A reader poll, which is still running, indicates an overwhelming view that the decline in attendance is most attributable to the uneven play on the field. The 2011 Cardinals seem destined to miss the playoffs as they did three of the previous four seasons as well.

Cardinals ownership has often stated that attendance has a greater influence on their player payroll than it does for many other franchises. Against that backdrop, this post is to consider and discuss what may happen next.

Obviously, the biggest question is whether or not the club can afford to keep Albert Pujols with secondary decisions on key players such as Lance Berkman and Chris Carpenter. The focus here will be on Pujols, with Berkman’s fate perhaps tied to him. I will assume the Cardinals will not pick up Carpenter’s $15 million option, instead trying to negotiate a lower-cost, longer-term deal.

Sound off. What do you think will happen?

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In a recent Post-Dispatch article, Cardinals vice president of ticket sales Joe Strohm predicted the Cardinals will draw 3,100,000 fans this season, or a decline of about 2,500 per game compared to last year.

No one outside the Cardinals organization knows the impact, if any, of the new dynamic pricing policy put into effect for 2011.

Did the higher prices exacted for popular games increase revenue for contests that would have been sold out anyway or did some fans stay home, balking at the price bumps?

Did lower prices for less popular games increase attendance at those contests, with the benefits of lucrative concessions flowing?

One has to wonder about the answers to these questions against the backdrop of an underperforming team that looked to be out of the playoff hunt before the kids returned to school.

The bottom line on the field is not particularly encouraging as the Cardinals have barely managed a winning record at Busch Stadium in 2011, currently at 35-31.

It has been an odd year for attendance across Major League Baseball. Cool, rainy weather and a week earlier start than usual combined to generate lower than expected attendance in April and widespread media concern.

As the weather warmed up, overall MLB attendance moved to a more traditional track and the public worries evaporated. In fact, as early as May 3, Commissioner Bud Selig predicted an increase in total attendance across MLB this season over last.

Rather than accept Selig’s words at face value, I looked at average attendance per game across MLB this year to date compared to 2010 and sure enough, it is currently up by the thinnest of margins – three-tenths of one percent. With September ahead, holding that year-to-year improvement may be difficult.

Yet the Cardinals actually expect to improve during the final month of the season. Strom noted future promotions that give the team confidence they can cut back their current seven percent annual decline to 6.1 percent by season’s end. Especially considering the standings, that feels overly optimistic.

Average attendance per game, Major League Baseball and St. Louis Cardinals, 2010 vs. 2011 through August 28

The Cardinals’ projection of 3.1 million fans would be the team’s lowest total since 2004. If the year-to-year decline remains on its current trajectory and ends up being 6.9 percent or more, it would be the team’s largest annual percentage decline in the DeWitt ownership years. (The previous worst was a 6.8 percent drop from 2000 to 2001.)

Not only will 2011 be St. Louis’ fourth consecutive year of decline, it would be the fourth year in the last five in which the Cardinals performed more poorly year-to-year than MLB in total. The only season during that time when the Cardinals’ percentage drop was smaller than MLB was 2009. Perhaps not coincidentally, that also was St. Louis’ only playoff season in the last five years.

Here are the MLB and Cardinals numbers since 2004.

Total season attendance, Major League Baseball and St. Louis Cardinals, 2004-2011 (projected)

As a side note, I left 2005 and 2006 out of the discussions above as there were unique circumstances. The Cardinals’ bump up in 2005 – the final season for the old Busch Stadium – is understandable. Same with the dip in 2006. Some seats in the new park were not open in time for the opening dates and Busch III has a lower capacity than the prior stadium, Busch II.

Though the economy has hit many hard over the past few years, one has to suspect the continued slide in Cardinals attendance has a direct relationship to the numerous on-field disappointments since the 2006 World Championship.

What do you think is the major culprit? Vote below.

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By Ian Walton

Following recent discussions that were spawned from my past two articles (links one and two) on the subject, I wanted to take one further quick look at WAR and National League spending.  In particular, I am going to highlight how much each team would have had to spend to acquire one WAR (win above replacement) in 2010 and reach the playoffs without increasing their payroll.

The following table displays the total WAR produced by all of the players for each team, along with the teams’ opening day payroll as provided by Baseball Reference.  To keep things simple this time, the amount of money paid per WAR is listed.

Given that National League Central teams would have had to produce 37.9 WAR to reach the NL Central Champion Cincinnati Reds and that the remaining teams would have had to produce 39.6 WAR to reach the NL Wild Card Atlanta Braves, I calculated the maximum amount of money each team would have had to have spend per WAR in order to reach the postseason.

For example, the Cardinals spent $93.5M in 2010 and needed 37.9 WAR to match the Reds, so dividing the former by the latter yielded a requirement of $2.47M/WAR.  Finally, I subtracted dollars/WAR needed to reach the playoffs from dollars/WAR actually spent to show how far each non-playoff team fell short.

Table 1: National League Dollars Per WAR Requirement for 2010 Playoffs

Through this display, one can clearly see that teams with higher payrolls could afford to be less efficient with their spending.  The Chicago Cubs, with the highest payroll in the NL, could afford to spend as much as $3.85M/WAR yet ended up spending a whopping $7.29M/WAR.  The Phillies and Giants, as the top two teams in the NL, were in fact a bit more efficient with their money than was absolutely necessary to quality for the playoffs.  Despite being the most efficient with their money by far, the Padres’ miniscule payroll led to even greater efficiency requirements that weren’t quite met.  The Cardinals were next closest to their required spending efficiency, falling a mere $123K/WAR short of the production needed to match the Reds.

Given an assumed $4.5M/WAR earned by the average free agent, one can see from the “$/WAR Needed for Playoffs” column in the table above that no National League teams could afford to fund enough production to reach the playoffs with such players, although the higher budget teams (Cubs, Phillies, and Mets) come closest.

The final table displays the dollars spent per WAR of all of the Cardinals players who managed positive WAR values on the season and either had 100 PA or 30 IP.  Everyone above the bolded line provided more wins per dollar than was required for the Cardinals to reach the playoffs and everyone below it provided less.  Ludwick and Westbrook had their salaries prorated to time spent with St. Louis and their WAR represents production only while playing for the Cardinals.

Table 2: Dollar per WAR Cost of Cardinals Players with a Positive WAR

Again, along with the pre-arbitration year contributors, veterans Wainwright, Molina, Ludwick, Pujols, and Suppan provided more than enough value to help the Cardinals reach the playoffs.  Everyone else fell short, including negative WAR players such as Felipe Lopez, Pedro Feliz, Blake Hawksworth, and Kyle Lohse.  Although this metric obscures just how helpful and harmful each player’s production was to the team, it matches the results of the data provided in the previous article in a format hopefully more palatable to all.

In summation, the Cardinals came close to reaching the playoffs in 2010.  In order to reach the postseason in 2011, they will either need to increase their salary in relation to the other National League teams so as to decrease the required efficiency of their contracts ($/WAR) or they will need to find a way to spend the same amount of money more efficiently.  That means accomplishing much more than simply spending free agent market rates for their players.  It means developing and/or acquiring bargains.

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By Ian Walton

In our last article, we examined each National League team’s combined WAR (wins above replacement) for position players and pitchers in 2010.  The St. Louis Cardinals were found to have received more production from their hitters than they paid for and slightly less production from their pitchers.  In this article, we will examine each of the Cardinals’ major contributors in 2010 to determine which positively impacted the team’s results and whether or not their contribution exceeded or fell short of the money invested in them.

I have a few more disclaimers to note here.  Player salaries may not be perfectly accurate, but this examination is not perfectly accurate to begin with, so we must be content with what is listed in Baseball Reference.  Players called up during the season only received a prorated portion of the league minimum salary of $400,000, but they are counted as making a full season’s minimum here so as not to overvalue their production.  I estimated that Jake Westbrook was paid one third of his $11M salary by the Cardinals, that Ryan Ludwick was paid two-thirds of his $5.45M salary by the Cardinals, and that Pedro Feliz was paid one fourth of his $4.5M salary by the Cardinals.  All statistics listed encompass performance only while in a Cardinals uniform this past season.

Furthermore, it becomes abundantly clear that pre-arbitration players are exceedingly valuable to a team.  Players who reach their free agent years will typically be paid more than the average player for their production, since those pre-arbitration players are also averaged in.  This does not mean that a free agent signing is a poor one if a player’s performance doesn’t match the average league production for his salary.  However, it also does not mean that a team can be successful while paying free agent prices for most of its players’ production unless it spends a very large amount of money.  In addition, it should be noted that elite players are likely worth more than simply the average value of their WAR since their level of production could not likely otherwise be duplicated by one player. For example, Skip Schumaker can be easily replaced, but Albert Pujols’ level of production cannot be replaced by a single player.

With all of that said, here are the details of the Cardinals position players with at least 100 plate appearances in 2010:

Table 4: Cardinals Hitters WAR and Salary Comparison

Paid WAR is the number of wins above replacement that the team should have expected, on average, to receive in exchange for the salary spent on the player beyond the major league minimum.  Players are ordered by the final column which compares a player’s actual WAR to the WAR expected by his salary.

Of the players with a replacement level salary ($400,000) or slightly more, Nick Stavinoha was economical, but cost the team half a win more than an average replacement player would due to his poor performance, as measured by WAR.  Late-season acquisition Pedro Feliz not only cost the team over a million dollars but also performed at a sub-replacement level. Oft-maligned Skip Schumaker only provided production at half of the rate of his salary. Interestingly enough, Tyler Greene was the very definition of a replacement level player in both salary and performance.

Inexpensive youngsters Rasmus, Freese, Jay, and Ryan all provided good value for the team, with Rasmus providing the best return for dollar spent among the position players by a considerable margin.  Of the veterans, Pujols, Molina, and Ludwick all produced at levels beyond their pay grades.  Holliday fell a bit short of his large contract, but given that he managed the sixth highest WAR of any batter in the NL, I doubt that anyone would complain.  (Pujols was highest.)

The following table outlines the production and salary of all pitchers on the Cardinals with at least 30 innings pitched in 2010:

Table 5: Cardinals Pitchers WAR and Salary Comparison

Cy Young Award runner up Adam Wainwright provided the best value of all of the Cardinals pitchers, yielding 5.7 WAR for an equivalent of 1.4 WAR of salary.  Garcia, McClellan, and Motte all provided excellent value to the team at replacement level salaries.

Despite their low salaries, Walters and Hawksworth both did some damage to the team, performance wise.  Brad Penny’s injury-shortened season clearly did not live up to the expectations provided by his salary.  Even Chris Carpenter’s solid performance did not measure up to his compensation this past season, as he was the fourth-highest paid pitcher in the league yet only pitched like the twentieth best.

Despite some doubters at the time, midseason acquisition Jeff Suppan did provide more than replacement value to the Cardinals while Jake Westbrook more or less lived up to his salary, at least while pitching for St. Louis.

