027. Plus, it would trim one more commitment from the roster.

The Cardinals currently have three players signed beyond the coming season: Arenado through 2027, Gray through 2026 with an option for 2027, and Willson Contreras through 2027. All three have no-trade clauses.

Three other multi-year contracts come to an end this year. Miles Mikolas’ three-year extension and Steven Matz’s four-year deal expire in November, and the two-year contract Erick Fedde brought with him via trade also concludes. Mozeliak said last week he did not wish to trade from his starting pitching depth, but if young starters push for rotation spots during spring training the Cardinals will entertain trade talks when teams inevitably shop for veteran arms. Mikolas, Matz, and Fedde will be free agents in November, as will closer Ryan Helsley.

Helsley agreed to a one-year, $8.2 million deal that avoided arbitration, but the All-Star revealed at the team’s Winter Warm-Up that extension talks he would have welcomed never materialized.

He likened it to a one-way street.

“With it being my last year and there have never really been any talks about extensions or anything like that,� Helsley said when explaining why he expected to be traded. “It’s kind of like the writing-is-on-the-wall-type thing. I think most clubs would ship me out, but I’m thankful for them wanting to keep me here.�

What most clubs — especially contending clubs – are trying to do is extend contracts with their young players, either to control costs during arbitration or buy-out years of free agency.

Being flexible

The Cardinals previously expressed a possible multi-year pact with Brendan Donovan, but did not aggressively pursue such deals with arbitration-eligible players this winter.

Flexibility rules. One-year deals were finalized with half of the arbitration-eligible players. The club expects to go to hearings with Donovan, Lars Nootbaar, and Andre Pallante — all in their first year of arbitration eligibility and, once in the hearing room, will leave with a one-year deal.

When asked last week about the “clean slate� comment, Mozeliak said his focus is on the roster for the coming season, budget guidelines, and preparing both to be shaped by new management come November.

His contract, like those above, ends shortly after the season does.

Mozeliak explained he’s open to conversations this spring about extensions, but those would all involve input from Bloom because they would commitments he inherits.

And this season is setting up to decide what commitments to make.

The Cardinals have made a habit of spring news conferences to announce extensions. Last year, manager Oliver Marmol received one through 2027, and it was during spring that Mikolas received the extension that expires this year and that Paul Goldschmidt finalized an extension that expired last November. It has been longer since the Cardinals extended a pre-arbitration or arbitration player into their free-agent years. In 2016, Kolten Wong signed a five-year extension to do just that, following the deals the Cardinals finalized with Matt Carpenter, Carlos Martinez, and Allen Craig in previous springs.

Throughout the Cardinals’ Winter Warm-Up, ownership described a return to the roots of a draft-and-develop model. DeWitt referenced that phrase multiple times. But that model has a third step on the way to contention: Draft, develop, and keep. They’ve done that before, and hope to have a generation headlined by Masyn Winn to consider such extensions again.

Atlanta set the modern model with at least a dozen players on the roster with extensions to maintain a core. That group includes the entire infield, catcher, and center fielder, and several of the extensions are for homegrown All-Stars such as Austin Riley, Ronald Acuna Jr., Ozzie Albies, Michael Harris II, and pitcher Spencer Strider.

While leading Boston’s baseball operations, Bloom signed a mega-extension with the Red Sox top homegrown talent at the time, Rafael Devers. In January 2023, Devers and Boston finalized a 10-year, $313.5-million extension — twice the size of the largest contract the Cardinals ever have completed. At the news conference, Bloom introduced the third baseman by saying, “Rafael Devers isn’t a star — he’s our star.�

A low profile

With the club limiting his interviews and public appearances, Bloom has been out of the spotlight this offseason even as he expands the player development staffs and reorganizes the Cardinals’ player development programs. That is his charge this coming season — setting up the system he’ll then benefit from as president of baseball operations.

“My job has been to take everything I’ve seen and learned throughout the past year (auditing Cardinals’ system),� Bloom told the Cardinals’ Gameday Magazine in an interview published this month. “And put it toward a plan that will keep this organization at the forefront of player development industry, which, as we know, is indispensable to the sustained success of the Cardinals.�

That is a fitting way to capture what publicly the Cardinals are branding as a “reset� but internally also describe as a “transition.� Bloom spent 2024 evaluating how the Cardinals develop players so that he can modernize it. He, the current office, and ownership will spend 2025 providing playing time so they can determine which players will be part of the future that benefits from the changes to player development.

The roster, as Mozeliak adjusts it this winter, more and more fits that timetable for evaluation and “flexibility.�

They can choose to move forward with it.

Or, move on from it.

And, either way, eventually must add on to it.

That’s what Mozeliak is prepping for now — the decisions others will make later.

“When you take a long view of where this is going, I do anticipate you’re going to see payroll back up,� Mozeliak said. “This ownership group understands that payroll does matter in ultimately competing for the big prize. As we do this reset, it allows us to catch up on the development side of things. Hopefully, when that’s running full throttle, then we can time the payroll with that.

“That’s what we hope to see.