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I had the final 26 roster for 2023 at $174.9M after the trades.
With the arbitration salaries a bit higher than I thought, and the Rockies Arenado payment not counting, I have the 2024 payroll at 171.3M (that will climb as guys hit the IL)
Pretty close to about $3.7M to spend if it remains at the final 2023 level though.
One interesting thing about 2025 is that if they retain all current arbitration guys AND pick up the options for Lynn, Gallegos, and Gibson, the 2025 payroll will already be at $175.7M.
Meaning we won’t have any give in the budget without replacing Lynn, Gallegos, Gibson, or the arb guys, for instance. So if we struggle again, there isn’t ANY room for improving the roster, even with losing Goldschmidt.
What makes you think they won’t replace Lynn and Gibson with internal guys? Isn’t that the reason for the short term contacts?
bcc: What makes you think they won’t replace Lynn and Gibson with internal guys?
The internals for ’23 are now on other teams. Liberatore has ’24 to prove himself or he’ll be playing elsewhere in ’25. The FO always has high hopes for these kind of pitchers but maybe one year soon one guy will prove him right.
bccran
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What makes you think they won’t replace Lynn and Gibson with internal guys? Isn’t that the reason for the short term contacts?If that’s the case, then they will have, what, $20-25M to work with, replacing our MOTO 1Bman and 2 starters. I hope we have some really good stars!
14NyquisT
The internals for ’23 are now on other teams. Liberatore has ’24 to prove himself or he’ll be playing elsewhere in ’25.
Liberatore would still be just 25 years old and in between pre-arb/arb in 2025.
gscottar –
If you want to pay him in discounted dollars because of inflationary factors, it behooves you to pay him as much as possible toward the tail end of the contract. Basic finance.I am very familiar with the concept bccran since I work in accounting, however, it is my impression that most backloaded MLB deals aren’t as extreme over that short of a timeframe.
GS, How Gray and Stl agree to payment, is of no concern to me.
You may be concerned about it two years from now when we hear that the budget is tapped out because we are paying him $35M.
Derrick Goold just wrote that he currently projects the Cards at $170MM for the 26-man roster and believes they have room to add another reliever. Note that is different saying from they WILL add one.
Goold repeated the previous assertions from BDWIII and Mo that the 40-man payroll will increase over 2023, without commenting whether or not his projections agree with that.
How do these two statements jibe with what our payroll watchers here are thinking?
Cot’s has the current 26 man payroll at $164M, the 40 man at $172M, and the CBT at $204M.
The 2023 40 man was $179M so they should have room to add another reliever this winter.
They have room, but they said they are done, unless it’s an equal salary trade.
Goold stirring the pot over a 3-5mil FA reliever? Why? Typically 3-5mil buys a lower leverage reliever, which we have a dozen of.
Spending 3-5mil on a backup SS, is a better use of the unavailable funds.
They are as extreme, gscottar, but the fact remains that the Cardinals are way under paying him in 2024 and paying him more in 2026 dollars. It’s the concept of what the overall contract is, and how it’s paid out. Not in trying to look at what he’s paid in individual years vs his age in those years.
Pads –
Gray, Mikolas, and Matz are all signed for 2025. So they only need 2 internal options to step up. If they don’t step up, the Card can exercise the options of Gibson and/or Lynn or go outside for help.
They are as extreme, gscottar, but the fact remains that the Cardinals are way under paying him in 2024 and paying him more in 2026 dollars. It’s the concept of what the overall contract is, and how it’s paid out. Not in trying to look at what he’s paid in individual years vs his age in those years.
Again, I fully understand the concept of the time value of money. My point is that the Cardinals rarely do this, especially to this extreme. Goldy, Mikolas, Matz, and Contreras are all paid roughly the same every year with the exception of Contreras’ first season. Why all of a sudden do an extremely backloaded deal for Gray? My guess is because they are worried about short term revenue.
