There have been many contributing factors to the Cardinals’ downfall. Whether it be cost-cutting measures following COVID, firing coaches and shrinking coaching staffs, investing financially in the major-league team rather than player development, or falling behind other organizations technologically, the Cardinals’ fall from grace has been slow and steady.

For years, the Cardinals have had to trade away prospects for big-name players or sign pricey free agents to fill rotation spots that would otherwise be occupied by internal candidates. Players like Randy Arozarena, Zac Gallen, and Sandy Alcantara have become stars for their respective teams. In turn, we as fans have been treated to some great and some not-so-great seasons from players like Jason Heyward, Marcell Ozuna, Paul Goldschmidt, and Nolan Arenado.

Cardinals’ president of baseball operations pins the organization’s downfall to one particular moment a decade ago: Oscar Taveras’s death on October 26th, 2014 at the young age of 22.

In an interview with Martin Kilcoyne, Mozeliak was asked where the tipping point was for the organization. From 2011-2014, the Cardinals made the National League Championship four straight years with a World Series championship sprinkled in. For a time, they were the cream of the crop in player and team performance.

John Mozeliak identified Oscar Taveras’s passing, an incident that had many ramifications, as that moment.

I think the biggest thing is, you have to end up having that impact-type player…we had young Mr. [Oscar] Tavares emerging as we thought would be that type of impact bat. He passes away. I think that’s when things really shifted for us, because we didn’t have anything coming up in the pipeline. So what did we end up doing? We ended up going out and trading for [Marcell] Ozuna, trading for [Paul] Goldschmidt, trading for [Nolan] Arenado.

In order to fill Taveras’s spot on the roster, the organization traded Shelby Miller and Tyrell Jenkins for All-Star outfielder Jason Heyward. Miller was a top pitching prospect in the pipeline at the time, and the Cardinals had to trade him for a replacement outfielder.

Taveras’s death and Heyward signing with the Chicago Cubs led to the Cardinals trading for Marcell Ozuna, Paul Goldschmidt, and Nolan Arenado in search of an organizational cornerstone. As a result of this search, the Cardinals had to send away some of their prized prospects.

While it is true that the Cardinals lost a cornerstone player, someone who they were counting on would lead them for the next decade following Albert Pujols’s departure just a few years prior, they’ve had plenty of top-100 prospects since. None — Jordan Walker excluded — had as much promise as Taveras, though. Players like Alex Reyes, Jack Flaherty, Nolan Gorman, Dylan Carlson, and Masyn Winn were all top prospects in baseball. JJ Wetherholt and Quinn Mathews appear to be the next big names for the organization.

The loss of Oscar Taveras wasn’t the lone cause of the Cardinals’ downfall. Poor player development, bad trades, bad free agents contracts, a lack of technological advancements, and the hacking of the Astros’ system by Chris Correa in 2018 were all part of the problem.

Oscar Taveras’s death, as John Mozeliak states, was a cause of the team’s fall from grace, but it certainly wasn’t the only or main issue.