Not much went right for the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2023 MLB campaign, and early on in the offseason, it looks like the team has more bad news to deal with. Reports have begun to filter in saying that the Cardinals baseball academy in the Dominican Republic was the subject of an armed robbery, with players losing money and jewelry, and coaches being held at gunpoint.

This isn't the first time an MLB teams' baseball academy has been robbed in the Dominican Republic, with the Cleveland Guardians and Miami Marlins also suffering similar incidents lately. The difference here, though, is that rather than stealing just baseball equipment, the robbers took possessions from the players and coaches, and threatened violence upon them if they didn't comply.

This is certainly a scary situation for the Cardinals and all folks involved, but luckily, it seems like everyone managed to escape from this robbery unharmed for the time being. The incident itself is obviously concerning, but the most important piece of the puzzle is making sure that everyone involved is OK.

With these sorts of crimes continuing to pop up, hopefully the MLB will notice what is happening and take steps to ensure that their respective teams' academies in the Dominican Republic are protected from these sorts of threats. Again, it's great that everyone involved appears to have escaped unharmed, but the league needs to begin to find ways to prevent these robberies from happening as they become more commonplace to start the offseason.