Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak has a favorite line about insanity.
You know the one; it’s defined by doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. The approach rarely succeeds and creates much scar tissue even when it does. Sometimes the Cardinals forget.
Nothing makes the Cardinals tie on a bib and eat bad result after bad result like continued attempts to justify a significant contract that is aging poorly.
Combine payroll politics with the burning desire to be right about a player they committed to, and the Cardinals could go toe-to-toe with human hot dog vacuum Joey Chestnut in a contest of stomaching pain.