I think the reason they backloaded Gray’s contract is because they’re looking at one of Gibson($12M) or Lynn($11M) coming off the books after 2024, with Thompson, McGreevy, or Graceffo as the rotation replacement. Then, after the 2025 season, the total of Mikolas’ $18.5M, Matz’s $12.5M, and either Lynn’s $11M, or Gibson’s $12M, comes off the books. Lynn and Gibson will be pushing hard for their options to get picked up after 2024. That’s a good thing.
gscottar said:
Why all of a sudden do an extremely backloaded deal for Gray? My guess is because they are worried about short term revenue.
Yes, that seems the most likely explanation. There is the Bally thing as well as hangover from the 2023 losing thing.
On one hand, their caution is understandable. On the other hand, if they haven’t done enough to turn the losing around, the down cycle will increase, making it even more difficult to recover from financially.
My guess is because they are worried about short term revenue.
I don’t think they’re just looking for short term revenue, although that may be part of it. They’re making sure the front office stays within the organizations’ budget. That’s pretty typical of all businesses, but developers, in particular, like the DeWitts, are single-minded, if not fanatical, about budgets.
The point is that when revenues are down, the only way to continue profitability is to cut expense at least as deeply.
While Gray’s contract makes the current year income statement a little better – gives them more available cash to work with – you still cannot just ignore the future salary. It will be a liability on the balance sheet – something like “Deferred Salaries”.
This will increase the business’ risk a bit, but probably not enough to warrant higher interest rates on loans or anything like that. It could, but my guess is it is not enough to do anything like that.
You are exactly right bikemike. The Cardinals are really hoping that some of their young homegrown pitchers are ready to step into the rotation by 2026 or they are in big trouble because they won’t be able to devote much free agent money to the rotation at that time. Gray is the only starter under contract for 2026 and he will make 35M. Are they going to be able to buy four more starters at the same time? Of course not so it is imperative that the farm system produce some roation pieces.
It is necessary to have a sober outlook when it comes to starters popping out of the pipe. It hasn’t happened, and the same people are in charge.
There are a few ranked in our top 10 along with McGreevy and Graceffo, who have basically stalled. Hence, who had sort of a disagreeable intro to playing with big kids in AA. Roby, who I have already said I don’t think will hold up physically, which is why we got him for a rental. Then there is Hjerpe who has 50 pro innings in A ball, so lets tap the brakes a minute. The best shot, IMO, is probably Rajcic, but we will have a better look this year.
There might be a bit of a gap down to the next bunch. But you never know.
I think we will be in this same position next winter, and for the foreseeable future.
Check out Mo’s remarks from yesterday. Even considering extending Goldy is on the shelf until they get into the season.
My guess is if the season goes badly, either in terms of winning or revenue, or his own performance falls off, he could be a Monty-like trade chip in July.
Last year the Cardinals were out of it by the end of May and most everybody knew it.
As long as they can stay in the race until the end of the year that should help the revenue stream even if they ultimately miss the playoffs again.
To me, this looks like a 78-83 win team but who knows…if they are buyers at the trade DL and pick up a couple of key rentals anything can happen.
As has been discussed in multiple threads here, other than a select handful of franchises – do just enough to get into the playoffs, get a couple of good rentals, and hope to get hot in the tournament.
IIRC, last winter the concensus around here was that the laundry list of pitchers was not going to cut it, but we were not expecting the total collapse that happened. If we were to look back, 78-83 is probably what we were saying then too. Its safe and avoids committing to the team either being pretty good or pretty bad.
I propose that we each commit to predicting either 76 or 85. Either pretty bad or pretty good. But it would probably be best to wait until closer to opening day.
Hitting the pause button on a Goldy extension is probably for the same reason that the Gray contract is so backloaded. They are worried about short term revenue from ticket sales and Ballys/Diamond tv network.
If the team struggles out of the gate and ticket sales plummet, along with a total Bally’s collapse, then it is logical to assume that payroll will shrink even further. If the team plays well and the tv network is somehow saved or taken over by MLB then perhaps the dry powder can come out of storage.
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