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Its amazing how many people knew Fowler was going to bomb. Let’s compare the year he was coming off of with the year Contreras is coming off of.
D. Fowler(2016, age 30): .276/.393/.447/.840
Contreras(2022, age 30): .243/.349/.466/.815To me the signing of Contreras is not really out of the box for the them. They do that every few years. It’s just enough to say hey we tried but not enough for anybody to really say they really went for it. What they paid for Contreras was a lot, more than they should have in my opinion but by today’s market it’s not really going for it. The Cardinals may be in a smaller market but they bring in big boy money and attendance. I read an article talking about how the writers n such are viewing the Cardinals world series hopes more favorably than the fans do. Well it’s cause the fans see the needs of the team aren’t really being addressed. I know most will say they addressed the need of catcher. If the Cardinals had been doing their job, we wouldn’t have to get a catcher in free agency. To me that’s something you build up through the minors. We had more pressing needs that would have taken more money and risk but the fans would have been higher on the team.
They had to get a SS and they got Peralta. They had no choice at the time. No internal option was available.
They had to get a catcher and they got Contreras. A great fit who wants to carry on Yadi’s tradition. Knizner and Herrera proved they weren’t ready, after being given a chance. It doesn’t disprove anything, LA.
BB – Fowler and Contreras are totally different individuals. If they had done their diligence with Fowler, he would never have been signed.
Getting a free agent is always going to hurt. You are paying market value for a declining asset.
With the less certain signings, it’s a coin flip at best on some of these guys. You can counter the Miller and Holland signings with Neshek and Norris.
It is great to have regular season success but ending the year with a resounding thud is getting old.
The way I see it is that 29 teams hear a thud every season whether it by elimination during the season or in the play-offs. Are the 29 teams that don’t win considered failures? Is their seasons considered a lost cause? Are they considered losers? There’s only one winner…. and 30 teams. And the winner is usually the one that gets hot during the play-offs.(PHI last season) Winning the WS isn’t always achieved by the best team on paper and the one spending the most on payroll. Taking home the trophy is a very special accomplishment…. only one fan base gets the final celebration.
The ’60 Yankees lost the WS by one pitch… Mazoroski’s HR…. THUD.
My biggest regret is that we didn’t sign Scherzer when he signed with Washington. In hindsight that 7 year deal looks fabulous now.
A couple of points to clarify. Forbes defines their Operating Income number as income “before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.” Normally this is the way OI is defined, as amortization and depreciation are expenses incurred in a prior period that contribute to revenue over a period of time greater than one year.
Also, in looking at Forbes’ revenue estimates, the Cardinals rank 14th if my ranking is correct. They are #7 in value, but #14 in revenue. Atlanta was brought up here, and they generate a much greater revenue stream than the Cardinals, $443M to $287M. San Diego is right with us at $282M. But the Braves have a lot more debt to service than the Cardinals.
The Padres are interesting given the financial data Forbes has available, as they carry more debt than the Cardinals, but are comparable in both revenue and OI. With a higher payroll they obviously have lower non-player-payroll operating expenses. Much of their debt is likely being amortized over future years.
One difference between the two clubs is they have the behemoth just north of them, the Dodgers, that they have to compete with every year just to get to the post season. Then there are the Giants, who have a strong balance sheet and had a positive OI in 2022. The Giants are a very well financed organization. We have a much easier ride to post season than the Padres, as long as the Cubs management falls on their face.
It is usually calculated this way, although particular industries or businesses may tweak it some:
Revenue – Operating Expenses = Operating Income
For a sports franchise, Operating Expenses are likely to be salaries, including benefits, and other administrative and office expenses, general stadium upkeep and expenses, travel expenses, equipment costs, insurance expense, rental expense, and undoubtedly a few other areas of that nature. Basically the day-to-day costs to operate the organization.
Operating Income is often referred to as “EBITDA”, which is “Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization”
Operating Income less Interest, Taxes, Depreciation & Amortization = Net Income
Net Income is the bottom line number – the amount that gets rolled into the balance sheet at the end of the fiscal year as Retained Earnings.