Unfortunately, the most influential player to the 2010 Cardinals’ fortunes was Kyle Lohse.  Not only did he have the lowest WAR of any National League pitcher at nearly three fewer wins than replacement level during his injury-plagued year, but his salary could have on average gone to pay a player worth another 2.5 wins over replacement.  Given that the Cardinals fell five games short of both the National League Central title and wild card, Kyle Lohse’s performance and contract alone might have been the difference between reaching the playoffs and not this past season.

In summation, the Cardinals outperformed their payroll due to a number of strong performances from their younger players and most of their stars, but were kept from exceeding expectations even further (as was needed for a playoff berth) by a few notable poor performances and bad contracts.   In order to reach the postseason in 2011, St. Louis will quite obviously either need to spend more money or produce greater efficiency from the same level of spending.

Thanks again to Baseball Reference for providing the WAR and salary data used above.

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By Ian Walton

Through the growth of sabermetrics, baseball fans have been flooded with a host of new statistics with which to dissect their beloved game.  Although they have received considerable backlash from the traditionalists, one can glean many insights from their application.  Among the more interesting of sabermetric stats is WAR, wins above replacement.  WAR attempts to boil down a player’s performance and express it in terms of wins, namely the number of wins a player has provided his team beyond what an everyday, readily available, league minimum-earning player would provide.

For the purposes of this article, I have utilized Baseball Reference’s WAR values.  They define a player with a rating of eight wins or above in a season to be an MVP-caliber player, a player worth five wins to be all-star quality, a player worth two or more wins to be worthy of an everyday starting job, a player worth zero to two wins to be equal to a bench player, and a player worth zero or less wins to be replacement level or worse, meaning that an equivalent or better player could easily be acquired from Triple-A, free agency, or through trade for a very marginal player in return.

Beyond measuring a player’s worth to his team in the most basic and fundamental of ways, wins, one can equate those wins into dollar values.  Typically, one can use these numbers to measure the value of a free agent’s potential contribution.  If, for example, a player worth one win could earn $3 million, a player worth two wins could earn $6 million.  For our purposes, we will examine all players in the National League and not simply free agents.  In order to calculate the dollar value of a win provided by a position player, which includes offense and defense, I simply combined the total WAR of all NL batters and divided that by the sum of the above-minimum salary of those same batters.  I then did the same for all NL pitchers.  This allows us to examine which teams received the most production from their money spent, as all teams clearly do not spend equally.

Before we delve into the numbers, I should offer a few disclosures.  This methodology, while useful to demonstrate trends, should not be taken to claim exact, absolute value and worth.  The team salaries used in the following tables were provided by Baseball Reference, which appears to have been generated by Opening Day payroll.  That means that any players called up later in the season and any trades made during the season are not considered here.  Furthermore, the hitters’ salaries were calculated by subtracting the pitchers’ salaries from a team’s overall salary.  This causes a bit of uncertainty, as there were a very few hitters who were used as pitchers at some point during the season and thus were included as the latter for salary purposes.

The following table shows the combined hitters’ WAR of each National League team from 2010.  These ratings combine both offensive and defensive contributions, but for ease of labeling say “hitters.”

Table 1: National League Team Hitters’ WAR and Salary Comparison

In the above, SAR stands for salary above replacement, the money that a team spent on their offense above the minimum salary ($400,000 each) for an assumed 13 position players on the 25-man roster.  Paid WAR is the number of wins above replacement that a National League team should have expected, on average, to receive in exchange for the salary spent (beyond the major league minimum).  Beside that column is the difference between the WAR a team’s players produced and what that team paid for.  Finally, WAR savings are the amount of money a team “saved” as a result of those differences between actual and expected production (or money “wasted” for negative values). The above table is listed in WAR Savings order from best to worst.

For instance, the 2010 Cardinals spent $40.5M upon their batters above league minimum salary (Hitter SAR).  On average, this should have provided them with 16.9 wins above a replacement level team (Paid Hitter WAR).  Since their offensive players produced 23.6 WAR instead (Hitter WAR), the Cardinals got 6.7 WAR beyond what they paid for (Hitter WAR – Paid Hitter WAR), worth a savings of $16M (Hitter WAR Savings).

In contrast, the Astros, which paid for 21.0 WAR and received 3.4 WAR, wasted $42M in salary to batters that simply didn’t live up to their contracts.  They were only the second-worst offender in the league, however, as the hapless Chicago Cubs paid $71M for an expected 29.8 WAR and only received 6.1 WAR in return.  By these estimates, they wasted over $56M on their hitters.  The Pirates, despite coming in a close second for lowest salary paid to their players, were the only NL team to actually perform below replacement level in aggregate, showing that they possibly would have been better off employing a AAAA squad.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Cincinnati Reds hitters provided the best value in the league, outperforming their collective paychecks by nearly $52M.

The following table displays the same data as above, except for National League team pitching staffs and is also listed in best to worst order for Pitcher WAR Savings:

Table 2: National League Team Pitchers’ WAR and Salary Comparison

The 2010 St. Louis Cardinals did not fare as well in this category, spending $43M for a projected 13.4 WAR and only receiving 12.5 in return.  This demonstrates a waste of approximately $3M in pitcher salary.  The least efficient pitching staff by far belonged to the Milwaukee Brewers, which paid for what should have been 14.5 WAR but received only 0.2 WAR in return.  The Padres made the most out of their pitching salary spent, followed by the Marlins, Giants, and Rockies.

The final table below shows the combined WAR, salaries, and savings for all National League teams.  A final column, Performance Worth, was included to represent how much money a team’s performance on the field was actually worth (in contrast to how much they paid in reality). It is listed in order of total savings from best to worst.

Table 3: National League Team WAR and Salary Comparison

The San Diego Padres, who finished only two games out of their division lead and one game out of the wild card race in 2010 despite operating on a shoestring budget, indisputably made the most out of their money.  Yet had they spent just a bit more, they might have made the post-season. The Cubs, who led the NL in spending and ended up amongst the bottom dwellers in the standings, spent their money least wisely by a significant margin.  The Cardinals, despite falling short of the playoffs, did at least outperform what they spent, paying $93.5M to field a team worth $106.5M in results.

In our next article, we will examine the performances of individual St. Louis Cardinals players, the money that they were paid, and which were responsible for either elevating or dragging down their team.

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In a recent Post-Dispatch article, some of the subjects allegedly discussed during the St. Louis Cardinals’ post-season organizational meetings were disclosed.

One item on the table was the concept of “dry powder,” holding financial reserves for mid-season trades to bolster the club down the stretch.

Manager Tony La Russa is reportedly in favor of a change in approach, instead wanting to deploy the funds during the prior off-season, rather than waiting to do so during the summer. The article states there was only one major “dry powder” move in the last four years, the acquisition of Matt Holliday, overlooking the earlier Mark DeRosa trade.

Another argument cited in support of La Russa’s position was the early-season injuries to Brad Penny and Kyle Lohse, which proved to be difficult to diagnose in terms of a return time for each. It took the team from May until the end of July, when Jake Westbrook was acquired, to address the need externally. Even then, the deal was apparently neutral financially, so it would seem no powder was deployed. Other in-season additions were minimum-salaried scrap-heapers like Randy Winn, Jeff Suppan and Mike MacDougal.

I’ve been thinking about this, seeing benefits in each approach.

• Positive for non-dry powder: Set roster early with the best team possible and run with it.

• Negative for non-dry powder: No money to address emerging needs later.

• Negative for dry powder: May wait for help that never comes or be unable to find the right players.

• Positive for dry powder: It can generate in-season momentum, if used.

Let me explain my last point, one that was not made in the Post-Dispatch article. If the team plays well enough to contend, making a notable July addition provides momentum in at least two ways.

During the heat of the summer, it reinforces to the team that ownership is willing to step up to help them and to their fans that they are behind the club. It also puts pressure on their competitors to respond in kind and if they don’t, it might generate internal feelings of doubt within the enemy camp.

For those reasons, I still favor keeping some flexibility to make moves during the season.

How do you see it?

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Here in mid-January, the St. Louis Cardinals payroll management strategy for 2010 still remains under question.

One milestone occurred in early December when during a presentation at Webster University, team president Bill DeWitt III hinted his club might not spend up to their total player budget, expected to be around $100 million.

“Clubs have a tendency — and we’ve been guilty in the past — of putting every resource into the team in the offseason. That just doesn’t leave you any flexibility,” DeWitt III said.

Showing restraint would be a repeat of an approach that was widely ridiculed during the previous winter. The term “keeping powder dry” in reference to holding back money was first coined by his father, team chairman Bill DeWitt Jr.

As we saw in 2009, if game attendance exceeds the Cardinals planning numbers, they could also choose to apply additional financial resources to players. Some combination of “dry powder” plus new expense money opened the door to trade for and take on the salaries of Mark DeRosa and Matt Holliday in June and July, respectively.

About ten days ago, back on January 7, as the club digested the Holliday re-signing, general manager John Mozeliak was quoted as saying the following:

“[Assistant GM John] Abbamondi, myself, Jeff [Luhnow, scouting director and farm director] and the group will sit down tomorrow. I’ll then also get with Tony [La Russa, manager] over the weekend and we’ll kind of prioritize what we think, if we had a bullet to use, what would we use it on. Once we get to that point, then we’ll look at what’s out there and how to use that resource if it’s there. We may stand pat. But we’ll see.”

In the process, Mozeliak outlined the two primary outcomes for some or all of the remaining budget – either acquire one additional significant player using their so-called “bullet”, keep dry powder or perhaps a combination of the two.

How much money are we talking about?

The Post-Dispatch offered a graphical summary following Holliday’s re-signing. In it, they suggest the Cardinals will have $7.4 million remaining to spend. One of the few assumptions required was an estimation of the 2010 salaries of arbitration-eligible players Skip Schumaker and Ryan Ludwick.

Though Schumaker is hinting he is close to coming to terms, completely resolving both players’ 2010 salaries may not be happening soon. At Winter Warm-Up, Mozeliak said the Cardinals would like the contracts of both Schumaker and Ludwick completed before his club dips back into the free-agent pool.

This sequencing doesn’t completely hold together to me.

In his first season of arbitration eligibility, Schumaker should be the easier of the two to sign. The real question is how big of a raise Ludwick is looking for coming off a season in which he made $3.7 million, but delivered declining results compared to 2008.

(For my detailed views of how comparable players’ salaries might be applied, The Cardinal Nation subscribers can read my January 7 article, “How Much Will Schumaker and Ludwick Make?”. At the low end, I have the two coming in at $6.9 million combined, while the P-D estimates they will make $8.5 million in total when all is said and done.)

Here’s my concern. The Cardinals surely have a planning bandwidth for the two arbitration cases and would seem to be position to have at least $6 million remaining once the two arbitration deals are done. (This assumes the Post-Dispatch estimates for the two will turn out to be $1.4 million too low, which I strongly doubt is the case.)

