Will BDW reinvest any of the savings or just keep it this year?

[Talkin' Baseball]

The question is why do you care?

1. less 2026 talent on the field means less tickets sold > less revenue available to make the team better for 2027 and beyond
2. BDW seems to want to "reset" the status quo run rate to way below that 10/11th in MLB spending EVEN when we get back to normal "trying to compete with our prospects and minors development system optimized". See the Brewers - it takes more than a bottom half payroll and whole lot of homegrown talent to beat the Dodgers.

I want Bloom to convince us fans that it really WILL get back to the normal spending we were used to in the good years PLUS the benefit of the #1 minors development system and the assumption that he would spend the $ better and wiser than Mo did. That would be something to get behind. But so far I'm not seeing anything but far fetched poster expectations that Bloom actually will be able to spend at close to that $200M level and ANY point in the future.

I'm not convinced of point #1, or #2. While it is entirely possible that there is less talent on the field in 2026, I'm certain that the attendance will dwindle. By spring training I expect this team to have a whole different vibe- a better vibe. Of course, I don't know this, but my belief is that attendance may actually improve to some degree next season.

As for point #2, there is no way that Bloom will convince some of "us" fans that the spending will return, but if you look for clues they are there. If you are looking for it, you can see that this group is much more competent at managing a baseball organization than what we are used to. If that is true, it will lead them ultimately to spend at appropriate levels. Also, some of "us" are loathe to give any credit to the DeWitt's (and I have been a critic), but if you are paying attention and being honest you can see that they are investing in the product. Two fresh examples from last week are the willingness to add cash to get better prospects in return for Sonny Gray, the other being the hiring of 10 new coaches and coordinators. I know some of "us" don't want to hear about prospects, or coaches, or timelines- we want it now, but these things are happening and there's no way to convince you, but the payroll will follow.

[82birds]

So far nothing has been reinvested from:
Goldy
Lynn
Mikolas
Edman/Fedde
Gray
Helsley
Maton
Matz
Gibson
Kittredge

So even if Bloom does eventually sign a couple of middling SPs to fill out the rotation,he's just belatedly reinvesting the savings from Lynn and Gibson. There's still a ton more dry powder up there before BDW even begins to need to trade Nado or Willson to "reinvest" their salaries. If traded, That money will not be respent. If they don't end up traded - there's still certainly room to sign some players.

It seems that there are several posters around here that are dead set on holding Bloom accountable for Mo’s negligence, laziness, arrogance and stubbornness. In what other business setting would that level of accountability apply? None that I can think of.

As for the 2026 payroll, Bloom has stated on multiple occasions that it will be similar to that of 2025. It’s only 01dec, so I’m going to wait a while before I run a tally to double check.

can't tell you how ecstaaaaaaaaaaaaatic I am that dude is GONE

[AZ_Cardsfan]

The question is why do you care?

1. less 2026 talent on the field means less tickets sold > less revenue available to make the team better for 2027 and beyond
2. BDW seems to want to "reset" the status quo run rate to way below that 10/11th in MLB spending EVEN when we get back to normal "trying to compete with our prospects and minors development system optimized". See the Brewers - it takes more than a bottom half payroll and whole lot of homegrown talent to beat the Dodgers.

I want Bloom to convince us fans that it really WILL get back to the normal spending we were used to in the good years PLUS the benefit of the #1 minors development system and the assumption that he would spend the $ better and wiser than Mo did. That would be something to get behind. But so far I'm not seeing anything but far fetched poster expectations that Bloom actually will be able to spend at close to that $200M level and ANY point in the future.

OK fair point. I would posit being honest about a rebuild and graduating exciting young talent might also bring back some fans. I have no idea how much salary will grow once the talent starts arriving from the minors. I pretty much expect them to treat this as an investment to make more money. When the team has a core adding more talent via cost will be more than compensated by increased fan base. But I don't expect them to ever run this at a loss. Unless last couple years were at a lost. We will never really know.

[Ronnie Dobbs]

1. less 2026 talent on the field means less tickets sold > less revenue available to make the team better for 2027 and beyond
2. BDW seems to want to "reset" the status quo run rate to way below that 10/11th in MLB spending EVEN when we get back to normal "trying to compete with our prospects and minors development system optimized". See the Brewers - it takes more than a bottom half payroll and whole lot of homegrown talent to beat the Dodgers.

