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Sprinkled in among the discussion of the Cardinals’ revenue, their television deal, investments in player development and the “cycles� of the baseball business, club Chairman and CEO Bill DeWitt Jr. offered insight into the bets the club placed in recent years.

Most interestingly, DeWitt identified one key resource the Cardinals depleted — draft picks — yet he also doubled down on the approach he and his baseball operations department took leading up to the current “reset,� as the team has called it.

Hindsight always provides a great deal of clarity. It’s the equivalent of retaking a test after you’ve been handed the answers.

In that vein, DeWitt could’ve looked back on what’s now an 11-year absence from the World Series and offered red meat to appease rabid fans. He could have bombastically declared their recent stretch a failure and touted widespread change.

Instead, he leaned into the Cardinals’ past success as a roadmap for a path forward.

“I’ve always been a draft-and-develop guy,� DeWitt said. “I think it’s the best way to build a baseball team. Back when we bought the club, that’s the path we took. I think we’ve reached a point in time when it’s appropriate to focus on that.�

The first step in becoming a draft-and-develop organization? Drafting.

DeWitt repeatedly pointed out the Cardinals haven’t given themselves the sort of chances in the draft that they did in the past.

“We’ve made every effort to have the best teams that we can have, but it’s at a sacrifice,� DeWitt said. “We haven’t had players because we’ve lost them when we’ve signed players. We’ve generally picked low in the draft or high, however you want to pronounce it.

“The best way to produce a championship club, in my view, is to have good young players coming through the system. When you go a period of time where you don’t have the luxury of early draft choices, you can’t just spend your way into it.�

What’s behind this hyperfocus on draft picks?

Well, DeWitt was acknowledging the numbers game that helped the Cardinals collect talent.

From 2005 through 2014, the Cardinals had multiple first-round picks or supplement round picks eight times (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2014). In 2012, they picked five times in the first 59 picks.

When they took multiple bites of the apple during those years, the group of players the Cardinals selected included Colby Rasmus, Adam Ottavino, Lance Lynn, Pete Kozma, Shelby Miller, Kolten Wong, Patrick Wisdom, Stephen Piscotty, Michael Wacha, Marco Gonzales, Jack Flaherty, Luke Weaver, Dakota Hudson and Dylan Carlson.

Rasmus (2005), Lynn (2008), Wisdom (2012), Piscotty (2012) and Wacha (2012) were all either supplemental or compensation picks, and they’ve combined to produce 76.4 wins above replacement (WAR).

Meanwhile, the Cardinals have made just one first-round selection in each of their past six drafts.

Did the Cardinals take too long to hit the reset button? Perhaps have second thoughts about the way they continued to chase wins with free-agent additions instead of looking inward as they’re now doing?

“I don’t think so,� DeWitt said. “I think we had pretty good success along the way. It didn’t play out necessarily to the ultimate goal, but we’ve had winning seasons, made the playoffs a pretty good percentage of the time.

“But I think we picked the right time to do it. Some of our key players, (Paul Goldschmidt) and (Nolan) Arenado were great players and potential Hall of Famers. It just felt like now was the time to move forward with the group of young players that we do have and try to get those draft choices that we sacrificed over the years.�

Translation: We took our best swings, and we struck out.

In the past 11 seasons, the Cardinals made six playoff appearances and posted a winning record in 10 of the 11 seasons. They continued to chase more. Cardinals fans will certainly debate how wisely they chased, but they chased.

They made the playoffs and fell short of the World Series in 2014 and 2015. They missed the playoffs in 2016 and 2017, and then traded away pitching prospects Sandy Alcantara and Zac Gallen as part of a package to acquire slugger Marcell Ozuna.

After they missed the playoffs again in 2018, they acquired Goldschmidt heading into 2019 and signed him to an extension through 2024. They traded for Arenado, and his existing long-term contract (through 2027) heading into 2022.

The Cardinals certainly chased. They didn’t chase the way the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees or New York Mets chase, but they took their swing knowing they were thinning out their depth in the process — both via trading prospects and by giving up those picks DeWitt referenced.

“We’ve been at a real disadvantage on extra picks, which small market teams have,� DeWitt said. “Also, when we’ve signed free agents, we’ve lost picks there. So it’s been hard to build from within when you don’t have good draft picks and you lose some of the ones that you do have.�

They bet on free agents and retaining veteran players. In the end, they came up short.

Now, they’re reverting to their previous formula.

The most recent Cardinals club to make a World Series appearance in 2013 featured a couple of high-profile acquisitions from outside of the organization in veteran stars Carlos Beltran and Matt Holliday.

That group also leaned heavily upon homegrown talent such as Yadier Molina, Allen Craig, Matt Carpenter, Jon Jay, Daniel Descalso, Matt Adams, Adam Wainwright, Trevor Rosenthal, Joe Kelly, Kozma, Lynn, Miller and Wacha.

The Cardinals have plenty of work to do to solidify their next homegrown core, but the guy in charge isn’t singing his regrets. He’s ready for the restart.