Big shakeup coming to Cardinals’ front office. Has the new leadership already been hired?

Friday’s announcement that Gary LaRocque would be retiring as assistant general manager and director of player development for the St. Louis Cardinals at the conclusion of this season was not the culmination of system-wide changes, but instead the start of what is certain to be a busy and radically realigning fall and winter.

LaRocque, 71, joined the Cardinals from the New York Mets in 2008. Despite his seniority, he is the person whose title is assistant general manager or higher who most recently worked for another organization.

Insularity has long been one of the defining characteristics of the front office in St. Louis, and a change to that policy is certain to accompany the broader changes which are on the horizon.

Perhaps the most important work that will shape future seasons of Cardinals baseball has been happening quietly behind the scenes throughout the season, as advisor to the president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom has traveled to each of the team’s affiliates and its academy in the Dominican Republic in what can fairly be described as a system-wide audit.

Bloom, previously the top baseball executive in both Boston and Tampa Bay, joined the Cardinals last offseason in an advisory capacity with the clear intent for him to grow into a much more prominent role.

“When I saw that Chaim had been let go in Boston – and (John Mozeliak) saw it as well – I immediately thought we could probably use someone like that,” Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt, Jr. said in January. “(Bloom)’s been with a small market, big market, very smart guy to kind of help see what’s going on with our organization.

“I think he can be very helpful,” DeWitt added. “Our team’s been together a long time, and you never know what else is out there that maybe our guys have not been in touch with. The world changes, and it’s helpful to get the perspective of somebody who’s been with different organizations.”

Bloom, though, was not the only significant winter addition to the team’s executive suite.

Anuk Karunaratne was hired from the Toronto Blue Jays and named senior vice president, business operations. In that role, on the team’s organizational chart, he and his executive assistant are the only two people listed in an unspecified oversight role at the top of the ticket sales, marketing, and corporate sales department.

Those two men – both are just 41 years old – together appear to be leading the vanguard of change that will undoubtedly sweep through the Cardinals front office in the coming months and years.

When DeWitt hired Jeff Luhnow in 2003, his consulting background and work for McKinsey and Company formed a background that held appeal from a business perspective. What was not counted on, however, was the friction that would come from Luhnow’s own personal style and a baseball environment that had no interest in accepting a grating outsider as a person with authority.

Both Bloom and Karunaratne are affable and highly respected around the Cardinals offices; both also have the advantage of joining the organization at a time when they didn’t pose a direct threat to the authority of anyone around them.

Karunaratne’s position roughly overlaps with that which long time executive Dan Farrell vacated upon his retirement, and Bloom doesn’t hold the sort of title or official responsibilities which were handed to Luhnow. And, crucially, Bloom has respect from those in the game who have seen him have success elsewhere and are sympathetic to the rough treatment he received from Boston’s ownership group.

LaRocque’s retirement signals a change coming to player development if for no other reason than it will be headed by a new voice, but that it comes now and with the encouragement of ownership helps to define the scope of that change. Mozeliak’s contract with the organization runs through the end of the 2025 season, by which time he has committed publicly to transitioning out of his current role as president of baseball operations.

Mozeliak’s commitment to finishing his contract, though, does not mean he will remain in the same role through next season. Transition is coming to his position as well as to DeWitt’s; the chairman just turned 83, and his son, team president Bill DeWitt III, has publicly acknowledged the existence of a transition plan which would see the younger DeWitt ascend into the role of chairman and franchise control person.

The lingering question around Bloom’s potential ascension has not been defined by whether the Cardinals want Bloom but rather by what role he sees as his best fit.

With his wife and young children remaining in Boston through this summer, there is a period of personal transition that would come along with moving into Mozeliak’s job. There would also need to be an understanding with ownership regarding plans moving forward and the vision for a franchise which needs desperately to shake a feeling of having grown stale and out of its time.

The changes which must be made run deeper than a figurehead executive directing traffic through the minor leagues. The Cardinals, to their credit, are aware of that, and have brought in personnel they believe will be prepared to execute those changes.

What comes next – and who makes the decisions about what comes next – are the questions that still need to be answered.