St. Louis Blues Have Replaced St. Louis Cardinals For Organizational Drive

The St. Louis Blues have lived in the St. Louis Cardinals shadow their entire existence. While that may never change for some, the front office has stepped out into the sunlight and surpassed their neighbors down the road.

Whether you have been a fan of the St. Louis Blues since the beginning or came around recently, there have been few times when the Blues were not second fiddle to the St. Louis Cardinals. However, with the Blues making a lot of right moves lately and the Cardinals front office asleep at the wheel, the tables have been turned.

Every generation that grew up with the Cardinals knows there were lulls in the team. Just about every decade had some really strong teams and then some down years.

Occasionally it would stretch out, like the early 1990’s or the 1970’s. Nevertheless, the Cardinals were almost always the model of consistency.

They were always seeking out the best roster they could form and trying to put a winner on the field. They never had the financial freedom of the New York Yankees under George Steinbrenner, but they were a model franchise, even in the heartland of America.

You could hold up the same mirror to the Blues and it would look more like the funhouse mirror that adds 50 lbs or stretches you out to be eight feet tall. The Blues were often a mess, never knowing if they would be a contender or scraping to make the playoffs. They were so poorly managed at some points, there were at least two scares of the team leaving.

Things have spun on their axis and done a 180 degree turn. Now, the Blues seem to be the model team, making moves to better themselves at almost every turn and the Cardinals are lost in some post-apocalyptic wasteland. Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but you get the idea.

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As pointed out, the reason this seems so odd is not the on-field or on-ice product as much as it is the dysfunction of one front office compared to the other.

It was almost always craziness coming out of the Blues front office. Trades would be made that nobody could understand until you found out later there was some behind the scenes craziness. Silly offers were made and useless contracts handed out that hamstrung the team for years, but the Blues kept on spinning their wheels.

The Cardinals, meanwhile, seemed like they always made the right moves. They were never splashy like some of the east coast American League teams, but they always seemed to come out gold.

They got Lou Brock for some guy the majority of people never heard of (Ernie Broglio), they traded for Mark MacGwire for peanuts, brought in Ozzie Smith in a deal that seemed to favor the San Diego Padres and turned to gold for the Cards. It seemed like everything the Cardinals touched worked out.

Maybe that is their current downfall. John Mozeliak was part of some of those deals, so he’s used to everything just falling into place.

Thus, the Cardinals have become stale and weak. For years, they have needed to upgrade the same things every offseason and every offseason, the Cardinals have done just enough.

It’s like a magician’s trick, where they make you look at the shiny thing, distracting you from the disaster that is actually going on out of view. But you’ll see the end result eventually.

2019 has been a perfect example of that.  While we do not know how their current season will end, they do not look like a first place team despite the fact they currently lead their division near the end of August.  They still have many unaddressed flaws and are leading just as much because their rivals are in the same boat as having to do with the Cardinals being good.

Meanwhile, the Blues have turned into the Cardinals in a way. While many fans like to rip on Doug Armstrong, it is actually more difficult to think of deals he has messed up than those fans think.

Armstrong’s main claim to fame for something negative were the overvalued contracts he gave out. But, Armstrong managed to realize this and not only rid the team of those contracts, but spin them into gold.

Albatross contracts to middling players like Jori Lehtera, Vladimir Sobotka and even Patrik Berglund were turned into star players like Brayden Schenn and Ryan O’Reilly. Most fans would have been fine just buying out some of those deals, but Armstrong not only convinced other teams to take on that money, but give up some of their best assets in return. Both of those players were integral to the Blues winning their first Stanley Cup.

Of course, in some eyes, Armstrong is still far from perfect. They still pine for the days when the Blues were making flashy moves every trade deadline.

However, the business of the NHL is different now. So many trades simply involve future considerations or draft picks. The time when hockey trades that would help both teams occurred is almost extinct.  However, even those trades tend not to favor the Blues sometimes over their history.

Regardless, the Blues still managed to be one of the most consistent franchises of the past decade. Other than a big dip in performance due to a change of ownership, the Blues have always been one of the best run franchises under Armstrong.

We can wish he would do more at times, but it was his steadiness that lead to the right mixture to win a championship. Knee-jerk reactions would have doomed the Blues to more seasons where the chemistry just never gelled.

You can argue that it took a lot of circumstantial events to happen for the Stanley Cup to arrive, such as a third or fourth string goalie becoming the hottest player in the league. You would not be wrong, but whether those pieces were given an opportunity or not before does not mean those pieces were not in place in some form.

Ultimately, the Cardinals will always be top dog in St. Louis. If nothing else, it is more a matter of being here longer and having more history.

But the Blues fanbase is just as rabid and it is growing. The Blues might never be seen as highly by the NHL as the Cardinals are by MLB, but you cannot deny the fact the Blues have clear direction and nobody can figure out the Cardinals.

The Blues are a mid-tier franchise, but spend to the cap every year in an attempt to win. The Cardinals are one of the richer franchises in baseball and, while not cheap, don’t seem interested in spending to win.

Like the Blues of old, the Cardinals have fallen into the trap of overvaluing their own prospects and picking the wrong free agents to add. Meanwhile, while we did not always agree initially, the Blues seem to have held on to the right prospects, let the right ones go and brought in the exact right players to supplement it all.

For someone that has had to live their life reading Cardinals headlines in the middle of winter, it is nice to see the shoe on the other foot. Maybe it won’t last (few of us want it to remain permanently, since we are Cardinals fans too), but it is hard to deny the Blues front office has the upper hand at the moment.