I want Bloom to convince us fans that it really WILL get back to the normal spending we were used to in the good years PLUS the benefit of the #1 minors development system and the assumption that he would spend the $ better and wiser than Mo did. That would be something to get behind. But so far I'm not seeing anything but far fetched poster expectations that Bloom actually will be able to spend at close to that $200M level and ANY point in the future.

They’re not going to invest a lot of money in payroll this year because they’re rebuilding. Sorry, they’re just not. Don’t know how many times people need to hear this. Yes, they understand that it’s highly likely that there will be less people going to games next year. I believe they’ve admitted as much. But they still need to follow their plan. It’s been done with a lot of other teams and the fans always come back.

I don’t know where you’re coming up with your second point. They’ve said over and over that they want to get back up to top ten, top third payroll, where they have generally been for nearly 30 years. It’s not a far fetched expectation. It’s what they’ve always done and what they’re telling you they are going to do. They just ate a bunch of money for the Sonny Gray trade. Why would they do that if they just wanted to save money.

If the only thing that is going to convince you is if they continue to throw money at free agents this year, I don’t know what to tell you. They’ll never convince you because that’s not how a rebuild works. It didn’t work that way for Boston or Atlanta or Houston or Philly or the Cubs.

[BrockFloodMaris]

So far nothing has been reinvested from:
Goldy
Lynn
Mikolas
Edman/Fedde
Gray
Helsley
Maton
Matz
Gibson
Kittredge

So even if Bloom does eventually sign a couple of middling SPs to fill out the rotation,he's just belatedly reinvesting the savings from Lynn and Gibson. There's still a ton more dry powder up there before BDW even begins to need to trade Nado or Willson to "reinvest" their salaries. If traded, That money will not be respent. If they don't end up traded - there's still certainly room to sign some players.

It seems that there are several posters around here that are dead set on holding Bloom accountable for Mo’s negligence, laziness, arrogance and stubbornness. In what other business setting would that level of accountability apply? None that I can think of.

As for the 2026 payroll, Bloom has stated on multiple occasions that it will be similar to that of 2025. It’s only 01dec, so I’m going to wait a while before I run a tally to double check.

Its not about Bloom. My post is about BDW, who for some reason decided to stick with Mo, stick with Mo, stick with Mo, even as we kept churning managers and failing in the playoffs etc, then when BDW finally decided to replace Mo, he STILL kept him another year.

Now suppose that instead of deciding to keep Mo on and cutting his funding, BDW instead pulled the plug maybe 3+ years sooner, and brought in someone smart who could both evaluate talent better, draft better, build the minors back with the relatively low cost of additional coaches in the minors without any of this having to heavily affect MLB payroll, AND Most importantly, spend $181M MUCH more efficiently than Mo did?

Then meanwhile that someone had replaced Oli with a top quality manager, or never hired him to begin with, as well as top quality hitting and pitching coaches who could more effectively develop our top prospects than Oli's staff has done with Walker and Gorman and Noot and Scott etc.

If done properly it should have been possible to course correct at BOTH the major and minor league levels at the same time - keeping our team at the top of the NLC, improving our MLB talent year over year and then boosting it with great drafting and development by 25 and 26 and continuing the develop that talent AFTER it reaches MLB instead of leaving them out there on their own and then throwing prospects at driveline 1 week a winter? We could have been a good team all this time and not lost the fanbase or the ticket revenue. And more than likely have some extra division championships if not more.

So no - this isn't on Bloom. But on BDW for trusting Mo (and Oli) for too long and waiting too long to make any changes to the point he got gunshy with investing his millions. And BDW is still here, and so is Oli.

So my concern is BDW is so jaded he will never truly allow Bloom to be aggressive enough to get us back to where we need to be (10th/11th in mlb). And Oli is still here too, so how can we expect whatever roster we do get to build the level of chemestry that outperforms their expected WAR on paper?

I don’t disagree with any of your conclusions. I just think that today is the day we’ve been waiting for for a long long time. I’m going to sit back and enjoy the ride, for a while. The past ten years have sucked. BDW is not going to make up for them. Bloom seems competent, so I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt, for now. He has said that the 2026 payroll will be similar to 2025. Let’s see what a true POBO can do with this club. The future looks better than it has for a while.

[HOUCARD]

Seems they are investing in player development. It will take a few years to know if they are successful.

[Cardinals4Life]

Profit is and always will be first and foremost in the minds of this ownership group.

