Sorry it's not on the ownership

[shebashab]

Baseball is broke and it's not getting fixed. The days of doing development better than the big clubs is gone as all the big clubs took notice and invested accordingly. The only teams really in contention are leading their respective division in payroll. Same as last year and will be the same next year. Tampa is the best at small market competition and even they are struggling the last two years. At this point the Cardinals are in no mans land, they can't spend enough to compete and the market they live in will demand competitive teams... not sustainable in todays landscape.

NL East Top payroll Mets & Phillies . First place Phillies followed closely by Mets.
NL Central top payroll Cubs First place Cubs
NL West top payroll Dodgers (followed by Giants) first place Dodgers (followed by Giants)
AL East top payroll Bluejays & Yankees (both top 5) first place Bluejays followed by Yankees
AL Central top payroll tie Tigers and Twins first place Tigers
AL West top payroll Astros first place Astros.

The smoke and mirrors of adding another wildcard to make teams think they are competitive doesn’t do it for me. Baseball just continues to run the sport without the fans in mind. Sad, I’ve been a lifelong baseball fan but I can’t get myself to care much anymore. Ownership has no real chance to have a consistent winner unless you are in a large market. The Dodgers can pay its whole ridiculous payroll with the difference in revenue between the Cardinals and Dodgers. I wish I could just hate DeWitt... instead I hate how baseball is run. Sad

[butsir01]

Excellent read. Thank you.

[Jatalk]

Baseball is broke and it's not getting fixed. The days of doing development better than the big clubs is gone as all the big clubs took notice and invested accordingly. The only teams really in contention are leading their respective division in payroll. Same as last year and will be the same next year. Tampa is the best at small market competition and even they are struggling the last two years. At this point the Cardinals are in no mans land, they can't spend enough to compete and the market they live in will demand competitive teams... not sustainable in todays landscape.

NL East Top payroll Mets & Phillies . First place Phillies followed closely by Mets.
NL Central top payroll Cubs First place Cubs
NL West top payroll Dodgers (followed by Giants) first place Dodgers (followed by Giants)
AL East top payroll Bluejays & Yankees (both top 5) first place Bluejays followed by Yankees
AL Central top payroll tie Tigers and Twins first place Tigers
AL West top payroll Astros first place Astros.

The smoke and mirrors of adding another wildcard to make teams think they are competitive doesn’t do it for me. Baseball just continues to run the sport without the fans in mind. Sad, I’ve been a lifelong baseball fan but I can’t get myself to care much anymore. Ownership has no real chance to have a consistent winner unless you are in a large market. The Dodgers can pay its whole ridiculous payroll with the difference in revenue between the Cardinals and Dodgers. I wish I could just hate DeWitt... instead I hate how baseball is run. Sad

Excellent narrative on your part. I do believe that as a collective baseball ownership is to blame for the disparity. The only thing that fixes this is a salary cap similar to football. The result is a strike but it must be done.

[Youboughtit]

Baseball is broke and it's not getting fixed. The days of doing development better than the big clubs is gone as all the big clubs took notice and invested accordingly. The only teams really in contention are leading their respective division in payroll. Same as last year and will be the same next year. Tampa is the best at small market competition and even they are struggling the last two years. At this point the Cardinals are in no mans land, they can't spend enough to compete and the market they live in will demand competitive teams... not sustainable in todays landscape.

NL East Top payroll Mets & Phillies . First place Phillies followed closely by Mets.
NL Central top payroll Cubs First place Cubs
NL West top payroll Dodgers (followed by Giants) first place Dodgers (followed by Giants)
AL East top payroll Bluejays & Yankees (both top 5) first place Bluejays followed by Yankees
AL Central top payroll tie Tigers and Twins first place Tigers
AL West top payroll Astros first place Astros.

The smoke and mirrors of adding another wildcard to make teams think they are competitive doesn’t do it for me. Baseball just continues to run the sport without the fans in mind. Sad, I’ve been a lifelong baseball fan but I can’t get myself to care much anymore. Ownership has no real chance to have a consistent winner unless you are in a large market. The Dodgers can pay its whole ridiculous payroll with the difference in revenue between the Cardinals and Dodgers. I wish I could just hate DeWitt... instead I hate how baseball is run. Sad

The proven formula for the Cardinals is top 5 farm and top 10 payroll. That is $215m. Do that and they will get their 3.4m fans and make as much profit as this $135m payroll and what I suspect will be 1.5m fans. Boras reported the General fund alone paid out $100m to every team last year and Forbes has the cardinals at $340m from baseball only revenue. That does not include ballpark village parking the apartments etc because Dewitt has them under a separate business. Claiming poverty for a franchise that has appreciated from 150m when purchased to 3.4b now is absurd. Dewitt is the problem.

