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I am sure my thinking is flawed ( it normally is), but if the Cardinals chose to sign Realamuto, Bauer, Springer, and Turner for a combined 100 million this year, it wouldn’t exceed 7% growth on a 1.5 billion dollar franchise. Perhaps the penalties could push it beyond, but World Series runs built much of the current value.
They have plenty to spend; their fiscal conservatism is rooted in high-salaried executives working dream jobs who are terrified of being fired.
The reality must be that player performance is simply too volital to predict with any certainty, so large financial commitments are not wise.
On the other hand, any player whose war is greater than four is a huge bargain at current prices. Do you want to bet your future on Tommy Pham’s vision?Whitey always advocated trading three good players for one great one. Great players are always underpaid. Mike Trout is worth 7 win shares at 8 million each but is paid far less.
If we could get a five war player for some of our youngsters, I bet the money would be there.
Realistically, they are not going to make that kind of trade unless they know for sure the player would sign an extension. Goldy signed his before ever playing a game at Busch wearing the uniform. Does anyone think that Lindor would do that? How about Story? Or Seager or …?
It is a very tricky situation because its not like the Cardinals can call up Lindor’s agent and start talking about an extension while he is under contract to the Indians.
Again, it is not impossible, but I wouldn’t stay up late at night hoping for it – at least this winter. Maybe down the road…
P.S. Even for 2021, to cover Lindor’s $20 MM-ish salary and stay within their self-imposed budget, they would have to pass on re-signing Yadi and Waino plus maybe unload additional salary in the trade to make the money neutral. And if I am the Indians, I would not want the Cardinals’ bad contracts. Cleveland could (and likely will) cut a better deal with another team that is more willing to spend right now than the Cardinals (same as with Colorado and Arenado or any other big contract available).
Goldy signed his before ever playing a game at Busch wearing the uniform. Does anyone think that Lindor would do that? How about Story? Or Seager or …?
Most likely not, unless they are going to overwhelm them with an offer. It’s not realistic though, given all the uncertainty. I think the Cards would be best served by holding onto a chunk of money and using it next offseason. It’s not like you can’t tell if a player is the type you may want from afar.
I think some of the reaction is based on expectations conditioned from the past. It used to be that St. Louis was considered such a prime destination that the club could acquire players with a greater confidence that the player would be overwhelmed by the support received being with St. Louis that he would sign an extension at a “hometown discount” just to stay on.
Those days are history, with Jason Heyward putting the final nail in that coffin. (Before that, Matt Holliday ended up staying, but not without going full bore into free agency and encouraging other offers until re-signing in January.) I think Goldy was the exception, and no longer the rule. The Cardinals are well aware of this perception change (see Giancarlo Stanton) and will continue to be exceptionally cautious ahead.
As was pointed out earlier, they are simply more interested in being the edgy smartest guys in the room.
Well these edgy smart guys are paying Carp, Fowler, Miller, CMart, and Mikolas a combined $75.7M this year, not including the two legacy deals on the way. How smart is that?
Here is an article that lays out all the emotional issues, but it is from the perspective of a blogger who wants both Yadi and Waino re-signed. To me, it is incomplete because it stops short of dealing with the only two questions that really matter – how much will the team offer and how much will the players require to accept? IMO, all the rest is secondary and no matter how it ends, one side of the issue or the other will play the blame game. Count on it.
What Do the Cardinals Owe the Legends? https://t.co/v3lGCDyNEA
— Cardinal70 (@C70) December 17, 2020
Nigel, your thoughts on the psychology of spending money is very interesting. I see that each day. I work for a person who can write a $1 million check for a construction project but the very next day is fretting over how much we are spending on paper clips. It is a weird thing.
Not all owners are the same. Steinbrenner was a crazy meddler but he would spend like a drunken sailor and the fans loved him for it. Mike Ilitch, the late owner of the Tigers, vastly overspent based on their market size, and the fans loved it. They got to the 2006 World Series, knocked off by our Cards, and have had problems ever since. Big spending can lead to big problems if you aren’t careful but all fans want to feel like their team is “going for it.” I have never heard a fan excitingly exclaim how much money their team was saving.
The Cardinals have always been more prudent and conservative and probably always will be. I suspect they have tons of money and I have never bought into the idea they are a small market or even mid-size market team. I really doubt they are. But as I have said before, the amount of money they spend is not as big of a problem as how they spend it. They just have too much wasted money on the payroll. Every team does to an extend but we have more than our share. We have to learn to spend smarter.
