Plus there was no such thing as haves and have-nots. No free agents, and veteran major league baseball players had off-season jobs. That was when we knew our team's lineup and all the other teams in the league. They were the same as the year before with one or maybe two exceptions.
St Louis Cardinals 2025
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Ah Grandpa, you're showing your age again.
I will post the following comments out here with no commentary. The #1 most expensive roster is playing the #5 most expensive roster in the World Series. I have not looked up The Dogers and Yankees from 2024, but I think that series financial rankings would be about the same.
And another way to put it is the #1 overall payroll vs the #2 payroll in the AL.
Just goes to show how hard-to-impossible to win World Series it is these days without spending money. Teams have gotten so good at identifying talent that it's a lot harder to level the playing field by excelling in that arena. The Dodgers, who spend a ton, also have one of the best, and according the some sources the best, farm systems in the league.
The Mariners got close, and that's with a payroll over $30 million higher than ours and the absolutely incredible luck to have three guys like JRod, Raleigh, and Woo come through the farm system all at the same time (each of which is better than any single player we have on the roster). Those three make less than $20 million combined, and combined for 18.4 bWAR this season (as a comparison, our top 9 players combined for 18.8 bWAR). They combined that production with an additional $140 million in payroll (our entire payroll was approx $130 million), and it still wasn't enough to get them a pennant.
The Cardinals will never be a top of the league payroll, but if ownership is serious about contending they need to at least be top-10 or better.
We shall see if the decrease in attendance over the past few years has sent a signal to ownership and the FO that a middling team and payroll is unacceptable. The franchise will still make millions upon millions without fans selling out but it would be more lucrative with the fans.
I saw someplace that no team during the last decade has made the World Series unless their payroll was in the top 11/12. Basically, you are correct. Top 10 in payroll is a main ingredient in World Series appearances. It is not a guarantee (this year's Mets for example), but it seems to be a requirement.
Through their dominant mid 00s run and then again through the extremely competitive 2011 through 2016ish run, the Cardinals were always top 10 in payroll (usually in the 7-10 range), which was impressive for team in a market like St Louis - they rely a lot on gate receipts.
These last few years have been a perfect storm of DeWitt Jr. handing some of the reigns over to DeWitt the III who seems to not care about baseball at all (fancies himself a real estate developer), their too-good-to-be-true TV contract falling apart making them super conservative with payrolls, and the development system falling behind (either Mozeliak's fault or lack of investment from the DeWitt's).
Which kind of gives me hope for Bloom's tenure - he allegedly did the development work the last few years (tbd on if that works, but the current farm is pretty stacked, drafting high helps), the TV contract stuff is relatively settled (not as lucrative but at least it's much more known), and attendance has tanked which is a clear sign to ownership that they need to invest in the team and can't just rely on fans to show up no matter what.
They don't trade top prospects for established players, they just pay the top players to play for them. When their home grown guys become eligible to test the free agent market, they keep them if they want them. They aren't moving guys up to replace them. They are a team with money that does it right, top to bottom. We have to hate them for that.
This is all true, but it's also true that they have top notch talent evaluation and development. In part because money also helps for those things, and they are more than happy to spread it around to those parts of the organization as well.
I am seeing a lot of angst from Cardinal fans that Siani has been picked up by I believe the Braves. He is/was a typical Cardinal outfielder of this era pretty good fielder, who had trouble hitting his weght.
He's nearly 27 so more than likely he's reached his peak. A slash line is .221/.277/.270 and an OPS of .547.
What's really sad is the Cardinals have struggled with their OF that at times Siani has looked good to the fans.
Siani never ever looked good to me. I understand what you are saying. That was part of my point that fans were bemoaning the loss of a guy, who spent almost all of 2025 in the minor league.
Ryllini
- Lombard
Here is an AMA with John Denton if you are interested.
Cardinals non-tendered 4 players today including John King and Yohel Pozo.
The Cardinals have brought Pozo back to the club.
Clarke is (was) the #5 prospect in the Red Sox farm, per MLB Pipeline. What I'm reading indicates some upside but also pretty decent risk he ends up a reliever given some control issues. Fitts made 10 starts last season for the BoSox, pitching 45 innings, ERA of 5.00, FIP of 5.80, 40 Ks, bWAR of -0.3, and is 25 yrs old.
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I appreciate the performance of Sonny Gray during the past 2 seasons. He was 27-17 on teams that won 83 and 78 games. And I believe he had 200 strikeouts in each of those seasons. His stats highlight the mediocrity of this starting pitching staff. 2026 could be a very long year.
I am payroll illiterate. But I learned the following on MLB radio network this afternoon. The 2025 payroll was 144 million. Today the payroll is 108 million. Attendance this year was 2.2 million. I believe they said it was down 600,000 plus. The last time the Cardinals drew less than 2 million was 1980.
ptgrd23
- orange county CA
Don't forget the deferred money.
apnews.com
This kind of dumb financial engineering that I thought only the Nationals did. Cards will be paying $2m/year thru 2041.
Nolan was a great player. He is only 34. Nobody was expecting the last 2 years drop off. Going forward I get it.
Arenado gets extra $15M, Cards defer $50M in amended deal
NEW YORK (AP) — Nolan Arenado’s contract was amended when the All-Star third baseman was traded to the Cardinals by the Colorado Rockies, adding a $15 million salary for 2027 to leave him owed $214 million over seven seasons by St.
apnews.com
This kind of dumb financial engineering that I thought only the Nationals did. Cards will be paying $2m/year thru 2041.
Nolan was a great player. He is only 34. Nobody was expecting the last 2 years drop off. Going forward I get it.
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