Both sides will formally know how far they are apart on Tuesday, when club and player arbitration amounts must be filed. Though the parties could come to terms at any time, if disagreement remains, the conclusion could drag on until a hearing scheduled as late as the third week in February – the time pitchers and catchers are due to report for spring training.

Again, either way, with conservatively $6 million or more in their chest, why would they be waiting, unless they are planning to save dry powder?

The P-D reports the Cardinals have been in contact with pitcher John Smoltz’ agent but they would like the veteran to wait for a potential offer until they have a better feel for their payroll. The paper has been in contact with the future Hall-of-Famer, who says he has heard nothing substantive from the Cardinals. Smoltz went on to say that while he would like to return to St. Louis, he is preparing to move on.

At 43 years old next season, Smoltz offers at least as an intriguing relief alternative as he would be a fifth starter. His likely contract would include a base deal of several million dollars with incentives for several more, seemingly within the amount of money the Cardinals have remaining.

High on the list of other possible options could include a right-handed hitting outfield reserve who could spell Colby Rasmus in centerfield and veteran depth at third base behind untested starter David Freese.

There is one other possibility for waiting – the knowledge that as spring training nears, prices for the remaining unsigned free agents will go down. Though Mozeliak isn’t saying it, using some of that dry powder over the next six weeks wouldn’t necessarily keep them from gaining and deploying more later.

Even if the Cardinals decide not to make another significant signing this winter, they have already done enough to position themselves as National League Central Division favorites for 2010. Without immediate additional spending, not everyone will be content, however. The annual resurrection of the “DeWallet” loonies, armchair critics of ownership’s player payrolls, is quite possible if the Cardinals head into the season with a mid-$90 million payroll. Instead of applauding player development and efficient spending, the simplistic minds of the habitual complainers can only compare annual bottom lines.

After last year, I have become a believer that if the Cardinals need help during the season and they play well enough to deserve it, ownership will come through. In the meantime, the primary pressure should be on the players and coaches to win.

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A typical approach by those who believe they can personally motivate St. Louis Cardinals ownership into increasing their player payroll is to reverse-engineer estimates for revenue, expense and profit, thinking they can do a better job than financial experts like Forbes.

One area the critics almost always overlook is the debt assumed in the construction of the new Busch Stadium. In a recent presentation to faculty and business students at Webster University, Cardinals president Bill DeWitt III showed this debt represents between 13 and 15 percent of the club’s annual expense.

Chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. has been even more specific, noting their borrowing of $300 million of the $365 million required to build the ballpark requires them to pay more than $20 million annually in principal and interest.

That is $20 million not available for other purposes, including paying players, which is the largest single expenditure for the organization, representing about half their annual spending, according to DeWitt III.

The purpose of bringing this up is not to show pity for the DeWitts and their partners, shrewd businessmen all. Let’s face it. Had they been able to convince the taxpayers of St. Louis to fully finance the stadium, one can assume they would have been more than delighted to accept the handout.

That is precisely the train wreck that has hit a number of other cities, including in National League Central rival Cincinnati. In a Sunday article, The New York Times paints a sobering picture of numerous municipalities, scared of losing their teams, having funded shiny new facilities only to later realize their basic revenue assumptions to repay the debt incurred are unattainable.

After tax increases foisted upon local citizens didn’t prove to be enough and the MLB Reds and especially the NFL Bengals unwilling to alter their “sweetheart” lease terms, Hamilton County, Ohio is left with no choice but to cut basic services to taxpayers and deplete a bond reserve fund. This takes money away from necessities such as schools with no plan for paying it back.

Similar problems were cited with publicly-funded sports venues in Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Columbus and Glendale, Arizona. Back-end loaded interest payments are identified as a common problem, the risks ignored at the time the original commitments were sold by wide-eyed officials to the citizenry.

Trying to squeeze more out of the Cardinals for his prize free agent Matt Holliday, spinmaster extraordinare Scott Boras recently took his personal struggle of the rich versus the richer to the people, many of whom are hard-working taxpayers and ticket-buyers alike.

The agent drew a parallel between the Cardinals and the Phillies, the latter having a payroll about 30 percent higher than St. Louis despite the two franchises being similarly valued, according to Forbes. Boras apparently neglected to mention that Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park was state-funded.

One can only hope the self-deputized St. Louis payroll police understand and appreciate the bullet taxpayers avoided by ensuring the owners of the Cardinals were kept on the hook to pay the vast majority of the freight for their baseball palace – just as it should be.

Folks must also realize there is no free lunch. Someone has to cover the expense. It is only common sense that having debt service when a number of other clubs do not may mean the Cardinals have less in their coffers to pay players as a result.

That shouldn’t keep fans from expecting to see a competitive team on the field, but it seems the organization deserves some leeway in how the end is accomplished.

Specifically, if the Cardinals do not overpay for Holliday and he is lost to another organization, some will expect them to quickly re-allocate every dollar to other free agents, whether mediocrities or not.

Instead, if the club decides to stash some additional cash for signing the four extra players in the early part of the June 2010 draft awarded as compensation for the losses of free agents Holliday, Mark DeRosa and Joel Pineiro, some vocal critics will not accept it.

If the organization chooses to hold back money to acquire veteran players in-season to help the 2010 club down the stretch (“dry powder” revisited), there will be those who will not believe it until they see it, despite the club having done just that in 2009.

They will instead chalk up the actions of the winter to greedy owners who had no intention of re-signing Holliday, but craftily used Boras’ delay to purposely let all the good alternatives land elsewhere before doing nothing. These same owners continue to be vilified despite bringing Cardinals fans nine winning seasons and seven playoff teams during the just-completed decade.

So it goes in the annual winter of second-guessing.

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As with any powerful tool, a thorough understanding of what you have and what you don’t is very important. As some Cardinals watchers know, the database assigns the salaries of all players on opening day rosters to their current team, no matter which club is actually paying the freight.

In the past, this created an odd year-to-year skew when players like Larry Walker and Roger Cedeno were acquired. Though the Cardinals were not responsible for most of the two’s salaries, the database assigned their entire commitment to St. Louis.

In 2010, this will likely again arise due to Julio Lugo’s $9 million salary being paid by Boston. We will need to check later, but I expect the Cardinals’ reported 2010 payroll to appear to be inflated by $9 million as a result.

When the database was first presented for 2009 this past spring, there was a discrepancy in the reporting of Troy Glaus’ individual salary (pictured). It was understated by about $11 million, which artificially dropped the Cardinals total payroll to $77 million.

While Glaus’ individual line item was quickly corrected, the folks from USAToday apparently forgot to update the Cardinals’ team total. As a result, St. Louis’ supposed $77,605,109 payroll placed them 17^th of the 32 MLB teams.

I knew about this problem, but had incorrectly assumed it had been fixed months ago. Not so.

I was reading a Baseball Prospectus article just this week about player injuries and there was that $77 million payroll figure for St. Louis! I knew right away without even looking from where the author had picked up that total. No telling how many others have been using this incorrect data to draw potentially faulty conclusions.

I decided I would take it upon myself to right this wrong.

Fortunately, in Arizona just ten days ago, I had met Steve Gardner, a fine writer from USAToday, an all-around good guy and a Cardinals fan from way back. I contacted Steve on Monday, explaining the problem, and by Tuesday, the database had been updated with the correct total.

The Cardinals are now properly ranked 13^th with a 2009 opening day payroll of $88,528,409. Of course, this was a consistent point in time that preceded the big trades of the summer for Mark DeRosa and Matt Holliday.

Thanks to Steve and USAToday!

With the only suspense over the next three weeks being whether or not the team will secure home-field advantage, Cardinals watchers, apparently needing something to talk about, seem overly focused on free agent-to-be Matt Holliday’s future.

Until there is an announcement, if there will be one, chances are very high there will be nothing new to say before play ends this season about whether or not the power-hitting outfielder will return to St. Louis.

Yet the likes of ESPN’s Buster Olney continue to weigh in on the subject. In a Friday Insider article, Olney does a quick, back-of-the-envelope analysis of the Cardinals’ major payroll commitments for 2010 and concludes:

“Nothing in the Cardinals’ recent history tells us” that the club will “approach or surpass $100 million in payroll in order to keep him,” opines Olney.

Olney bases his historical perspective on data from Cot’s Baseball Contracts, concluding:

“…the Cardinals have never opened a season with a payroll greater than $92.1 million.”

While I am a proponent of using past behavior to help gauge what might happen in the future, this analysis seems narrow at best. Most likely, Olney has no idea what the Cardinals will do. They could shift money to future years by back-end loading their offer and/or defering money, increase payroll, restructure other players’ contracts or perhaps even trade some salary to accommodate Holliday.

It all depends on how badly ownership wants to keep him. None of us know what they are going to do.

The idea of trading salary is a realistic possibility. After all, that is how Mark DeRosa became available to St. Louis. Last winter, the Cubs binged on expensive free agents such as the unpopular and disappointing Milton Bradley and tried to acquire former National League Cy Young Award winner Jake Peavy from San Diego. One by-product was purging the popular and valuable DeRosa, who was sent to Cleveland, from where the Cardinals later rescued him.

In recent years, several Cardinals players, most recently Jason Isringhausen among them, worked with the team to restructure their contracts, deferring money out to future years to create additional current years’ payroll flexibility. Who is to say that couldn’t be attempted again if deemed necessary?

Olney concludes with this statement:

“…I’ll venture a guess (and it’s nothing more at this point): Holliday winds up signing with the Angels…”

Turns out that Olney is not alone. Some members of the Cardinal Nation (note the “the” is not capitalized!) are all up in arms over a statement reportedly made by Post-Dispatch Hall of Fame writer Rick Hummel in a recent interview with KSDK Channel 5′s Jay Randolph, Sr.

In it, the “Commish” allegedly said there is “zero chance” the Cardinals will re-sign Holliday or Joel Pineiro. One major message board where some wild discussions regularly occur has seven screens and counting of reaction, much of it predictably negative.

No one apparently bothered to check out the accuracy of the statement – until I did.

In an email exchange on Friday morning, Hummel expressed concern over how well (or poorly) people listen and the risks of the internet before clarifying:

“The quote was ‘zero’ chance they would re-resign the combination of Holliday, Pineiro and DeRosa, which I think anyone would agree with. They would have the least chance, almost ‘zero’, I would say of re-signing Pineiro,” explains Hummel.

That is what Hummel actually said to Randolph, which is most logical. I agree with him 100%.

With major long-term financial commitments to the front three in the rotation, Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright and Kyle Lohse, Pineiro most likely has priced himself out of the Cardinals willingness to pay open market value for his continued services after 2009.

Using the above logic, trading Lohse to free up money for Pineiro could be an option, but one would think there would be few takers given Lohse’s injury-plagued 2009 and huge remaining three-year commitment, not to mention having to buy out his no-trade protection.