The Padres may be in a tougher division but their owners are still making a conscious decision to spend as much or more than their two big brothers in California. The Padre ownership could easily sit back and put a payroll out there that ranks 15-20 and hope for the best but they aren’t.
Personally I do not think having a half dozen players on your roster with a 10 year $300M contract is a wise thing in the long term but I doubt if their fans are complaining at the moment because there is nothing better than thinking that your team has a chance to win a World Series.
The Cardinals would probably argue that they don’t need to commit to big free agent deals because they were able to basically steal Goldy and Arenado away from the Dbacks and Rockies, and I can’t argue with that but how often do those kind of deals come along? You need to be willing to use all of the tools in your toolbox.
Different ownership structure. The Padres are owner by a private equity group that has inroads to huge amounts of institutional capital.
If you are suggesting the Cardinals wouldn’t have access to “huge amounts” of capital if they wanted to pursue it, I think not.
Haha!…You ain’t kiddin’ greyghost. And a lot of people didn’t give The Great Albert Pujols much of a chance.
Although it wasn’t a FA signing, this is probably the most team friendly multi year contract signing since the advent of the Big League FA. During this 7 year $100MM contract the player averaged .326/40/117 and was awarded 3 NL MVP awards. In addition, the team he played for was rewarded with 2 WS Championships.
Different ownership structure. The Padres are owner by a private equity group that has inroads to huge amounts of institutional capital.
When someone asked about franchise value you said that didn’t count and what mattered was annual revenue. Now you are saying that we should also count additional pots of money besides annual revenue. Which is it?
The Cardinals are worth more than what the numbers show. They have an outstanding fanbase that other teams don’t have even though their home market is not as big. When you consistently draw in huge attendance like they do, it adds a lot of value that financial numbers don’t show. Now ownership has has helped to keep that going with their philosophy of just giving themselves a shot in playoffs but when your shots start turning into getting swept and players not performing up to standards, ownership has to start changing it up a bit.
“My biggest regret is that we didn’t sign Scherzer when he signed with Washington. In hindsight that 7-year deal looks fabulous now.”
And Washington also signed pitchers Strasburg and Corbin to similarly massive long-term contracts, and those contracts have backfired so horribly that the team has finished last three years in a row with no end to the misery in sight. That’s the downside to such contracts.
Well, it’s true that the Cardinals consistently put plenty of fans in the seats, Willie, but that’s contigent on winning. In ’95 they drew 1.7MM to Busch Memorial Stadium. In ’96, 2.6MM fans showed up as they won the NLC that season and were one game shy of winning the NL Pennant. To further illustrate what I’m driving at, after an extended stretch of futility, the Cardinal’s attendance in ’82 (A WS Championship season) was “only” 2.1 MM. At any rate, I think StL. has good baseball fans, but I’ve never been ready to proclaim them as, “The best fans in baseball.” They’re like anywhere else when it comes down to W’s and L’s.
The Pirates averaged 2.4MM fans from ’13 to ’16 when they were pretty good. In ’21 and ’22 they averaged 1.1MM fans. Al Davis knew what he was talking about and Billy Jr. knows this to be the truth.
And Washington also signed pitchers Strasburg and Corbin to similarly massive long-term contracts, and those contracts have backfired so horribly that the team has finished last three years in a row with no end to the misery in sight. That’s the downside to such contracts.
But they did get a world series win out of it. You win some you lose some but the win was pretty significant. If you don’t take risks you will good most of the time but just not good enough.
I don’t know about all that Oliver. What big risk did the Cardinals take to win it all in 2011? In 2006?
BikeMike – I’ve been involved in the M&A industry as an investment banker for over 40 years. We deal with accounting practices and deal structuring for our clients on an on going basis. I don’t mean to refute what you’re saying, but for my whole career I’ve been involved with EBITDA, operating income, etc. Very simply, operating income is after depreciation and amortization and before interest and taxes.
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