[Clubmaker2]

Yet the cardinals have 3 starting pitchers contracts that are awful, with unneeded no trade on one to top it. What if MM, EF, SM didnt all stink at starting pitching and all that money wasnt wasted? The posters who said cards were 1 bat and one starter away from the middle of the fight may not be very wrong. Mo has whiffed way too many times in filling the holes with FAs or trade, and built a roster of non fitting parts, ie 4 catchers and 3 3Bs. Seems things could have been better without tons of more dollars.

Is it that difficult for cards to resign/replace Maton and pick up another similar reliever, and get one good starter for next year? They have a chance without another bat but not without the starter.

In conclusion, the issues pointed out by OP are why you cant have a whiffing, bad contract issuing GM if you want to compete. This reset, is resetting the wallet by waiting out bad contracts. Thankfully, the position responsible for that is also being reset .

[rockondlouie]

RE:

TAMPA RAYS

[shebashab]

Baseball is broke and it's not getting fixed. The days of doing development better than the big clubs is gone as all the big clubs took notice and invested accordingly. The only teams really in contention are leading their respective division in payroll. Same as last year and will be the same next year. Tampa is the best at small market competition and even they are struggling the last two years. At this point the Cardinals are in no mans land, they can't spend enough to compete and the market they live in will demand competitive teams... not sustainable in todays landscape.

NL East Top payroll Mets & Phillies . First place Phillies followed closely by Mets.
NL Central top payroll Cubs First place Cubs
NL West top payroll Dodgers (followed by Giants) first place Dodgers (followed by Giants)
AL East top payroll Bluejays & Yankees (both top 5) first place Bluejays followed by Yankees
AL Central top payroll tie Tigers and Twins first place Tigers
AL West top payroll Astros first place Astros.

The smoke and mirrors of adding another wildcard to make teams think they are competitive doesn’t do it for me. Baseball just continues to run the sport without the fans in mind. Sad, I’ve been a lifelong baseball fan but I can’t get myself to care much anymore. Ownership has no real chance to have a consistent winner unless you are in a large market. The Dodgers can pay its whole ridiculous payroll with the difference in revenue between the Cardinals and Dodgers. I wish I could just hate DeWitt... instead I hate how baseball is run. Sad

The proven formula for the Cardinals is top 5 farm and top 10 payroll. That is $215m. Do that and they will get their 3.4m fans and make as much profit as this $135m payroll and what I suspect will be 1.5m fans. Boras reported the General fund alone paid out $100m to every team last year and Forbes has the cardinals at $340m from baseball only revenue. That does not include ballpark village parking the apartments etc because Dewitt has them under a separate business. Claiming poverty for a franchise that has appreciated from 150m when purchased to 3.4b now is absurd. Dewitt is the problem.

Its like people on this forum only know one thing... and dont even read anything that anyone else writes. Top payroll teams are also the top revenue teams, and those are the only ones that are competitive. This is no longer MLB of 2005

[shebashab]

RE:

TAMPA RAYS

I live an hour from Tampa, sadly they aren't as competitive and the are going to be relocated soon. But they played small ball the longest and best.

[rockondlouie]

RE:

TAMPA RAYS

I live an hour from Tampa, sadly they aren't as competitive and the are going to be relocated soon. But they played small ball the longest and best.

"aren't competitive"?

Last I looked shebashab the Rays are 1/2 game behind the Yankees!

$288M Yankee Payroll
-v-
$91M Tampa Payroll

As fro relocating, I thought the new owner said they'd stay in Tampa?

You're local, is that not true?

[desertrat23]

Baseball is broke and it's not getting fixed. The days of doing development better than the big clubs is gone as all the big clubs took notice and invested accordingly. The only teams really in contention are leading their respective division in payroll. Same as last year and will be the same next year. Tampa is the best at small market competition and even they are struggling the last two years. At this point the Cardinals are in no mans land, they can't spend enough to compete and the market they live in will demand competitive teams... not sustainable in todays landscape.

