The St. Louis Cardinals have taken it on the chin over the last few months. Heck, over the last few years recently, as the team has slowly but surely slipped from the ranks of the game's elite. It's been handled about as awkwardly as possible, but there's a reason that St. Louis is ushering out John Mozeliak and reshaping its player development system; the organization had stagnated at every level, falling behind the times and no longer churning out quality talent the way it did even a decade ago.
But you don't have to take our word for it. You can just ask players who used to be a part of the organization, many of whom haven't been shy about what they think about how the team treated them. (Hint: not well.) From Zac Gallen to Aledmys Diaz to Kolten Wong, plenty of big names have put St. Louis on blast in recent years.
Which is a concerning trend, to be sure. But one thing that all those names have in common is that, well, they later went on to find success elsewhere, which gave credence to their claims that the Cardinals hadn't yet figured out something the rest of the league had. The latest former player to do so, however ... not so much.
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Another former Cardinals prospect has harsh words for John Mozeliak, but this one feels like sour grapes
The former player in question is Connor Thomas, a left-handed pitcher who was selected by St. Louis in the fifth round of the 2019 MLB Draft out of Georgia Tech. He quickly reached the high Minors, and was considered one of the team's top 20 prospects as recently as two years ago. But things fell apart from there: Thomas was moved to the bullpen full-time in 2024, and while he found success there in Triple-A, it wasn't enough to avoid the team making him eligible for the Rule 5 Draft, where he was selected by the Milwaukee Brewers in December.
Now that he's experienced how a rival organization does things, Thomas has some thoughts about his treatment in St. Louis.
"As far on the coaching side of it, there really wasn't a whole lot," Thomas told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel this week. "It was a bunch of, 'Hey, this is what you do. Just try to go figure it out and figure out how to get hitters out.'"
"There were no tweaks, nothing like that, nothing of this. A great organization, and I enjoyed my time over there, but I'm happy to be with a team that's, on the coaching side of it, doing a little more for me."
To be clear, it does seem like the Brewers know something the Cardinals don't when it comes to player development; there's a reason they've lapped St. Louis in recent years despite a fraction of the payroll. But while Cardinals fans are more than willing to believe that Mozeliak was asleep at the wheel, this criticism doesn't hit quite the same as, say, Gallen's. Maybe Thomas will prove St. Louis wrong and blossom into a weapon out of the bullpen for his new team. Until then, though, the jury is very much still out, and it's just as likely that he isn't a good enough pitcher than that the Cardinals let him down. It's an easy and readily available excuse, but let's not get carried away here.