I still think the Cardinal/Dodger model (don’t shoot me for saying that) is the way to go though. Primarily build from within combined with smart trades and a few smart FA acquisitions.
I think the bottom line is we are basically going to have the same team in 2021 as we had in 2020 minus Wong and Hudson while adding Hicks and Mikolas. The hope is that a lot of guys have bounce back years. That is a lot to hope for. The other big factor is that the expectation is that the Cubs, Brewers, and Reds will all be worse and the Pirates are not a threat. If the NLC can be won with 85 wins then the Cards brass probably feel we are in good shape.
FWIW, as this is not on subject, but I won’t ever accept the suggestion that the Cardinals and Dodgers follow the same model – and when we asked Mo about it directly, he did not accept it, either. While there are elements of their respective approaches that are similar, there are HUGE difference$ that set them apart.
The Dodgers saw the model that the Cards used so we’ll when the Mo/Luhnow era began and decided to copy it…and then added an extra $100M a year to implement it. So I suppose it’s the same model in the sense that a Chevy and a Rolls Royce are both cars that can get you from point A to point B. The Chevy may even outperform the Rolls Royce in some conditions. But there’s no mistaking that the Rolls Royce has been designed at a much greater expense with finer parts and its owners are more willing to upgrade it by spending money whenever needed.
I am firmly in favor of fiscal conservatism and I love the player development model.
The willingness to spend on superstars is a crucial element of this model because that action is counterintuitavely fiscally conservative.
You still sign Yadi and Waino, then as i said upgrade what you can based on your purse strings
but i disagree that you cant upgrade the offense
trades exist…and while maybe no one will be wheeling and dealing like i hypothesize on, EVERY other team out there is looking to improve and keep costs down
We have young talent that could get us solutions to the offense. Can we OFFLOAD bad contracts, probably not, but that doesn’t mean we could not deal from our starting pitching talent to land an impact bat or two.
I like Oviedo, Thompson, Woodford, Ponce, Gomber…. but what are they really? long term for us? #5’s? maybe #4’s? All are pretty much ready to be used or dealt as pretty much ready. And lots of team need cheap starting pitching. We can provide it. We can’t offer #1’s but we can offer cheap 4’s and 5’s.
Jack, Hud, Mik…are all here through 23 probably…. Libertore is probably slotted in in 21….that leaves 1 spot for all of these guys to fight over. And i am NOT saying deal them all as you DO need SOME depth. But i do believe we can trade from what we have to get at least one bat that helps us bridge to Gorman at 3b or plays 2b letting Edman slot over to 3b more.
Maybe you deal Knizner and some pitching…get a 3bman or leadoff man…then look for a cheap signing of whatever you don’t get.
What about Ryan McMahon from COL? had his ups and downs, but maybe Knizner for him gets it done as COL has no catching depth. we can sign a FA backup for Yadi with Yadi on for a 1yr + option deal while waiting for Herrera. MCMahon can play 1, 2, 3 has a bit of power and wouldn’t money-wise cost much. He hit well in the minors, and hasn’t been given full PT yet really, there is still upside to him at his age. He isn’t perfect, but his potential offense at his positions might be better served for the Cardinals than what Knizner offers us, in a world where the Cardinals have an icon like Yadi still able to play.
Add in a leadoff type in Cesar Hernandez contract and things start to look ok with minimal money added.
There are trades out there to be done. And maybe you swing and miss, but re-signing your icons is a must thing to do, if it means less money to sign players so be it…but saying you cant improve the team because you dont have money is just not true… it only is t rue if you arent willing to do trades and potentially lose those trades to fix your problems…hopefully you can solve other teams problems and it works out well for everyone
But the offense does NOT have to be the same as last year, and minimal money can be spent to do so. And that in no way should stop us from re-signing our icons.
Also, all this talk of budgets is lame anyways…they have plenty of money, they are just trying to recoup what they lost last year…i dont care if it is a business or not, they have money… an they will have money they can forecast for moving forward year after year…. baseball is not goign to die and go away…they will only be making more and more as the years go on….all they are trying to do is make back their money from last year and ideas on what they lose this year as quick as possible because they are greedy…
Greedy business is not the only type of business…business can also be GOOD and be the type of business that continues to honor it’s icons and fans by investing in the team on the field even when the market says you don’t have to…that respect and honor creates even more loyalty and respect. And the type of loyalty that can’t be bought when things are all peachy.