The key point is that this has nothing to do with Holliday. Note that Hummel specifically did not rule out the possibility of the Cardinals signing both Holliday and DeRosa.

It is a shame that some can’t sit back and enjoy the ride here in 2009 and wait to get all wound up over the off-season until it actually arrives.

Thursday’s official confirmation that the St. Louis Cardinals organization has formally signed 16-year-old Dominican outfielder Wagner Mateo (pictured) for a reported $3.1 million signing bonus comes on top of last Saturday’s trade for Major League infielder/outfielder Mark DeRosa.

Mateo’s deal is almost three times the organization’s largest previous bonus paid to a Latin American amateur, the $1.1 million reportedly given to last July 2^nd’s big signing, third baseman Roberto De La Cruz, also from the Dominican Republic.

Putting aside the risks of doling out that much money to kid of just 16 years of age, one cannot dispute the Cardinals’ willingness to make such a significant financial commitment to someone they believe can grow into being an impact Major Leaguer down the road.

In securing the services of DeRosa, a free agent following this season, the Cardinals took on a half-season’s worth of his salary, approximately $2.8 million. The aggressive move was made a month earlier than the trade deadline and put the Cardinals’ National League Central opponents on the defensive – a marked change from 2008, when the shoe was on the other foot.

This total of about $6 million ($3.1 for Mateo and $2.8 for DeRosa) does not represent expenditures that the organization was required to make. They were clearly carried out with a balanced view toward the present (DeRosa) and the future (Mateo).

In the DeRosa deal, the Cardinals also gave up two of their “precious Faberge eggs”, reliever Chris Perez and a player to be named later, rumored to be among a list of players that include pitchers Jess Todd (our Scout.com fourth-ranked Cardinals prospect) and Francisco Samuel (19^th on the same list).

So, I have read all the criticism and the childish name-calling for months. Where are the columns now that give credit where credit is due to the ownership group for dealing and spending to improve and invest?

Here is one.

I admit that I was among the skeptics when club officials said over the winter that they would be keeping some of their powder dry – in other words, not immediately spending all of their expense budget in this tough economy while holding back until during the season.

It was easy to assume this was a hollow promise designed to soften the blow of a reduced Major League player budget compared to 2008. Some critics chose to ignore both the eroding economy as well as a significant trend all across MLB to cut player expenditures, as if the Cardinals were isolated and insulated from the rest of the world.

So far, the organization has lived up to its word.

Yet if the club continues to flail on the field, these expenditures will quickly be forgotten amid the pleas to spend more via acquiring other Major Leaguers for the final two or three months.

Though in an ideal world, we would all probably like to see the Cardinals commit more and more, it is time to admit that they have followed through in a tangible manner and not let their positive moves this week be taken for granted.

Jaffe researched “order processing charges” and the stick-in-your-eye-named “convenience fees” charged by Major League Baseball clubs for ticket transactions made online or via telephone. Some clubs even assess a surcharge depending on how you want to pick up your ticket. In his work, Jaffe chose the least expensive tickets for comparison.

In these challenging economic times, over half of the 30 MLB clubs either held the line on “gouging fees” from 2008 (seven teams) or actually decreased them (nine) compared to last season, but not the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Cardinals tied the Baltimore Orioles for the eighth-highest such fees across Major League Baseball at $8.00 per ticket, up 50 cents from 2008. Half of that is convenience fee and half is labeled order processing.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Milwaukee Brewers charge just $2.00 per ticket for order processing and that is it. No bogus “convenience fee” that is just another way to rip off the ticket-buying public.

What really got my blood boiling was Jaffe’s report that the add-on charges are generally not constant. In other words, as you move up the ticket price spectrum, the fees usually increase, too.

Think about that. How could it cost more to process a $100 ticket compared to a $30 ticket? For whom is $100 more convenient? In addition, these gaps are generally growing wider each year.

In this case, the Cardinals receive a nod, as they are one of just four MLB clubs that hold “gouging fees” at the same level despite the price of the ticket, according to THT.

Another recent article, at The New York Times, noted the San Francisco Giants are experimenting with dynamic ticket pricing. This concept is not unlike the one used by airlines, where prices are lowered or raised regularly based on changes in demand – potentially right up until game time.

As a result, like in air travel, every fan may have paid a different price for his or her seat compared to the person sitting next to them. Not surprisingly, the Giants feel they can bring in more money this way.

Clubs are driven to be even more creative since their in-house ticket reselling services were forcibly submerged when MLB signed a five-year exclusive deal with StubHub, a unit of eBay, last year.

For example, the Giants had DPTW, “Double Play Ticket Window”, while the Cardinals called their service “Prime Seat Club”. Now all sanctioned MLB ticket reselling is administered from one place – at the top.

While Bud Selig catches a lot of heat in some quarters, including here, this is yet another reminder of the rarity of him missing an opportunity to grab a piece of the financial pie.

A final observation made by Jaffe was also about the Giants. Their declining ticket surcharges caused me to pause and consider “What if?”

“If you’re curious, San Fran used to be able to charge huge extra fees when Barry Bonds was around,” Jaffe observed.

Of course, the Cardinals currently have under contract the services of Bonds’ heir apparent as the best player in the National League and all of MLB, Albert Pujols. No later than following the 2011 season, Pujols will receive a new multi-year deal – one that may surpass any other in terms of years and dollars.

It has been assumed by many that the Cardinals will cover the increased cost of Pujols’ new contract by cutting payroll through not signing veterans as well as by deploying more lower-cost replacement players developed through an improving farm system.

While that may or may not be the case, even if it is, what if it isn’t enough?

What if the Cardinals also decide to hit fans directly for some or all of the increased cost of keeping Pujols by jacking up their “gouging fees” as the Giants did at the height of Bonds’ popularity?

Would you be angry enough to go Howard Beale or would you be willing to pay two or three bucks more per ticket to help keep Albert in St. Louis?

The St. Louis Cardinals came in at the end of the top third in MLB in tenth place. The National League Central had a very good showing as the Cards placed just fourth in their division. Pittsburgh’s PNC Bank Park was third overall, Wrigley Field fourth and Milwaukee’s Miller Park came in ninth. Behind Busch are Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, ranked 14^th, with Houston’s tricked up Minute Maid Park at 22^nd.

The affordability measure came from the 2009 Fan Cost Index compiled by Team Marketing, which I highlighted here recently. The FCI combines standard prices for a family of four to purchase tickets, concessions, parking and souvenirs at each stadium.

Each ballpark was rated on accessibility based on the number of different types of transportation available for fans. Fan participation is a simple capacity-filled measure – each stadium’s average attendance as a percentage of capacity over the past three years.

The ballparks were assigned to a numerical ranking from one to 30 in each of the four categories and the four were averaged to form the overall list. Rather than stop there, they created a scorecard that looks to be a bit convoluted by changing each ranking into a letter grade from A to D. Rather than try to describe it, you can read the details here.

Here are the scores for Busch, with a fifth measure, called intangibles:

Intangibles: B+
Fan Participation: A-
Accessibility: B+
Affordability: B-
Food: B

Not surprisingly, the fans power Busch’s best ranking while the prices are least competitive, yet they are still viewed to be better than most.

The average MLB club is worth $482 million, an all-time high. The St. Louis Cardinals are only $4 million higher at $486 M and yet are ranked number eight. That illustrates a growing gulf between the handful of teams and the top and the others.

Those clubs with high revenue generating ballparks and lucrative cable television deals stand out. Other teams are feeling the economic downturn as evidenced by large numbers of unsold premium seats and canceled corporate sponsorships. This hampers their ability to meet debt obligations, often accumulated due to the construction of expensive new ballparks.

The Cardinals franchise value increased very slightly from last year, from $484 M to $486 M, moving up from ninth to eighth in MLB. The club’s ratio of debt to value declined a bit from an estimated 51% to 50% in the last year, but remains among the highest third in the game.

St. Louis’ estimated revenue was also almost flat at $195 million, up from $194 M the year before. Operating income fell all the way from $21 million to $6.6 M, as 22 other clubs generated higher income than the Cardinals last year.

That $6.6 million represents the club’s lowest income total since 2005, the final year of the old stadium. It was estimated the team had negative income for a run of at least six years prior. (Note that all revenue numbers are from the previous year.)

Here is a snapshot of the recent financial history of the Cardinals, with more details available on the Forbes website.

Cardinals	2009	MLB rank	2008	MLB rank
Team Value	$486 M	#8	$484 M	#9
1-Yr Value Chg	0%	T#18	5%	#23
Debt/Value	50%	#9	51%	#8
(Prev Year) Revenue	$195 M	#10	$194 M	#9
(Prev Year) Operating Income	$6.6 M	#23	$21.5 M	#11
(Prev Year) Player Expenses	$120 M		$109 M
Gate Receipts	$92 M		$96 M

Cardinals	2007	2006	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000
Team Value	$460 M	429	370	314	308	271	243	219
(Prev Year) Revenue	$184 M	165	151	131	128	123	110	104
(Prev Year) Operating Income	$14 M	8	-4	-11	-2	-5	-3	5
(Prev Year) Player Expenses	$105 M	101	102	96	85	85	72	52

In a side point of special interest to those Cardinals fans critical of team ownership, Forbes notes that ten of the 30 MLB clubs are wholly or partially owned by billionaires or individual corporations worth a billion or more. The Cubs and Astros owners are included, but the Cardinals are not.

It is the time again for the release of the Fan Cost Index (FCI)*, which compares the price for a family of four to attend a major league baseball game across the 30 franchises.

The St. Louis Cardinals just made the top third of the clubs, coming in at number ten. The club’s FCI of $214.72 represents a decline of 1.2 percent compared to 2008, when the Cardinals had the seventh-highest FCI.

Their current ranking of tenth is the Cardinals’ lowest placement in the FCI since at least 2002 and also their first year-to-year decline during that period.

The new ballpark itself is no longer driving increased prices for Cardinals fans. In fact, in 2006, the first year of the new Busch Stadium, the team’s average ticket price was actually slightly higher at $29.78 than this season’s $29.43.

The Cardinals are one of just three of the 12 clubs with an above-average FCI that show an FCI decline year-to-year. The other two are the San Francisco Giants and Washington Nationals.

The average FCI across MLB of $196.89 represents a 3.2 percent increase over last year. The best value in the game is the $114.24 it takes to see the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Not surprisingly, the New York Yankees in their new $1.5 billion new Yankee Stadium palace have the highest FCI at a whopping $410.88. They knocked the long-time leader and their AL East rival, the Boston Red Sox, out of the top spot.

The other teams in the NL Central rank as follows: Chicago Cubs (third), Houston Astros (11^th), both with above average FCIs. The other three are clustered near the bottom: Milwaukee Brewers (26^th), Cincinnati Reds (27^th) and Pittsburgh Pirates (29^th).

* The FCI, developed by Team Marketing Report, is made up of the prices of two adult and two child average-price tickets, two small draft beers, four small soft drinks, four regular-size hot dogs, parking for one car, two game programs and two least expensive, adult-size adjustable caps.