They expect attendance to go down, they expect less television viewership, and they know their revenue will not be as high as 4-5 years ago.

But their profits will remain and could possibly increase.

I don’t expect them to spend much of the payroll savings from their trades.

And just because they save $ 50 million in payroll this year doesn’t mean (to ownership) that they’re going to reinvest that $50 million later.

“Dry powder” was nothing but Mozeliak-speak for “We’re going to pocket that money”.

Well said.
They never spend what they should/could ok on payroll. Never. Always an excuse as to why they can't increase payroll, not to mention the years of "fuzzy" math where they use some (bleep) about money having to count toward this year's payroll, next year's payroll, etc. Always an excuse. Never use any of their "dry powder", "payroll flexibility", or "muscle". Never.

Will they reinvest in payroll??

[Cusecards]

Building through the Farm System as opposed to Free Agency makes by far the most sense.
Bloom supposedly is strong in that area so we’ll see?
The Cards have spent money in the past but more often than not it was not spent wisely.
So spending $$ just to appease the fans doesn’t make sense.
The Cards have a bunch of cost controlled players who are on the clock for 2026 and 2027.
Hopefully more make it than don’t.
Then you look into FA’s to plug the holes.

STOP saying spending money just to appease the fans! That’s insulting to the true Cardinal fans! Hardly anybody I’ve seen on this forum are arguing for DeWitt to go out spend stupid money like the Mets, Dodgers, Yankees, Blue Jays and a few others!
That’s simply not comprehending what people are saying! How many times, in the not too distant past, have the Cardinals added to the roster and filled one of their needs, only then stop and ignore the other couple things that were also needed? Sure, Mo spent money unwisely, but DeWitt never gave him the money to fill every need they’ve had. A decent GM could have filled all those needs, while not spending a lot more than Mo spent trying address one of them. For years the Cardinals have been one or two good players short of making a good run, but those players were never added.
Now, not only are they not filling those needs, but they are creating more of them, and hoping unproven minor leaguers will be able to fill them sometime in the future! All the while putting millions of dollars in their already stuffed pockets!

Ok Sir!

[Bushiro]

They are re reinvesting in minors, scouting and international, which sadly should never have been cut

Yeah and many thought dewitt was cheap before that....just think Mozeliak had to cut from those areas just to have the payroll was it was the mlb level...

[Stlcardsblues]

I'd like to see them open the books so we can see exactly what the financials look like.

You and the fan bases of about 22 other franchises.

[WeeVikes]

I'd like to see them open the books so we can see exactly what the financials look like.

Not at all meaning to be snarky, but what would you do with it? I am in no way a finance guy, so unless I could see similar data for the other teams in order to compare it wouldn’t tell me much. And even then I’m not sure what it would indicate.

Thank you.

[Bomber1]

Profit is and always will be first and foremost in the minds of this ownership group.

They expect attendance to go down, they expect less television viewership, and they know their revenue will not be as high as 4-5 years ago.

But their profits will remain and could possibly increase.

I don’t expect them to spend much of the payroll savings from their trades.

And just because they save $ 50 million in payroll this year doesn’t mean (to ownership) that they’re going to reinvest that $50 million later.

“Dry powder” was nothing but Mozeliak-speak for “We’re going to pocket that money”.

+1

That’s exactly why spending should be their #1 priority. It has been proven fans will not attend without elite superstars in their prime. For best had 2022 a 178m payroll and a $48m profit. This season $128m payroll and $2m profit, the more they spend on payroll the more profit they will receive

Unless or until the MLB owners open their books, IMO the “profit” quotes are guesses.
If you believe that 2025’s profit was only $ 2 million ok.

I don’t and they will make plenty this year with a lower payroll than 2025.

If there truly was a direct correlation between payroll and profit, you can be sure this ownership group would spend more.

[Carp4Cy]

He has said that the 2026 payroll will be similar to 2025.

Roster payroll or how much they shell out for players who aren't here anymore? Because the latter is just a numbers shell game and not actually keeping payroll the same for the product on the field. If its the former, then there's a lot of spending Bloom needs to do, and I'd love to seem some of that happen ahead of dumping salary rather than only after it...

Any FA's we can take off the market makes those players unavailable for our other trading partners and makes our remaining trade chips a little more valuable.

