Chaim Bloom made one roster-adjacent decision this week that explains the next two years of the Cardinals’ rebuild better than any free-agent rumor will. Hitting coach Brant Brown is out after two seasons on the job, as Last Word on Sports reported over the weekend, and the Cardinals weren’t shy about confirming it themselves.
Derrick Goold had the quote from Bloom’s radio appearance with John Ackerman on KMOX:
Chaim Bloom confirms that Brant Brown will not return to the #stlcards as hitting coach in 2027 with @Ackerman1120 on @KMOXSports.
He says they have not finalized coaching staff, but expects more 'continuity than not.'
Some other decisions still TBD: https://t.co/e8FdcWxANf
— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) October 25, 2026
Notice what that is and what it isn’t. One coach is gone. The rest of the staff, per Bloom, is sticking around with “more continuity than not.” Call it a surgical strike, not a staff purge, and the difference matters: it answers whether St. Louis is reacting to a disappointing offense or executing a plan it had going into October.
Same media cycle, other half of the news: third base is staying open. MLB Trade Rumors laid it out — Bloom described the position as “a long-term vacancy,” which leaves Thomas Saggese, Blaze Jordan and Fermin to fight it out in spring training rather than handing the job to a name plugged in from outside. It’s the roster-construction version of a coach who won’t name his starting five until opening night.
Patience is the real headline here, and Bloom said as much himself: “We’re further along that path than we were a year ago, but, in my opinion, we still have a heck of a lot of work to do.” Further along is not the same sentence as finished, and he’s choosing those words on purpose.
He’s also been candid about why he talks this way. “I don’t like timelines,” Bloom told Redbird Rants earlier this month. “They probably lead you to do things that you probably shouldn’t do. When you start trying to yoke yourself to some timeline, A, you might hold yourself back, or B, you might do silly things to catch up.” No wonder he won’t name a third baseman in October, and no wonder he isn’t rushing to chase a win-now bat just because the Cardinals beat last year’s forecast.
The other half of this: don’t expect St. Louis to go sign a veteran just to manufacture a 2027 push. Bloom isn’t closing the door on competing next year, but he’s clearly closing the door on paying a premium to manufacture it. “It’s when you start chasing after things in the name of contention that actually don’t fit… that’s when you actually get off track,” he said, and the sentence reads like a guy who’d rather be criticized for patience than bailed out by a desperate contract.
This is also just the Tampa Bay model with a different payroll. Bloom wrote the book on building through the system before he ever got to St. Louis. Analyst Josh Jacobs made the connection explicitly on X: Bloom authored “The Rays Way” in 2008, and he’s now applying the same framework to rebuild something closer to the old Cardinal Way. It’s a copy of a blueprint that already worked once.
None of this happens in a vacuum. Jordan Walker got his extension five days ago. Masyn Winn — Gold Glove defense, an offense still a year from rounding into form — is part of the same young core Bloom is building around, not trading away.
Fans wanting a name at the hot corner, or a splashy free-agent press conference, are getting neither this winter. Bloom told you that himself, weeks before any of it happened.