Not every group of four are going to spend this much money, but the FCI provides valid and consistent year-to-year comparisons across 30 teams.

This is an area of increasing interest to fans, especially given an off-season of reduced spending on players.

As if they were DeWitt’s talking points, I have extracted the key bullets from the article without editorial comment in the areas of 2008 and 2009 payroll, roster implications, expense/revenue last year with this year’s forecast along with ticket sales information.

2008 payroll

• The 2008 season-opening player payroll total was $101.8 million, but included $26 million paid to players that didn’t contribute materially last season.
• (As another reference point, USA Today ranked the Cardinals at number 11 in MLB at the start of 2008 with an opening player budget of $99.6 million.)
• The club reasserts all 2008 in-season trades considered were not made were due to prospects demanded, not because of money limitations.
• The 2008 end-of-season payroll was over $110 million.

2009 payroll

• The team has committed an estimated $93.2 million to the 2009 opening-day roster. (link to P-D‘s player-by-player figures behind the total)
  
• Ownership forecasts the Cardinals will rank among the top 10 or 11 payrolls in MLB.
• DeWitt reiterated his commitment “to have a payroll commensurate with revenue”.

2009 roster

• The two-year/$18 million offer spurned by closer Brian Fuentes was heavily backloaded. The expense assumed would probably have driven a salary dump trade of either Ryan Ludwick or Rick Ankiel.
• Despite the uncertainty at second base, after eating the $4 million contract of Adam Kennedy, the club could not pursue free agent Orlando Hudson for financial reasons.
• Yet the recent signing of reliever Dennys Reyes is cited as an example of the club’s financial flexibility.
  

2008 expense/revenue

• Overall revenue in 2008 exceeded $200 million.
• Expenses exceeded $150 million.
• Operating profit was $23 to $25 million prior to servicing $17 million of stadium debt.
• DeWitt states that any “excess” money the past few years has been re-invested in the operation.

2009 expense/revenue

• The club is not assured of a 2009 operating profit beyond its ongoing debt service on the stadium.
• The Cardinals are “very sensitive” to attendance due to broadcast contracts that are much smaller than large-market clubs.

Ticket sales

• 2.7 million tickets have already been sold for the 2009 season.
• The club will not sell 3 million tickets prior to opening day for the first time in the four years since moving into the new ballpark.
• The worst-case scenario in which attendance only reaches 2.8 million in 2009 will be exceeded.
• Sales are down for all-inclusive and premium-seating areas typically bought by corporations and community groups.
• The club is projecting 3 million in attendance (which would be down 14% from the 3.43 million achieved in 2008).

All-Star Game impact

• The Cardinals will receive no direct revenue from the All-Star week activities.
• The 90 percent renewal rate among season-ticket holders to date is expected to grow to 92-93% based on fan interest in All-Star Game tickets.

OK, folks. There you have it. The Cliff’s Notes version of the Post-Dispatch article.

I am going to withhold my comments as I am interested in what you think. Does it make sense? Does the story hold together or is it just a shell game?

Does it matter what the team makes or spends as long as they are competitive? Should the owners have to disclose their finances in an attempt to maintain/restore the confidence of their fan base? How much profit is fair?

What do you think?

My interest in the subject is to help put into context the projected decline in the St. Louis Cardinals’ payroll this coming season. I firmly believe the team’s economic posture is the single most divisive issue across the Cardinal Nation and many who are complaining seem to lack a basic understanding of the bigger picture that reflects both the state of the US economy and its resulting impact across the totality of MLB.

People don’t need to like it. In an ideal world, we all wish our favorite team would spend more money. But at least take a moment to understand and acknowledge what is happening around you.

As the information below, expertly compiled by “Oquendo11”, attests, the Cardinals are not alone in their 2009 belt-tightening.

Here are some of the key points to be gleaned from the data. The first is most important and relevant to Cardinals fans:

• Of the 13 teams that had a 2008 payroll above average ($89.6 M), including the Cardinals, only two clubs are increasing their payroll for 2009. Those 13 teams are averaging a decrease of $8.2 M. St. Louis’ projected decline is $8.6 M, almost on the average.
• Of the 17 teams that had a 2008 payroll below average ($89.6 M), 13 increased their payroll for 2009; the 17 teams averaged an increase of $4.3 M.
• Of the 15 teams increasing payroll, seven had winning records, seven had losing records, and one had a .500 record last season.
• Of the 15 teams decreasing payroll, nine had winning records and six had losing records.
• The 16 teams that had a winning record in 2008 decreased payroll an average of $1.05 M ($16.8 M total).
• The 13 teams that had a losing record in 2008 decreased payroll an average of $1.63 M ($21.2 M total).
• The one team with a .500 record in 2008 increased payroll $4 M.
• Across MLB, the overall payroll stayed about the same, with the average dropping only $1.13 M (to $88.4 M) or a total decrease of $34 M across 30 teams. (Clubs are ordered below based on size of year-to-year change from largest increase to largest decline.)

2009 MLB player payrolls	Min forecast	Max forecast	Avg Forecast	08 payroll	delta	08 wins
Philadelphia Phillies	125	125	125	98.3	26.7	92
San Francisco Giants	89	114	101.5	76.6	24.9	72
Tampa Bay Rays	60	60	60	43.7	16.3	97
Chicago Cubs	133	133	133	119	14	97
Kansas City Royals	70	70	70	58	12	75
Houston Astros	99	102	100.5	88.9	11.6	86
Oakland Athletics	50	65	57.5	48	9.5	75
Arizona Diamondbacks	74	74	74	66.2	7.8	82
Washington Nationals	50	75	62.5	55	7.5	59
Baltimore Orioles	72	75	73.5	67.1	6.4	68
Colorado Rockies	74	74	74	68.7	5.3	74
Cleveland Indians	83	83	83	79	4	81
Minnesota Twins	59	59	59	57	2	88
Florida Marlins	23.5	23.5	23.5	21.8	1.7	84
Cincinnati Reds	75	75	75	74.1	0.9	74
Milwaukee Brewers	79	82	80.5	80.9	-0.4	90
Texas Rangers	62	72	67	67.7	-0.7	79
Detroit Tigers	135	135	135	138	-3	74
Pittsburgh Pirates	45	45	45	48.7	-3.7	67
New York Yankees	200	210	205	209	-4	89
Boston Red Sox	125	127	126	133.4	-7.4	95
New York Mets	130	130	130	137.8	-7.8	89
St. Louis Cardinals	91	91	91	99.6	-8.6	86
Los Angeles Angels	105	115	110	119.2	-9.2	100
Toronto Blue Jays	85	88	86.5	97.97	-11.47	86
Chicago White Sox	100	100	100	121	-21	89
Seattle Mariners	90	100	95	117.7	-22.7	61
Atlanta Braves	70	85	77.5	102.4	-24.9	72
Los Angeles Dodgers	79	104	91.5	118.5	-27	84
San Diego Padres	40	42	41	73.7	-32.7	63
Average payroll change					-1.13
Total payroll change					-33.97
(all amounts are in $M)

A footnote. Since projected $25 million man Manny Ramirez is not signed, he is included in the high case for both the Dodgers and Giants. Of course, he will ultimately be in one or the other, but not both.

I will be back to address this again once the season-opening payrolls across the game are set, but I don’t expect the conclusion to change dramatically.

You heard it here first. The dates for the arbitration hearings for St. Louis Cardinals outfielders Rick Ankiel and Ryan Ludwick have been set. In a schedule that only MLB could devise, the two hearings will be held in Phoenix five days apart – on February 12 (Ankiel) and February 17 (Ludwick).

If I was a betting man, I would put my money on February 12 happening while the 17^th would be made unnecessary by a pre-hearing agreement with Ludwick. Whether the latter would be a simple one-year deal or a multi-year contract is unclear.

The last arbitration hearing the Cardinals actually had, back in 1999, they defeated agent Scott Boras on behalf of pitcher Darren Oliver. This time, Boras represents Ankiel, the pitcher-turned outfielder. The two sides come in separated by almost $1 million in their respective views of the player’s 2009 value.

More information from my previous reports here and here. (Also be sure to read the comments below the posts.)

Korean is day-to-day, just like the rest

Regarding the contract of Hyang-Nam Choi, the 37- (or 38) year-old reliever from Korea signed by the Cardinals (reports vary on his exact age), a Korean news source reported the deal is a month-to-month agreement, somehow implying out-of-the-ordinary terms that put the import on less-firm ground than his minor league counterparts.

Not so.

Choi is signed to a standard one-year Memphis contract, and will be in minor league camp when it opens on Monday, March 9. The “monthly” aspect is standard for all minor league contracts, in that players are paid a monthly amount, rather than having it expressed as an annual salary.

Apparently the Korean writer was unfamiliar with that. That’s ok, as many of us Americans are confused by Korean names. Choi is the player’s family name followed by his given name, listed as Choi Hyang-nam in Korean sources.

Think Hee-Seop Choi, the then-Dodgers Korean first baseman whose 2005 collision with Scott Rolen‘s shoulder changed everything. On the other hand, let’s not think about that after all.

Also, Choi the pitcher has been added to my Cardinals roster matrix as its 307^th player.

Rosenthal: Cards out of money

Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports had this sobering comment about the Cardinals in a Wednesday column.

“Club officials are telling agents that they are out of money, a stunning development considering that the team will host the All-Star Game this season.”

The reporter speculates that ticket sales and revenues are not being boosted by the presence of the All-Star Game and that the Cards are not in the hunt for free agent Braden Looper, or apparently anyone else that requires a major league salary.

I haven’t revisited the math of the Cardinals total payroll with a set roster, but it would seem to be somewhere in the low $90 millions, which could be as much as a 10% reduction from 2008. Of course, as noted above, Ankiel’s and Ludwick’s salaries could swing the 2009 total by as much as $2.4 million one way or the other.

Gorgen’s shoulder surgery?

Via a post on a social networking site (nothing seems to be private anymore), our Scout.com Cardinals Minor League Rookie Pitcher of the Year with Batavia last season, Scott Gorgen, mentioned recently that he required surgery on his shoulder. I have not yet been able to reach the 22-year-old right-hander to confirm this but I will post if so.

Since the Cardinals have not yet received their signed HIPAA waiver forms which enable them to discuss 2009 player injuries, the organization is unable to comment publicly at this time.

Houston Justice served

In case you missed this good news story the other day, Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle, writing for the Sporting News, offers a positive spin on the 2009 Cardinals. It is nice to see from a writer from an opposing city, especially considering some of the biased junk that has come out of Chicago in recent years.

Justice should have a good eye for bad situations as the Astros have decimated their once-strong farm system both in staff and players and despite finishing just ahead of the Cardinals last year, are an organization seemingly trending in the wrong direction.