They are simply taking advantage of the fans long time loyalty right now (and they have been doing it for the last 2-3yrs). At some point the fans will turn, like NOT re-signing icons over small amounts of money, and no amount of yearly remember we made the playoffs the last couple years news articles will fix it.
Yadi and Waino arent wanting a mega deal like Pujols, everyone was upset at losing Pujols but it made sense…who turns down 30m more? But NOt signing Waino for an incentive deal an watchign him play for nothign somewhere else, or not re-signing Yadi for 10mil and an option..an watching him play in WAS for nothing will upset the fans especially if the replacements arent slam dunks.
Sure…if you sign Realmuto…it could make it palatable, maybe even trading for Arenado (using the line that saving Yadi money got us Arenado) sure…and Waino gone i am not sure you can do honestly…
just get it done…
I agree, Nigel. Every time I see someone propose signing a big name free agent to a huge long term contract, I have to wonder whether they understand the long term economic implications. The fact that it may throw the personnel
balance of the team out of whack.I agree, Nigel. Every time I see someone propose signing a big name free agent to a huge long term contract, I have to wonder whether they understand the long term economic implications. The fact that it may throw the personnel
balance of the team out of whack.It seems to me that what Nigel said is not what you are agreeing to, unless Nigel meant to say something else.
Of course every team would *like* to develop all their players in house and keep churning out winners, but it’s not how things actually work. Even a team like the Dodgers who’ve developed a lot of talent in house (Kershaw, Buehler, Seager, Bellinger, Pederson etc) have went outside the team to get talent in the last few years (Machado a couple years back, Betts, Turner, etc) because they aren’t going to limit themselves to one mode of team building.
The Cards have consistently went for the mid range free agents over the years and while it worked ok for a while, they have flailed lately. The system is producing plenty of 2-3 WAR talent on the cheap, which is nice. What it’s not producing often enough is 5+ WAR talent. Occasionally a Carp or Wong or Dejong approach that, but there’s been no consistency there. IMO, the team got spoiled by the Pujols years where they had an 8+ WAR megastar on the team to build around. Without that, the model doesn’t work as well.
Anyway, of course having 2-3 WAR in house players for $600K is fiscally responsible but when they go shopping, the Cards have shopped in the bin of 2-3 WAR prices ($12-20M a year) and hoped to get 4+ WAR production from 30+ year old players. That just doesn’t seem to work because those guys don’t have the ceiling to make them bargains (your Leakes, Fowlers, Cecils, Hollands, Andrew Millers). Because they get so caught up trying to get a bargain, they miss where the true bargains on the free agent market are: the high end.
Take a guy like Mookie Betts. The Dodgers are paying him huge money. But even at $30ish million a year he’s a huge bargain because he’s a near guarantee to provide 5+ WAR a year (which is $45M value on the market) and can be up to 8+ ($72M). That’s big surplus value. Even a Machado at that price is providing adequate to plus value at 4-5 WAR a year. That’s guys like Lindor, Seager, Conforto, Scherzer, etc on the 2021 market. Those guys are worth their deals because they produce, and have shown that they produce. Is there a bigger risk if they are injured or decline early? Sure. But it’s no bigger risk than spending $60+M a year on Carpenter, Fowler, Miller, and Mikolas. What’s the upside for those 4 combined this year? Maybe 6 WAR? With a downside of 2? And those guys will probably take up 1/8th or more of the team’s plate appearances and 1/6th of the innings. Betts is a better bet to reach 6 WAR by himself and at half that price, AND allows you to spend smartly on upgrades at 3 other roster spots that are otherwise taken by dead weight.
I guess what I’m getting at is that though the Cards have been risk averse to the large deals, it has been to their detriment and not their benefit. And it’s been that way since about 2012, to be frank. They’ve wasted an excessive amount of money on incrementally upgrading the team that could have been used on an occasional big upgrade. They’ve seen a little bit of the error of their ways with the Goldy trade (Ozuna was still an old school trade that flopped). I hope they are willing to open the pocket book in a year and take a chance.
1.) Heyward didn’t extend with the Cards because he didn’t care for St. Louis.
2.) There are deals out there that can be made right
now. Guys who are going to get expensive for low budget teams in the next several years. Check the full MLB arbitration list.3.) There are FAs out there that would take shorter term contracts. Stop gaps until your own guys develop….
