ST. LOUIS – The St. Louis Cardinals will miss postseason for the second straight season, and that doesn’t sit well with veteran catcher Willson Contreras.

Following Sunday’s home finale, Contreras spoke in length about his vision for the future of the Cardinals organization, making it clear that he wants to see significant changes and hopes the front office will approach the offseason with urgency.

These remarks, first shared by the Belleville New Democrat’s Jeff Jones, have been the talk of town in recent days:

“There’s some areas that need to be addressed. I don’t know if the front office is going to, but… We didn’t come together as an offense at all, during the whole year. There’s a lot of holes throughout the lineup as well, from 1 to 9…”

“The only thing we can control is show up next year and keep working. But as an organization, I think the Cardinals are one of the biggest organizations in baseball, and if I was them, if I was the front office, I’d have to be hungry to own this division… We haven’t owned this division this division the last two years.”

One reporter then asked, in Contreras’ eyes, what areas needed the most help?

“That’s a good question for the front office to answer. I’m not gonna answer that question. But I think if you look at the numbers as an offense, you will notice what’s possibly missing… As a group, we need to make an adjustment next year, for sure.”

Later speaking one-on-one with FOX 2, Contreras echoed a similar sentiment:

“We cannot be okay with this result. I know it might be better than last year, but if you look at the Cardinals organization, it’s a huge organization for the MLB. We should be hungry to be on top of this NL Central. We haven’t done that in the last two years.”

Contreras signed a 5-year, $87.5 million contract with the Cardinals as a free agent after the 2022 season, following seven seasons with the division-rival Chicago Cubs.

The Cardinals won just 71 games in his first season in 2023, a year in which the Cardinals also unexpectedly removed him from the starting catcher’s role for a brief period of time.

The Cardinals are on pace to finish around .500 in his second season, a campaign that ended early due to a fractured finger in late-August. This year’s Cardinals were mathematically eliminated from postseason contention last Friday.

Contreras’ comments Sunday are significant in the sense that they publicly challenge the front office to be more assertive in improving the team, something that doesn’t appear to often come from players themselves.

And recent shortcomings from the Cardinals franchise haven’t gone unnoticed among fans either. The Cardinals missed 3 million in paid attendance for the first time in a full season since 2003, also falling below 30,000 several times since August, a pivotal time for baseball teams hoping to contend for postseason.

Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr., speaking on the state of the franchise during a media session at the 2024 Winter Warm-Up, offered the following remarks:

“The way the game is set up now, the big markets have an advantage in terms of revenue they generate, and they’re taking advantage of that. We’re in a certain level of the market and try to do everything we can to compete with that and of course the other teams we play. It’s kind of the nature of the game.”

“You compete the best way you can. We’ve always felt that draft and develop is the Cardinal model, and it’s played out pretty well for us over the years. We’ll continue to do that, pick our spots on free agents, and we feel like we can compete with anybody.”

Will Contreras’ comments prompt the Cardinals front office to reconsider their philosophy or will things stay as status quo? Only time will tell.

By the time this season is complete on Sunday, the Cardinals will have won just one postseason series in the last decade (2019 NLDS) and just one postseason game total since the turn to the 2020s. It’s a far cry from outcomes in the primes of Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, and earlier eras of Cardinals baseball.

The Cardinals, 79-77, play six road games in six days to close out the 2024 regular season starting Tuesday, with matchups against the Colorado Rockies and San Francisco Giants.