There are many variations to these numbers, depending on whether one is looking at the total salaries of the players regardless of which club is actually paying for them (hello, Jim Edmonds!), the timing of the view (start or end of season), how compensation elements such as salary deferrals and incentives are accounted for and more.

A changing 2009 picture

Yet, using any measure, current course and speed, the 2009 St. Louis Cardinals are currently on a trajectory to open the season with a lower total salary commitment than they expected last fall.

In October, general manager John Mozeliak told me to expect a 2009 payroll “north of $100 million”. As has been reported time and time again, things have changed.

Now, in a report I first referenced here the other day, Yahoo Sports is forecasting a $91 million total for the ’09 Cards, considerably below the $99.6 million they quote for 2008 (a season-opening count as well).

Who’s spending more and who’s spending less?

I am not here to nitpick the numbers, but I do want to look into them, as there is a lot more than first meets the eye. Fortunately, a regular on the Scout.com message board, “Oquendo11”, already did much of the initial research.

Using the Yahoo series of articles as a consistent guide, with 22 teams having been covered so far, Oquendo noted that the number of clubs apparently increasing payroll in 2009 is equivalent to the ones cutting back.

I extended that several steps further to add their ranking from 2008. This can help us better understand which clubs are moving in which direction. In other words, are the big spenders planning to spend more while the small spenders are spending less?

2009 vs. 2008	2008 rank	Avg rank	Avg 2008 $
Increase (9)
Chicago Cubs	8
Philadelphia	12
Houston	14
Cincinnati	18
Baltimore	22
Kansas City	24
Oakland	28
Tampa Bay	29
Florida	30
Avg ’08 rank/$		21	$67.7 M
Decrease (9)
New York Mets	2
Detroit	3
Boston	4
LA Angels	6
Seattle	9
Atlanta	10
St. Louis	11
Toronto	13
Pittsburgh	27
Avg ’08 rank/$		9	$117.7 M
Flat (4)
Texas	21
Washington	26
NY Yankees	1
Milwaukee	15
Not included (8)
Chi White Sox	5
LA Dodgers	7
Cleveland	16
San Francisco	17
San Diego	19
Colorado	20
Arizona	23
Minnesota	25

Meet you in the middle

Nope, it is just the opposite. The two extremes are coming in toward the middle. The clubs that were spending the most in 2008 are the ones cutting back in 2009 while the lower-spending clubs are generally planning increases.

The average rankings illustrate this even better. The cutting teams averaged ninth in payroll last season or just into the top third, while the increasers averaged 21^st in spending across MLB last year, just into the bottom third.

Taking the rankings even closer to reality, last season’s ninth-highest spending team dropped $117.7 million on players, while the 21^st-ranked club spent a whopping $40 million less. Even with an increase on 2009, the 21^st ranked club would have a long way to travel to come anywhere near reaching parity.

To make sure I am clear, what this shows is that in terms of their 2009 payroll planning, the Cardinals are behaving very much like the other clubs in their financial ballpark.

Consider how the money is being spent

I want to reinforce one point that has been made over and over again. There is no sure correlation between spending more money and winning more championships. The top payroll in baseball year after year comes from the New York Yankees, a club that missed the playoffs last season and hasn’t won a World Series since 2000.

If one remains unconvinced, just look at the 2008 Seattle Mariners. They became MLB’s first-ever $100 million payroll club ($117.7 million at #9) to lose 100 games (101, to be exact – second-worst in baseball). It’s clearly not how much you spend as much as it is how you spend it.

If disgruntled Cardinals fans want to engage on that point – how the player payroll money is spent – then I can understand completely.

Another reality that is difficult to measure is the impact of a stronger farm system. Common sense tells us that a rookie will always have a lower salary than a veteran. What is far less clear is what percentage of the money saved by replacing an older, more expensive player with a younger, less costly one should be plowed back into upgrading another position at the major league level. Also, should that be a linear relationship, i.e. does it change based on the number of youngsters vs. veterans?

Some fans would say “100% of money saved should always be spent on other major leaguers, of course!” Yet the owners are in business to make money. Why should they not be entitled to reap some of the benefits from efficiencies gained via their smart investments in player scouting and development?

What if a club decides to spend more in the international market or on draft bonuses? Do fans think that is new money or realistically, does it have to be reallocated from somewhere else?

I don’t pretend to know the proper mix or how to measure it, but I am pretty sure that the folks on the far ends of either side of this equation – the “alls” as well as the “nothings” are too extreme for reality.

E:R can neither be fully understood nor ignored

Expanding this one step further, let’s consider the revenue side of the equation. We do not know the actual revenue the Cardinals generate each year, though respected industry watchers like Forbes do their best to make educated estimates.

The Cardinals are clearly signaling they expect down revenue in 2009. Given all that is going on around us in this world, it is not a surprising conclusion to draw.

Still a doubter?

I just read this headline on CNN: “More than 10,000 job cuts announced Tuesday”. The day before they screamed: “Bloody Monday: Over 71,400 jobs lost” on the heels of 40,000 cuts the week prior.

If you don’t think there are scores of Cardinals fans working for these affected companies – Midwest employers like Caterpillar, John Deere, The Home Depot and Target – then you are hopelessly out of touch.

Let’s face it. For most of our country, baseball is a luxury, not a necessity. It is entertainment, not sustenance. When times get tough, we trim the fat before hitting the bone.

Here is a question I challenge everyone to consider.

In any endeavor, including running a baseball team, isn’t it wise to try to keep revenue and expense in balance?

Where can they cut?

One can certainly debate how a club goes about achieving savings. The Arizona Diamondbacks, for example, ranked 23^rd in player payroll last season, recently laid off 31 front office personnel, or 9% of their staff.

Is that better for the organization than cutting player expenditures? How could we ever answer that from our perspective? Instead we have to assume ownership carefully weighed their alternatives and did what they thought was best for the organization overall.

One can also debate when cutting expense finally hits the bone – leading to a further decline in revenue and sending the organization into a financial death spiral.

Yet I cannot see how a reasonable, rational person cannot appreciate the most basic financial relationship presented above – if take in less, then I should spend less. The only reason to deviate is if I can determine a valid way to make more by spending more.

Whether we consider it this way or not, the responsible ones among us follow this simple E:R guideline in our own daily lives. Why should we expect others to act differently?

In conclusion

As noted above, the real challenge is in how the Cardinals actually execute their revised 2009 game plan, both on their financial spreadsheets and on the field of play.

In the meantime, let’s see if the club makes any further investments as camp begins and prices on players drop. Let’s see if the younger players step up and contribute. Let’s see if they decide to upgrade the team in-season if they contend in 2009. Let’s see if the Cardinals can weather the economic downturn or if fans stay home in record numbers.

In closing, I am not suggesting that everyone should agree with ownership and management. I disagree with them frequently on any number of specific issues.

However, I am saying that is both unfair and inaccurate to assume that a cut in payroll also represents a move to increase profits and a reduced commitment to putting a winning product on the field.

Those who still don’t get it need to open their eyes and look at what is happening all around them.

5. La Russa Keeps Cards in Contention despite No Deadline Help

I guess one could argue that every year’s top story is how the club did during the season, yet in 2008 the ending seemed incomplete with a second-division finish in the National League Central.

In this countdown, we have already considered the instability in the rotation, masked somewhat by the most fortunate March rescue of 15-game winner Kyle Lohse off baseball’s scrap heap.

The next storyline in this series will delve into the bullpen meltdown, in which Cardinals manager Tony La Russa could be considered an enabler, at least.

Together, these two segments illustrate the career-long conundrum with the 30-year MLB skipper. On one hand, his loyalty to his veterans, which is admirable to a point, can at times work to the detriment of his team.

On the other, his preparation and intensity have clearly taken his clubs to heights they would never have reached otherwise. Such was the case in 2008, as La Russa demonstrated an uncanny ability to take what appeared to be an average club and get more from them than expected.

Exemplified by the rotating crew of outfielders, of which at least four spent considerable time on the disabled list and his unconventional deployment of batting his pitcher in the eighth spot in the order, La Russa used 147 different lineups in the Cardinals’ 162 games.

While he has taken heat in many corners for his “gimmick”, sabermetricians have proven there is a slight edge in La Russa’s move to bat his pitchers in the number eight hole. Who can argue against any edge, no matter how small it may be?

That wasn’t enough to save the season, though.

Eleven days prior to the July 31 trade deadline, the Cardinals had played exactly 100 games, or 62% of their schedule. They were 57-43, 14 games over .500 and just two games back.

Not two games back in the Wild Card race, mind you. The Cards were just two games out of the Central Division lead! Clearly anything could happen – especially with some help. The Chicago Cubs had already added Rich Harden.

On July 21, the Milwaukee Brewers came into Busch as the Cards had just swept the San Diego Padres out of town, four straight. Led by their shiny, new acquisition C.C. Sabathia, who shut out the Cards that Saturday, the Brewers won all four games. They would go on to make the playoffs despite sacking their manager while the Cardinals waited for help that never came.

I believe this series was the turning point in the season. More on that later.

I do understand why the club did not mortgage their future on a Sabathia-type trade, yet I do not accept the argument offered to fans that every single one of the 29 possible trading partners wanted too much in return for every potential deal.

Not every proposed trade had to be of a Colby Rasmus magnitude. For example, in past years, useful pitchers like Jeff Weaver and Joel Pineiro were picked up at the deadline for spare parts at the Double-A level.

Rumors surfaced of the Cardinals’ interest in players such as left-handed relievers Will Ohman and Brian Fuentes and outfielder Matt Holliday. Yet, ownership and management did almost nothing while the team fell short by just five games from capturing the Wild Card instead of the Brewers.

Do you really believe no help was available or that the bosses weren’t completely trying? To me, it almost seemed as if they had predetermined their 2008 club just wasn’t good enough. If true, it would be most strange since this team won three more regular-season games than the World Champions of 2006.

I chalk up the 2008 season as an opportunity lost, though La Russa deserves kudos for keeping them in contention as long as he did.

4. The Decline of Izzy and the Bullpen Woes

Coming into the 2008 season, Cardinals fans had every reason to feel optimistic about the bullpen and especially the ninth inning.

Club career saves leader Jason Isringhausen seemed to have put his hip surgery behind him. Izzy was coming off a league-leading 2007 during which he saved 94.1% of his opportunities (32 of 34). He ended that year by converting 18 consecutive save chances.

Veteran set-up men Russ Springer and Ryan Franklin were back to reprise their roles, but the left side was a bit uncertain. Randy Flores’ production had begun to decline, while Tyler Johnson’s health problems lingered. As a result, minor league signee Ron Villone made the team instead.

I have never been a strong proponent of the “roles” argument, i.e. “I didn’t know my role and that is why I did not pitch effectively.” Yet in 2008, the unsettled nature of the closer’s job did seem to impact the efficiency of the pen and therefore the team.

Let’s look at the chronology:

May 9: The first-place Cards drop a 4-3 game to Milwaukee as Izzy blew his fifth game of the young season. La Russa then took the closer out of the ninth-inning role, which a frustrated Izzy welcomed.

