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The club’s slip in performance in recent weeks — entering Monday night against the Colorado Rockies, they’d gone 18-24 since the start of June — only complicates the discourse surrounding the decisions made leading up to Major League Baseball’s trading deadline on July 31.

This summer represents an important benchmark as far as where this club is headed for the next few seasons. The two most important things Cardinals leadership can communicate, through actions more than anything else, will be a declaration and a direction.

After all, the words gets murky rather quickly. Whether its terms such as rebuild, reset, transition, runway or whatever else, messaging often becomes about influencing public perception more than simply shooting folks straight.

However, actions speak plainly and with a megaphone.

Ideally, the Cardinals’ actions this summer will serve as a clear declaration of how club leadership views its current group.

Hopefully, sooner than later it will be evident which players the club sees as critical parts of future success. By extension, we should also learn who the club has a willingness to move on from in order to open paths for other young players currently progressing through their farm system.

Throughout the offseason, the club made sure not to push its attention too quickly past the current core, and that makes sense if there’s some belief that part of this current group of players will still be with the club when it’s ready to contend.

Dating back to last September, club leadership has always kept that possibility on the table.

“Our baseball decisions going forward will focus on developing our pipeline of players (and) giving our young core every opportunity to succeed at the major league level,� Cardinals Chairman and CEO Bill DeWitt Jr. said the day after the 2024 regular season ended.

“The good news is we have a strong group of young players, and we will continue to push for ways to get better in the short term. And our number one priority will be to lay the foundation for a sustained period of competitive excellence in the years ahead.�

Even in that comment, DeWitt Jr. made sure to hit the short term despite stating the future is the No. 1 priority.

Club leadership left the door open to the idea that they’d build their next contending team around members of the existing core, but that remained to be seen.

That decision clearly wasn’t predetermined. Owner Bill DeWitt III’s comments about the current group of young players at the club’s annual Winter Warm-Up event underscored that in January.

“We really have to clear the path for playing time for all of them so we know what we have,� DeWitt III said. “When we can properly identify who the guys are that are going to be the foundation for our future success, then we can start adding back with various other ways to supplement what you have internally.�

Obviously, that comment instantly gets viewed through the prism of when the club might increase payroll or aggressively explore free agency options.

Looking past the spending aspect, DeWitt III stated very clearly that they were going into this season still needing to sort through which current players will be part of the future that they’re envisioning.

Now, six months later, we’re reaching a point where a defined direction should be taking shape.

The decisions the club makes, starting with but not ending with the trade deadline, will tell us where the club’s leadership is leaning in regard to the current core group of players.

Will they double down on this group?

Continuing to make a postseason push this season will indicate they see long-term value in this group playing in meaningful games now. Of course, that value only comes if those players are going to be part of the club’s next contending team.

On the other hand, might the Cardinals display a willingness to forego a playoff push and turn attention to acquiring prospects aimed at bolstering their hopes of contending in 2026, 2027 or 2028?

In that case, they’d seemingly be telling us that the foundation of the next contending team isn’t currently in the majors. Obviously, that’s not something a club announces publicly. It’s not exactly likely to rally a fan base.

But if the front office moves players off the current roster in order to acquire players that might not impact the roster in a meaningful way for another year or two, it will be instructive.

This trade deadline and the months that follow should tell us how the club feels about its current group of players and it should also indicate whether the front office will treat that group as a foundation or placeholders for the next core group that they expect to contend.

It won’t necessarily be about what’s said as much as what’s done.

To take a page out of the book of former Seattle Seahawks All-Pro running back Marshawn Lynch: It’s about that action, boss.