A New CEO, the Same 77 Wins: DeWitt III Inherits a Cardinals Rebuild That's Only Half-Built

The biggest Cardinals story of the week wasn't a trade, a free agent, or a lineup card. It was an org chart.

St. Louis announced sweeping leadership changes Wednesday, promoting Bill DeWitt III to chief executive officer after his tenure as team president dating to 2008, with his father, Bill DeWitt Jr., remaining as owner and chairman. Anuk Karunaratne steps in as president of business operations. The Athletic framed the moves as "yet another significant transition for the historic franchise," and that word — yet another — is doing a lot of work.

Because the on-field transition is already well underway, and the standings say it's incomplete.

The Baseline Is Flat

The 2026 Cardinals finished 77-85, a .475 winning percentage, one game worse in the win column than the 78-84 club that finally triggered the full teardown a year earlier. In fairness, the underlying shape improved: the run differential went from minus-65 in 2025 to minus-29 this season, with runs scored climbing from 689 to 720 and runs allowed dropping from 754 to 749.

Progress. Just not much of it where it counts.

The club's late-season form was the honest snapshot. Over its final 20-game window, St. Louis hit .214 with a .328 slugging percentage and a .631 OPS while posting a 5.17 ERA and a 1.397 WHIP. It went 2-8 in its last ten and 1-4 in its last five. That is what a young roster looks like when the pitching regresses and the bats don't have another gear.

The Core Is Real, But Uneven

Jordan Walker is the headliner the rebuild needed: 29 home runs, 102 RBI, 22 steals, a .793 OPS across 158 games. He's 25-ish in team-building terms and he produced like a middle-of-the-order fixture, even with 174 strikeouts.

Behind him, the picture splinters. Michael McGreevy logged 168.2 innings at a 3.95 ERA — volume matters for a rotation that cycled through 21 pitchers and 141 starts. But Masyn Winn slashed .232/.308/.317 in 136 games, Nolan Gorman hit .184 with a .580 OPS in 85 games, and Victor Scott II managed a .523 OPS in 80. Those are three former building blocks whose 2026 seasons raised more questions than they answered.

Team-wide, the Cardinals hit .240 with a .312 on-base percentage, struck out 1,268 times against just 485 walks, and hit 164 homers. The bullpen was actually a bright spot at 3.86 with 59 holds — but 13 blown saves against 26 conversions tells you the late innings were handled by committee, not certainty.

What the New CEO Actually Inherits

Here's the part the press release doesn't say. Chaim Bloom, now firmly in the president of baseball operations chair, has publicly committed to no shortcuts — no quick fixes to chase a wild card, no deals that mortgage the future for a summer. And the data backs up why that's defensible: this team was 24-19 on the road and 33-24 at night, the profile of a club that competes when its young arms are fresh, then fades as the grind sets in.

The business-side restructuring matters because a rebuild of this length is a revenue question as much as a roster question. DeWitt III and Karunaratne now own the commercial runway; Bloom owns the baseball decisions. Splitting those lanes cleanly is the single most important outcome of this week's announcement — and the commentary around St. Louis has already made that hope explicit.

The Cardinals have missed the postseason four straight years and have now posted back-to-back sub-.500 finishes with run differentials that were better than the records. A new CEO doesn't fix a .312 OBP or a rotation that needs 31 starts from McGreevy to stay afloat. But it does clarify who's accountable when the next round of decisions arrives.

The rebuild has a new corner office. The clock on it hasn't moved.