NL East Top payroll Mets & Phillies . First place Phillies followed closely by Mets.
NL Central top payroll Cubs First place Cubs
NL West top payroll Dodgers (followed by Giants) first place Dodgers (followed by Giants)
AL East top payroll Bluejays & Yankees (both top 5) first place Bluejays followed by Yankees
AL Central top payroll tie Tigers and Twins first place Tigers
AL West top payroll Astros first place Astros.

The smoke and mirrors of adding another wildcard to make teams think they are competitive doesn’t do it for me. Baseball just continues to run the sport without the fans in mind. Sad, I’ve been a lifelong baseball fan but I can’t get myself to care much anymore. Ownership has no real chance to have a consistent winner unless you are in a large market. The Dodgers can pay its whole ridiculous payroll with the difference in revenue between the Cardinals and Dodgers. I wish I could just hate DeWitt... instead I hate how baseball is run. Sad

I agree with most of this, but it's a "yes and" situation. Baseball's model is broken and I don't expect a 2027 season as a result. I'm totally fine with that if it fixes the model, BTW. The NHL lost an entire season 20 years ago to get a salary cap in the game and it was well worth it.

BUT -- DeWitt CAN do better under this model. The Padres and Rangers don't even have a TV deal and they're outspending the Cardinals by $70M per Spotrac. Toronto has to deal with a weak Canadian exchange rate and outspends them by $110M. Minnesota, Seattle, Arizona (no TV deal) outspend them. DeWitt can blame it on attendance all he wants, but that's a lagging indicator. They're taking an approach that basically says "come buy our lesser product and we'll make it better," which is contrary to how an entertainment product should work. Put out a good product and people will pay for it; don't expect them to continue to pay for the good product you had 10-15 years ago.

Can this market sustain a $300M payroll? Of course not, and if anyone is expecting that they're delusional. But they can do a hell of a lot better than $135M.

[CCard]

Baseball is broke and it's not getting fixed. The days of doing development better than the big clubs is gone as all the big clubs took notice and invested accordingly. The only teams really in contention are leading their respective division in payroll. Same as last year and will be the same next year. Tampa is the best at small market competition and even they are struggling the last two years. At this point the Cardinals are in no mans land, they can't spend enough to compete and the market they live in will demand competitive teams... not sustainable in todays landscape.

NL East Top payroll Mets & Phillies . First place Phillies followed closely by Mets.
NL Central top payroll Cubs First place Cubs
NL West top payroll Dodgers (followed by Giants) first place Dodgers (followed by Giants)
AL East top payroll Bluejays & Yankees (both top 5) first place Bluejays followed by Yankees
AL Central top payroll tie Tigers and Twins first place Tigers
AL West top payroll Astros first place Astros.

The smoke and mirrors of adding another wildcard to make teams think they are competitive doesn’t do it for me. Baseball just continues to run the sport without the fans in mind. Sad, I’ve been a lifelong baseball fan but I can’t get myself to care much anymore. Ownership has no real chance to have a consistent winner unless you are in a large market. The Dodgers can pay its whole ridiculous payroll with the difference in revenue between the Cardinals and Dodgers. I wish I could just hate DeWitt... instead I hate how baseball is run. Sad

While I totally agree with your reasoning, teams like the Cards could do a lot more to be closer to that threshold. Instead of cutting payroll they could have easily added 20 to 30 million in top tier talent. They would still be making a healthy profit and you can imagine 2 top tier players could make a large difference in the on field product.

[MIDMOBIRDTWO]

Baseball is broke and it's not getting fixed. The days of doing development better than the big clubs is gone as all the big clubs took notice and invested accordingly. The only teams really in contention are leading their respective division in payroll. Same as last year and will be the same next year. Tampa is the best at small market competition and even they are struggling the last two years. At this point the Cardinals are in no mans land, they can't spend enough to compete and the market they live in will demand competitive teams... not sustainable in todays landscape.

NL East Top payroll Mets & Phillies . First place Phillies followed closely by Mets.
NL Central top payroll Cubs First place Cubs
NL West top payroll Dodgers (followed by Giants) first place Dodgers (followed by Giants)
AL East top payroll Bluejays & Yankees (both top 5) first place Bluejays followed by Yankees
AL Central top payroll tie Tigers and Twins first place Tigers
AL West top payroll Astros first place Astros.

