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Bccran – the Cardinals set their bar for being good. They should be setting it to be great. If you’ve ever read the book, “From Good to Great”, you know the enemy of being great is being good. It’s like how the Japanese car brands engineered their cars to never fail, while American car brands engineered their cars to fail after 100,000 miles. The result was Japanese brands became known for quality and captured market share from the American brands.
The Cardinals should be aiming to win a World Series every year. Instead, they aim to be “competitive”. They are bound to have much higher failure rates, because their bar is much lower.
One of the competitive advantages the Cardinals used to be able to enjoy is they could take the bad contracts (Goldschmidt & Arenado are examples) from other small to mid-market clubs without stretching their budget. That advantage now appears to be gone, as the club appears to be pivoting to the business model of Tampa & Oakland, of seeking handouts to maximize profitability rather than winning.
2023: 71-91, 3.2 million tickets sold
2024: 83-78, 2.8 million tickets soldIt seems pretty clear that its not the losing that ownership is responding to.
In this week's podcast, @bt_newberry and I discuss the #STLCards organization Player of the Year and Pitcher of the Year, Jimmy Crooks and Quinn Mathews (p). We also check on results posted by the eight players competing in the Arizona Fall League. https://t.co/cTOqnRqyvA pic.twitter.com/1jgM9kVOpK
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) October 16, 2024
This week, @bt_newberry and I discuss yesterday's #STLCards announcements. New AGM Rob Cerfolio and his upcoming hire of two directors, then new coaches, Brant Brown and Jon Jay. We close with potential upcoming roster changes at the major league level. https://t.co/mDeex5kS68 pic.twitter.com/Nccy9eNU6Y
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) October 23, 2024
In our Wednesday podcast, @bt_newberry and I discuss key offseason dates and implications for the #stlcards for the remainder of the year. Topics include options, free agency, key awards, Rule 5 decisions and more. https://t.co/JqdljGoPv9 pic.twitter.com/J0ACGMHkTP
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) November 6, 2024
Re: “the two guys in center”
Scott’s career path got interrupted by injuries to others, and now seems like an opportunity to “reset” him.
Where does Scott need to be on his career path? Is it a strong case he needs to be on the 26man now?
Good session this week. Looks like the 1B question has been solved with the Contreras announcement. And it’s interesting that both he and Gray have now said that they want to stay in St. Louis.
In our Wednesday podcast, @bt_newberry and I revisit the top players of the 2024 season across the #stlcards minor league system one last time. Top rookies and system leaders in various hitting, running and pitching categories are highlighted. https://t.co/ZLmihoDfWp pic.twitter.com/Qbawb09qLJ
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) November 13, 2024
LA –
The problem with being great every year is that the financial dynamics have changed. Free agency has led to enormous contracts with the mid to small market teams literally unable to compete for the super stars. They simple don’t have the cable contracts to do that. So a team has to tank to get high draft choices, or have a state of the art terrific system in place for minor league player development. Which is what the Cardinals are putting into place. Finally.
Good WWW this week, covering some guys that aren’t generally talked about, but put up good numbers this season. Especially intrigued with Petrutz out hitting Wetherholtz.
#271652
Nice reply Cranny. With the uncertainty of our TV revenue, I find it hard to foresee StL as more than a mid-tier player budget, even if/when a terrific PD is in place, and improved TV revenue returns.You’ve spoken before about Bills conservatism and I found your opinions insightful. So I ask, with a stronger future pipeline in place, can you foresee Bill spending on the player budget beyond mid-tier? Or does his conservatism kick in? Best guess.
According to Cot’s here are our opening day 26-man payroll rankings for the last decade.
2015- 12
2016- 10
2017- 14
2018- 10
2019- 07
2020- 10
2021- 10
2022- 13
2023- 15
2024- 11It will be interesting to see where 2025 lands.
11.2 avg rank. If we split the clubs in thirds, they are top mid-tier, but the important context is how they spend if/when the pipeline gets fixed. Which is why I asked.
In terms of ranking, the Cardinals’ clear annual trend from 2019 through 2023 was down before it reversed in 2024. That is going to be a one-time spike. It will be interesting to see how far they drop comparatively in 2025. It could set a DeWitt era record.
As a reminder, a lot of teams are having TV rights fees challenges. The Cardinals are nowhere near being alone in that. The “imperfect” storm for them was that it happened during a time the team lost competitiveness on the field.
The latter is the core problem, IMO. Fans will pay to see winning ball.
In case folks did not know, Blake Newberry is stepping away from writing and podcasting at the end of the year to pursue his MBA (while also working full-time). We are really going to miss him…
Blake has been a tremendous contributor to TCN for six years and will continue through our 2025 #stlcards Top 50 prospect countdown. But it is the ideal point in his life to take on new challenges and he will go even further in the future!
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) November 14, 2024
I definitely understand Blake’s decision as it will be a lot of work on getting the MBA. Best of luck to Blake as I really enjoyed getting to read his scouting reports on prospects as that is probably my favorite content of the year. Maybe he will still lurk around in the comments every now and again.
Also of note when it comes to payroll rankings is that sometimes there can be a big gulf between just a few spots in the rankings. At the end of 2024 the Cardinals 40 man payroll was ranked 12th at $179M. The 10th ranked Blue Jays were at $216M, which is $47M more than the Cardinals but only two spots higher.
The problem with being great every year is that the financial dynamics have changed. Free agency has led to enormous contracts with the mid to small market teams literally unable to compete for the super stars. They simple don’t have the cable contracts to do that. So a team has to tank to get high draft choices, or have a state of the art terrific system in place for minor league player development.
But the Cardinals haven’t been “great” every year. They try to be “good” every year, and now they are failing at that low bar.
One of the advantages the Cardinals have had is financial power relative to other small market teams. That allowed them to absorb contracts of people like Arenado and Goldschmidt that other small market teams were overwhelmed by. And it created a competitive advantage.
No, they can’t sign stars like Ohtani or Soto, but they can get stars.
No team can build entirely from within. The Cardinals need to be better at drafting, particularly in the first and second rounds. Back when they had 3-4 picks in the first round, it did not matter as much and they could take more risk. But a lot of their high draft picks have been head scratchers, and their misses with draftees with the highest probability of success have caused the team to not be able to produce division contenders.
They also have to realize when they are not competitive, like last year, they need to trade ALL players on expiring deals that they can. There was zero reason for them to hold on to Kittredge. Zero. Instead, they let him walk for nothing. They also traded an outfielder with multiple years of control for a reliever on an expiring deal that they DFA’d weeks later. Talk about stupidity.
The Cardinals could have fielded much more competitive teams over the last few years with the same budgets. They simply don’t try to improve in every way possible.
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