May 15: With a depleted pen, La Russa calls on Izzy to protect a one-run lead in the eighth against the Pirates. Four runs scored as Izzy could only get one out. The manager called Izzy’s situation “problem number one” for his club, losers of seven of nine at the time.

I suspect overuse could have contributed.

Though Isringhausen had an injury-free 2007, La Russa went out of his way to explain that during 2008 spring training that he would use his closer sparingly to “save his bullets” for later. Especially considering Izzy’s past hip problems, the plan seemed wise.

Yet as soon as the regular season began, the surprising Cardinals began to play close game after close game – contests they could and did win. A by-product was aggressive use of Izzy.

Specifically, the closer took the ball in half of his club’s initial two dozen games, 12 appearances through April 25. By the time he called it quits temporarily, he was still taking the mound in every other game – 21 appearances in their first 43 contests.

Even in his younger days, Izzy had never pitched in 80 games, as his early usage pace projected. In his seven full healthy seasons since becoming a full-time closer, Isringhausen averaged 64 outings, with a high of 74 achieved four seasons ago.

May 16: One day after saying he had no physical problems, Izzy was placed on the 15-day disabled list. The stated reason was a laceration (cut) to his right hand, caused when he hit a television in apparent frustration one week prior. Interestingly, since that episode, the 35-year-old had been able to make three more mound appearances.

The unstated reason for the move was for Izzy to somehow regain his lost mound confidence after absorbing six blown saves and five losses in his first 17 save situations. He reported to Cardinals camp in Jupiter, Florida. “Closer of the future” Chris Perez was promoted from Memphis for the first time.

June 14: Izzy had been pitching in Palm Beach and Springfield on his rehab tour as Franklin had been closing during the intervening month. Perez was doing well in his MLB introduction in a general relief role.

While Franklin had six saves and a win, he was often in trouble. Compared to his time setting up, as closer his WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) and ERA exploded. (1.25 to 1.40 and 1.80 to 3.87, respectively.) It seemed clear Franklin was not the ninth-inning answer.

June 27: Since his MLB return ten days prior, Isringhausen had been ridden hard again, though not as closer. He pitched in six of the Cardinals’ nine games, including two outings of 2 1/3 innings each. He allowed eight hits and three walks in those 8 2/3 innings, but only one earned run.

July 18: Perez was returned to Memphis to work on his secondary pitches. He had yielded runs in seven of his last ten outings (9 ER/12 1/3 IP).

July 25: In the same Milwaukee series mentioned above where Sabathia spun his shutout, Franklin took losses in Game 1 and Game 4, both via devastating home runs.

A tenth inning three-run blast by Bill Hall started the series and Ryan Braun finished with a two-run shot that turned a potential Cardinals win into a disheartening four-game series sweep for the visitors from Wisconsin.

Franklin’s uncomfortable post-game interview that Thursday was reminiscent of Izzy’s public frustration and disappointment in May. At that point, Franklin’s ERA and WHIP as closer were 5.46 and 1.75. His July ERA was approaching eight.

July 28: Izzy returned as closer but seemed to be on a short leash. Club officials noted that Adam Wainwright, out since June 9 with a finger injury, might be tried in the ninth-inning role.

August 1: Isringhausen collected his only save in his second 2008 stint as closer and what may be his 217^th and final save as a Cardinal in a 6-3 home win over the Phillies.

August 6: Perez was called upon in a tight game against the Dodgers and was perfect in getting the final five outs. It was the 23-year-old’s first major league save. He would go on to collect five more during the rest of August.

August 18: Izzy’s season ended as he went onto the DL with tendinitis and a partial flexor muscle tear near his right elbow that would require surgery in September. La Russa admitted the club had been aware of the injury for the previous week to ten days, but did not know if Izzy had been hiding it for a longer period.

September 7: After two blown saves in the first week of the month, Perez picked up his final save and seventh total in the 2008 season in a 3-1 home win over Florida. He won against the Cubs two nights later, but took an extra-inning loss in Pittsburgh on the 13^th.

September 8: In what may have been his strangest closer announcement in a season full of them, La Russa seemed to be grasping at straws when he disclosed his new plan to deploy the perennially-rehabbing Chris Carpenter as his one-game-per-series closer. What made it especially odd was at that point Carp had pitched just once since August 10 and did not appear again in any 2008 games following this “announcement”.

September 18: Jason Motte relieved Perez in the ninth against Cincinnati, picking up his first career save. It would be Perez’ last save opportunity of the season as Franklin was re-installed as closer to finish out the season.

How bad was it?

• The Cardinals tied for second in the majors in games lost by the bullpen with 31, behind only the woeful 99-loss San Diego Padres (34).
• They tied with a 101-loss club, Seattle, for the most blown saves in MLB with 31.
• The Cards lost 12 contests in extra innings, worst in MLB.
• They were defeated in walk-off fashion an astonishing 13 times, also worst of the 30 teams in the majors.

It is impossible for me to believe that this 2008 team would not have been a playoff club with a more stabile closer.

Looking ahead, it is unclear what the plan is for 2009. At least some of the powers want to add an experienced ninth-inning man, but no one is yet on board to play that role.

Perez, Motte and Franklin will be back, while Izzy and the unheralded Springer are likely gone. Kyle McClellan and oft-injured Josh Kinney will also return.

3. Albert Pujols: Overcomes Elbow to win MVP and nine other awards

When reading several other top Cardinals lists for 2008, I was stunned that Albert Pujols’ season was not even mentioned. Being so consistently excellent means he is often taken for granted, even by a segment of his own team’s fans.

In 2008, Pujols ranked second in the National League in batting average and on-base percentage and first in intentional walks, total bases and slugging. Albert’s OPS of 1.114 was not only the league-best, it is his personal career-best.

That is why it is so encouraging to see that Pujols became 2008’s most recognized player across MLB despite the Cardinals’ late-season fade.

Pujols collected ten major awards:

• The National League’s Most Valuable Player Award, his second (2005).
• The Dick Schaap Memorial Player of the Year and National League Player of the Year Awards from the MLB Players Alumni Association
• The Roberto Clemente Award from MLB
• The Players Choice Player of the Year Award and NL Outstanding Player Award voted by his peer players
• The Oscar Charleston Legacy Award as the best player in the NL from The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
• The Sporting News MLB Player of the Year
• The NL Silver Slugger Award at first base
• This Year in Baseball Hitter of the Year Award

All this occurred against a backdrop of concern over lingering problems with his throwing elbow. When the pain increases, Pujols has been known to make comments which are quickly inflated in importance and the resulting over-reaction is widespread.

The issue flared up in January and again late in the season as anxious fans tried to interpret a deeper meaning when Pujols complained of pain and noted his ever-present surgical option. Yet as recently as September, Pujols was quoted as saying he felt the best he had in a year and a half as the Cardinals undertook the unusual action of issuing a formal press release to deny the first-baseman’s season was in jeopardy.

In October, Pujols did undergo surgery on his right elbow in a procedure that was considered more minor. It included decompression and transposition of the ulnar nerve, designed to reduce the pain and hopefully forestall the more-serious Tommy John ligament replacement surgery that could take him out of action for up to an entire season.

Over the next couple of years, the heat will be turned up on team executives to ensure the face of the franchise receives a long-term contract extension that will make him a career Cardinal.

2. Ryan Ludwick: All-Star and Silver Slugger

Just the opposite of the Pujols not-to-be-taken-for-granted story is the totally unexpected emergence of outfielder Ryan Ludwick as an offensive force.

The oft-injured 30-year-old has traveled many miles since having been the second-round draft selection of the 1999 Oakland A’s from UNLV, taken just 14 picks after the Cardinals called out “first baseman Chris Duncan”.

The right-handed hitting younger brother of former Redbirds pitcher Eric Ludwick made his first major league appearance with the 2002 Texas Rangers. He had become a Ranger after having been part of a deal for now-Tampa Bay first baseman Carlos Pena. After 21 games in centerfield, Ryan’s initial season ended when he required surgery to insert a screw to repair a serious hip fracture.

Then ranked as the Rangers’ number seven prospect, Ludwick spent most of the first half of 2003 back in Triple-A before moving to the Cleveland Indians in a trade for outfielder Shane Spencer and pitcher Ricardo Rodriguez, who would later pitch in Memphis (2006). In what became a continuing pattern of injury, Ludwick missed the final month of the 2003 campaign with a contusion of the patella tendon in his right knee. Surgery would be required to remove torn cartilage.

In 2004, Ludwick began the season with a second surgery to remove scar tissue in the knee and then had to deal with a bleeding ulcer. Ludwick didn’t come off the disabled list until July and rehabbed in the minors until receiving a September call-up to the bigs. That is when in a bizarre mishap, an apparent stray gunshot penetrated the Indians’ team bus, grazing Ludwick and striking a teammate.

Ludwick made the Tribe roster out of spring training in 2005 as their fourth outfielder, but soon thereafter strained his shoulder and by Memorial Day was outrighted to the minors. Ludwick signed a minor league deal for 2006 with Detroit and spent that entire season in Triple-A. He agreed to terms on a similar deal with the Cardinals in December, 2006.

After an impressive spring with the big club and continuing to scorch the ball in Memphis early on, Ludwick received the call to return to the majors in early May, 2007. Among his season highlights for the Cardinals were a go-ahead, three-run home run and a career-high five RBI against the Oakland A’s, two home runs against the Reds which included a 473-foot shot, among the top ten longest in Great American Ballpark’s five-year history, as well as a career-best hitting streak of 11 games in September.

Coming into 2008, Ludwick seemed to be in a competition with former American League MVP Juan Gonzalez for a right-hitting outfield position. Juan Gone couldn’t answer the bell so while Ludwick made the team, he entered the season as a part-timer. That changed quickly.

Ludwick ended up playing in 152 games in 2008, batting clean-up against right-handed hitters and following Pujols in the line-up. Ludwick became the first player since Hideki Matsui (2004) and Lefty O’Doul (1929) to hit 30 home runs and have 100 RBI at age 30 while having had 750 or fewer career at-bats.

Ludwick set career highs in at-bats (538), hits (161), doubles (40), triples (3), home runs (37), RBIs (113) and batting average (.299). His .591 slugging percentage was second best in the National League and 80 extra base hits ranked third in the NL.

He and Pujols were named to the 2008 National League All-Star Team as reserves. Ludwick made the team via the Player Ballot, which is cast by players, managers and coaches. Following the season, the two were also selected for The Sporting News’ 2008 National League All-Star team and received NL Sliver Slugger Awards.

Despite the results, during the off-season Ludwick has been mentioned by Cardinals GM John Mozeliak as possibly being available via trade. The outfielder was linked to aborted deals with the Atlanta Braves and Colorado Rockies but remains a Cardinal today and is expected to reprise his surprise role with the 2009 club.