The smoke and mirrors of adding another wildcard to make teams think they are competitive doesn’t do it for me. Baseball just continues to run the sport without the fans in mind. Sad, I’ve been a lifelong baseball fan but I can’t get myself to care much anymore. Ownership has no real chance to have a consistent winner unless you are in a large market. The Dodgers can pay its whole ridiculous payroll with the difference in revenue between the Cardinals and Dodgers. I wish I could just hate DeWitt... instead I hate how baseball is run. Sad

You get it. Baseball is in deep trouble.

[woofy25]

RE:

TAMPA RAYS

I live an hour from Tampa, sadly they aren't as competitive and the are going to be relocated soon. But they played small ball the longest and best.

Where are they going?

[woofy25]

Baseball is broke and it's not getting fixed. The days of doing development better than the big clubs is gone as all the big clubs took notice and invested accordingly. The only teams really in contention are leading their respective division in payroll. Same as last year and will be the same next year. Tampa is the best at small market competition and even they are struggling the last two years. At this point the Cardinals are in no mans land, they can't spend enough to compete and the market they live in will demand competitive teams... not sustainable in todays landscape.

NL East Top payroll Mets & Phillies . First place Phillies followed closely by Mets.
NL Central top payroll Cubs First place Cubs
NL West top payroll Dodgers (followed by Giants) first place Dodgers (followed by Giants)
AL East top payroll Bluejays & Yankees (both top 5) first place Bluejays followed by Yankees
AL Central top payroll tie Tigers and Twins first place Tigers
AL West top payroll Astros first place Astros.

The smoke and mirrors of adding another wildcard to make teams think they are competitive doesn’t do it for me. Baseball just continues to run the sport without the fans in mind. Sad, I’ve been a lifelong baseball fan but I can’t get myself to care much anymore. Ownership has no real chance to have a consistent winner unless you are in a large market. The Dodgers can pay its whole ridiculous payroll with the difference in revenue between the Cardinals and Dodgers. I wish I could just hate DeWitt... instead I hate how baseball is run. Sad

You are right. However, the cardinals admitted they wrongly stopped investing in development. They let the rest of baseball catch up to, then pass them. Combine that with the money they do spend has been far too often been on bad contracts. Third, they have been unable to identify high value windows of time to trade players they don’t intend to extend. It’s amazing they’re above .500

[Frontierman]

Long term it seems like MLB will combine local tv rights into one pool so they can sell them together rather than each team selling them. If that’s the case I’d assume tv revenue would be shared more evenly than it currently is which fixes the revenue disparity issue. Salary cap isn’t the answer.

In the meantime there’s no reason why the cardinals can’t spend in the 8-12 place payroll range which is enough to put together playoff teams regularly with a competent front office. That last part is what’s missing but that change is a month away.

[Clubmaker2]

Baseball is broke and it's not getting fixed. The days of doing development better than the big clubs is gone as all the big clubs took notice and invested accordingly. The only teams really in contention are leading their respective division in payroll. Same as last year and will be the same next year. Tampa is the best at small market competition and even they are struggling the last two years. At this point the Cardinals are in no mans land, they can't spend enough to compete and the market they live in will demand competitive teams... not sustainable in todays landscape.

NL East Top payroll Mets & Phillies . First place Phillies followed closely by Mets.
NL Central top payroll Cubs First place Cubs
NL West top payroll Dodgers (followed by Giants) first place Dodgers (followed by Giants)
AL East top payroll Bluejays & Yankees (both top 5) first place Bluejays followed by Yankees
AL Central top payroll tie Tigers and Twins first place Tigers
AL West top payroll Astros first place Astros.

The smoke and mirrors of adding another wildcard to make teams think they are competitive doesn’t do it for me. Baseball just continues to run the sport without the fans in mind. Sad, I’ve been a lifelong baseball fan but I can’t get myself to care much anymore. Ownership has no real chance to have a consistent winner unless you are in a large market. The Dodgers can pay its whole ridiculous payroll with the difference in revenue between the Cardinals and Dodgers. I wish I could just hate DeWitt... instead I hate how baseball is run. Sad

You are right. However, the cardinals admitted they wrongly stopped investing in development. They let the rest of baseball catch up to, then pass them. Combine that with the money they do spend has been far too often been on bad contracts. Third, they have been unable to identify high value windows of time to trade players they don’t intend to extend. It’s amazing they’re above .500

+1