Gorman, Montero, Torres, Herrera, etc.Perhaps another reason they seem to be increasingly gun shy is that in pretty much every case when they WERE willing to spend big money in recent years, it would have backfired in their face – starting with Albert, to Heyward, to Price and Stanton. Each of them would have been at least $200 MM – kind of money. For whatever reason, their big picks all went badly, even though they weren’t on the roster.
1.) Heyward didn’t extend with the Cards because he didn’t care for St. Louis.
2.) There are deals out there that can be made right
now. Guys who are going to get expensive for low budget teams in the next several years. Check the full MLB arbitration list.3.) There are FAs out there that would take shorter term contracts. Stop gaps until your own guys develop….
Gorman, Montero, Torres, Herrera, etc.1. Heyward was a good miss. Although they did make an attempt. It happens.
2. There are a few, yes. You’ve got the cheaper type that you expect 2-3 WAR from and hope for more (Ozuna) or the more expensive type that will cost you more in prospects and that you expect better production from (Goldy). Both will cost you some of the guys you mention in #3. Are you willing to do that? Otherwise it’s just a crapshoot and more of the same 85-88 win teams we’ve seen from this mismanagement in the last 5 years. This team has a few prospects of value and a lot more money available next year. That’s my point.
3. Again, those are the Leake/Fowler/Cecil types. They are bad deals all around. Wild Card hopefuls make those kinds of moves. Championship teams aim for and get bigger fish. I want this team to win titles, not hope and pray every other year when our next hopeful prospect comes along that he’ll fill that star void that we’ve had for the last 10 years.
Albert
Heyward
Price
Stanton
Fowler
Leake
CecilI don’t blame them for being gun shy.
The short term signings of guys like Beltran and Berkman worked out well. Maybe they can find more like that.And I will maintain until the very end, that under Friedman, the Dodgers and Cardinals have more similarities than they do differences. The under Friedman part is crucial because he operates their team differently than his predecessors. No matter how you slice it they are primarily built from within while supplementing with trades. Wasn’t there an article during the World Series about how many homegrown players on their roster?
And their payroll is not $100M more than the Cardinals. That is absurd. Yes, Friedman inherited a big payroll from his predecessor but he has steadily brought it back down while still competing at a high level. They don’t spend big on free agency. Biggest free agent signing? AJ Pollock. They build from within and supplement with trades. They have traded for big names but so have the Cardinals. That is how the Cardinals got Goldy and Ozuna and tried to get Stanton. Two of those three are big money players, which would have been right out of the Dodger playbook.
In a normal non-covid year the Dodgers would build from within and supplement with trades with a payroll around $200M. The Cardinals would build from within and supplement with trades with a payroll around $170M. Not a huge difference really.
And their payroll is not $100M more than the Cardinals. That is absurd.
You don’t believe that they spend massively more than the Cards not only on payroll but management, scouting, facilities, overseas development, minor coaching, etc? The opening day projected total payroll for the Dodgers was $60M ahead of the Cards this year. I could easily see the Dodgers spending an extra $40M more than the Cards in all the other areas that encompass the costs of the organization at large. The Dodgers make $340M a year from their TV deal. They have even more attendance than the Cards yearly. Surely their owner doesn’t just pocket the extra money?
That’s why I say $100M more. It may be more than that, even. It’s far more than just MLB payroll.
There was a pretty big gap in 2020, at least in pre-covid payroll. But in the previous two years before that:
In 2018 the opening day payroll was $187 for the Dodgers and $159 for the Cards, difference of $28M.
In 2019 the opening day payroll was $196 for the Dodgers and $162 for the Cards, difference of $34M.Looking forward the Dodgers have $64M on the books for 2022 and the Cards have $51M, pre-arb of course.
And the two teams usually run first and second in attendance.
How much more do the Dodgers spend in off the field development? I don’t know.
When the Cardinals’ top baseball executive publicly acknowledges the Dodgers are not comparable to the Cardinals, who are we to dispute it? Teams know far more about the business details of their peers than we do.
I wish there was real news to discuss…
While I wouldn’t believe every word Mo has to say, I also believe that there are teams who have the resources to do far more than others. While the Cards have that advantage over some, teams like the Dodgers certainly have that over most every other team. Would Friedman be there if they didn’t have the money to pay him more than the Rays and the ability to put together a better payroll and development budget?
I’ll still stick with the Dodgers dwarfing the Cards in overall organizational payroll. Yes, I’d peg it at $100M most every year.
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