[Carp4Cy]

So far nothing has been reinvested from:
Goldy
Lynn
Mikolas
Edman/Fedde
Gray
Helsley
Maton
Matz
Gibson
Kittredge

So even if Bloom does eventually sign a couple of middling SPs to fill out the rotation,he's just belatedly reinvesting the savings from Lynn and Gibson. There's still a ton more dry powder up there before BDW even begins to need to trade Nado or Willson to "reinvest" their salaries. If traded, That money will not be respent. If they don't end up traded - there's still certainly room to sign some players.

It seems that there are several posters around here that are dead set on holding Bloom accountable for Mo’s negligence, laziness, arrogance and stubbornness. In what other business setting would that level of accountability apply? None that I can think of.

As for the 2026 payroll, Bloom has stated on multiple occasions that it will be similar to that of 2025. It’s only 01dec, so I’m going to wait a while before I run a tally to double check.

Its not about Bloom. My post is about BDW, who for some reason decided to stick with Mo, stick with Mo, stick with Mo, even as we kept churning managers and failing in the playoffs etc, then when BDW finally decided to replace Mo, he STILL kept him another year.

Now suppose that instead of deciding to keep Mo on and cutting his funding, BDW instead pulled the plug maybe 3+ years sooner, and brought in someone smart who could both evaluate talent better, draft better, build the minors back with the relatively low cost of additional coaches in the minors without any of this having to heavily affect MLB payroll, AND Most importantly, spend $181M MUCH more efficiently than Mo did?

Then meanwhile that someone had replaced Oli with a top quality manager, or never hired him to begin with, as well as top quality hitting and pitching coaches who could more effectively develop our top prospects than Oli's staff has done with Walker and Gorman and Noot and Scott etc.

If done properly it should have been possible to course correct at BOTH the major and minor league levels at the same time - keeping our team at the top of the NLC, improving our MLB talent year over year and then boosting it with great drafting and development by 25 and 26 and continuing the develop that talent AFTER it reaches MLB instead of leaving them out there on their own and then throwing prospects at driveline 1 week a winter? We could have been a good team all this time and not lost the fanbase or the ticket revenue. And more than likely have some extra division championships if not more.

So no - this isn't on Bloom. But on BDW for trusting Mo (and Oli) for too long and waiting too long to make any changes to the point he got gunshy with investing his millions. And BDW is still here, and so is Oli.

So my concern is BDW is so jaded he will never truly allow Bloom to be aggressive enough to get us back to where we need to be (10th/11th in mlb). And Oli is still here too, so how can we expect whatever roster we do get to build the level of chemestry that outperforms their expected WAR on paper?

I don’t disagree with any of your conclusions. I just think that today is the day we’ve been waiting for for a long long time. I’m going to sit back and enjoy the ride, for a while. The past ten years have sucked. BDW is not going to make up for them. Bloom seems competent, so I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt, for now. He has said that the 2026 payroll will be similar to 2025. Let’s see what a true POBO can do with this club. The future looks better than it has for a while.

I'd enjoy it more if we had a new and trusted manager to look forward to at least.

[BrockFloodMaris]

He has said that the 2026 payroll will be similar to 2025.

Roster payroll or how much they shell out for players who aren't here anymore? Because the latter is just a numbers shell game and not actually keeping payroll the same for the product on the field. If its the former, then there's a lot of spending Bloom needs to do, and I'd love to seem some of that happen ahead of dumping salary rather than only after it...

Any FA's we can take off the market makes those players unavailable for our other trading partners and makes our remaining trade chips a little more valuable.

The message I keep inferring from your posts is that BDW OWES the fans a certain payroll for the MLB roster, which he does not. BDW and his ten or so partners are committed to producing profit and equity growth. They owe us ZERO. I guarantee that don’t think they owe us anything. If we don’t like it, we are welcome to withhold our spend on their product. We are also welcome to spend on other sports or none at all. Me, I like to fish.

[BrockFloodMaris]

He has said that the 2026 payroll will be similar to 2025.

Roster payroll or how much they shell out for players who aren't here anymore? Because the latter is just a numbers shell game and not actually keeping payroll the same for the product on the field. If its the former, then there's a lot of spending Bloom needs to do, and I'd love to seem some of that happen ahead of dumping salary rather than only after it...

Any FA's we can take off the market makes those players unavailable for our other trading partners and makes our remaining trade chips a little more valuable.

BDW and his partners don’t owe us anything. And we don’t owe them anything. This ain’t the Packers. We are not “owners”.