1. The Wounded Arms: Carpenter, Mulder, Clement

The problems and successes of the 2008 Cardinals have been covered in detail already, yet when all is said and done, the lack of a healthy, productive rotation is what I consider to have been the biggest contributor to the disappointing 2008 bottom line.

The stress on the bullpen would have been reduced by dependable starters capable of getting even into the seventh inning. Over the course of the 162-game season, the Cardinals starters averaged just 5 2/3 innings. They tied for last in the league with two complete games.

The starting staff allowed the third-most hits in the NL at 1009, with only Pittsburgh and Colorado worse. They fanned just 576 opposing hitters, 15^th of the 16 NL clubs. In part due to stellar middle relief led by Russ Springer, their starter’s ERA was 4.20, in the middle of the NL pack. They also walked the fewest batters at 266.

The acquisition of Kyle Lohse, the emergence of Todd Wellemeyer as a credible starter and the steadiness of Braden Looper were all positives. So was Adam Wainwright, who missed two-and-a-half months with a finger injury.

The inconsistency of Joel Pineiro, Brad Thompson and rookies Mitchell Boggs and Mike Parisi was not unexpected, as the latter three were asked to make 14 starts among them.

Yet the reason this item is number one on my list is that the three big names expected to join the Cardinals during the season, Chris Carpenter, Mark Mulder and Matt Clement, did not contribute.

Over their careers coming into 2008, all three had winning records. In fact, they are a combined 75 games over .500 and have totaled 290 major league victories.

Pre-2008	W	L	PCT	GS	CG	IP	ER	ERA
Carpenter	100	69	0.592	229	25	1522	694	4.10
Mulder	103	60	0.632	202	25	1312.1	609	4.18
Clement	87	86	0.503	236	6	1412.2	702	4.47
Total	290	215	0.574	667	56	4247	2005	4.25

With a season-opening payroll of over $99 million, almost one-fifth of it, $17.75 million, was tied up in these three non-starting starters. If you include the buyouts paid to get rid of Mulder and Clement, the total cash burned climbed to almost $20 million.

Here is what the Cardinals received in return – less than one inning per million dollars:

2008	W	L	PCT	GS	CG	IP	ER	ERA	Salary
Carpenter	0	1	0	3	0	15.1	3	1.76	$10.5M
Mulder	0	0	0	1	0	1.2	2	10.80	$6.5+$1.5M
Clement	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.00	$1.25+$.25M
Total	0	1	0	4	0	17	5	2.65	$17.75+$1.75M

Of course, it wasn’t known starting the season these three would all fold, yet the Cardinals paid for their lack of preparedness.

With all the injured players, the Cardinals resorted to an unprecedented in-season move with formal weekly medical reports. It seemed more often than not that pitchers were always progressing, yet never quite ready.

Following are some of the specifics.

Carpenter was already throwing bullpens in March with a predicted July return, 12 months after his Tommy John surgery. By mid-April, he was facing live hitters and was up to 60 pitches.

In June, Carp suffered a setback. Elbow soreness led to a trip to famed Dr. James Andrews to ensure there was no serious injury. In early July, Carpenter was back up to 55 pitches, but the club was suggesting he might have to return as a reliever.

After two minor league rehab starts, Carpenter was activated to make his first MLB start since Opening Day 2007 on July 27. By his third start, on August 10, Carp had to be taken out due to a right triceps strain.

He returned to the DL on August 15. Though Carp was activated when rosters expanded, he made just one short September relief outing before being shut down again.

Following a period of intrigue, Carpenter elected a non-surgical rehab in preparation for 2009. To say there remains concern is an understatement.

Mulder’s target return was originally May. He made his first rehab start with Palm Beach on April 15. The lefty struggled upon moving up to Double-A Springfield and Triple-A Memphis, complaining of shoulder fatigue. In May, he was shut down twice with a rotator cuff strain and lack of range of motion in his shoulder due to capsular irritation.

After adjusting his arm slot to a lower position, Mulder finally resumed his rehab back in Springfield in mid-June. He then had to be scratched from a Memphis start with back stiffness later in the month.

Despite that, the Cardinals activated Mulder on June 27 and made him a reliever. In seven minor league starts, his ERA had been 6.55 and minor league hitters teed off against him at a .338 clip.

In another surprise, La Russa and Dave Duncan started Mulder on July 9 in Philadelphia. He lasted less than one inning, leaving the game with “left shoulder irritation”.

After Mulder remained in limbo for over a month, the Cardinals finally officially pronounced his season over on August 20. When the club bought out Mulder’s 2009 option on October 21, his three years as a Cardinal officially came to an end.

Closing the books, the lefty had pitched only 12 2/3 innings on his most recent two-year, $13 million contract signed prior to the 2007 season. Not surprisingly, Mulder’s agent has recently proclaimed his client cured and ready to go. He remains a free agent.

While the financial gamble on Clement was not bad, it was the Cards’ unrealistic expectation that he would be a member of their 2008 rotation that was ridiculous. Clement had three serious shoulder surgeries and was two years away from having been effective.

Once the coaches got a look at him in the spring, the optimism turned to concern. Duncan told me in March that he was surprised Clement was not ready. The righty did not pitch in any spring games, instead being placed onto the disabled list to start the season along with the other two.

Clement began his minor league rehab with Palm Beach on June 2^nd. A month later, he was still not ready. With a move required, he cleared waivers and reported to Memphis.

The Cardinals finally admitted the obvious on August 2^nd when they released Clement. He was clearly unable to pitch at the level necessary to compete in the bigs with a 4.61 ERA and ten walks compared to eight strikeouts in a dozen appearances.

The 34-year-old never reached the majors with St. Louis, signing a minor league deal with Toronto for 2009.

If any of the three had come through, the Cardinals 2008 season would likely have ended differently.

While Mulder and Clement are gone, the Cardinals have no choice but to hope for the best with Carpenter. They are committed to one another for three more years and a minimum of $44.5 million.

In the next installment of this series, I will anticipate several of which may prove to be the top Cardinals stories of 2009.

Already posted:

Top 20 Cardinals Stories of 2008: #16-20

Top 20 Cardinals Stories of 2008: #11-15

Top 20 Cardinals Stories of 2008: #6-10

Coming soon:

Projected Top St. Louis Cardinals Stories of 2009

10. Kyle Lohse: From Jobless to Four-Year Contract

After having been traded at the deadline in two consecutive seasons, right-hander Kyle Lohse arrived in Philadelphia in time for the 2007 stretch drive. Though the Phils fell in the playoffs to the National League champion Colorado Rockies, Lohse wanted to stay in the City of Brotherly Love.

Despite the then-29-year-old’s career record of 11 games under .500 and an ERA pushing five, Philly reportedly floated a reasonable three-year, $21 million offer past agent Scott Boras early last off-season. Rejected then withdrawn, it would be the last bid Boras and Lohse would see until spring.

Meanwhile, the St. Louis Cardinals were patching together their 2008 rotation, hoping Matt Clement, then Mark Mulder and Chris Carpenter could return from injury and lead them into the playoffs.

Even as spring camp began, it became clear that Clement could not contribute and the others may not be able to be relied upon, either. When Joel Pineiro added to the woes with shoulder problems in March, Cards GM John Mozeliak quickly dialed up Boras.

The resulting deal was a bargain – one year at a base of $4.25 million, reaching $4.75 million with innings-pitched incentives. Lohse would go on to lead the 2008 Cardinals in victories with a career-best 15 and post the lowest ERA of his eight years in MLB at 3.78.

Lohse was the first Cards pitcher since Matt Morris in 2004 to start both Opening Day and the initial post-All-Star break game. He cracked off a nine-game win streak that ended in late July which was the longest on the team since Carpenter’s 13-game run in 2005. Lohse’s .714 win mark (15-6) was fifth-best in the NL.

Lohse didn’t want to be homeless again this off-season, so in September, he ordered Boras (against the agent’s better judgment) to negotiate an extension to enable the pitcher to remain in St, Louis. A four-year, $41 million deal ensued, announced as the season ended.

It remains to be seen whether the extension will prove to be a wise business move for the club, but where would the 2008 Cardinals have been without Kyle Lohse?

I prefer not to think about it.

9. The Drafting and Success of Brett Wallace

The 2008 First-Year Player Draft was an important one for the St. Louis Cardinals. While the overall reputation of their farm system has been steadily improving in recent years, it seemed more a measure of quantity than top quality.

Other than top prospect Colby Rasmus, few if any Cardinals farmhands were being mentioned by industry watchers as among the best in the game. With the 13th overall pick this June, their best position since prior to the Jeff Luhnow years, the organization had a chance for a big move.

They passed with flying colors by taking third baseman Brett Wallace of Arizona State University, recognized by many as the most polished hitter in the entire draft. The two-time Pac-10 Player of the Year and the only hitter in ASU history to hit over .400 in two consecutive seasons, the California native received a signing bonus estimated at $1.84 million.

The rap on the 22-year-old is his defense, though he is still learning, with only a couple of years of experience at the hot corner. Some critics can’t get past Wallace’s 6-foot-1, 245 pound frame and assume he is a statue defensively.

While at least one writer derisively asserted that Wallace has “falling down range”, others, including yours truly, have seen him play and believe he can be a credible major league third sacker. Wallace hears the negatives and told me he uses them as motivation.

This fall, I asked Wallace where his defensive efforts are being focused.

“The angles for me are a big thing and reading the ball off the bat. I think there are sometimes balls that I am not used to because I haven’t been playing there that long. A ball is hit and it takes me a second… It’s a constant adjustment, reading different hops and reading the angles are some of the main things I am trying to work on.”

There is no doubt about the bat. Between Quad Cities and his season-ending skip-level promotion to Double-A Springfield, Wallace’s line was a solid .337/.427/.530 (BA/OBP/SLG).

He was asked to participate in the prestigious Arizona Fall League and though he started slowly, he then came on strongly. Against the higher-quality arms in the AFL, Wallace improved his slugging while keeping his OPS constant (.309/.381/.585).

With Troy Glaus in his final season contractually in St. Louis, the only remaining question is whether Wallace will execute another leapfrog manuever, this time over David Freese. The latter, acquired from San Diego for Jim Edmonds one year ago, excelled with the bat at Triple-A Memphis last season and currently seems to be Glaus’ heir apparent, though that is a most tenuous title.

If he continues at his current pace, established in less than six months as a professional, Wallace could make his first appearance in the majors before the conclusion of the 2009 season, with 2010 still anyone’s guess.

Mark DeJohn

8. Minor League Success: 60 Games over .500

For some years the laughingstock of those who rank farm systems, the St. Louis Cardinals’ investment in rebuilding their minor leagues is finally getting noticed. Just this past week, it became known that Baseball America plans to rank the Cards as the number eight system among the 30 across MLB.

One measure of success is minor leaguers joining the big league team. As I noted here, eleven different players made their major league debuts for the Cardinals in 2008, nine of whom were products of the farm system. At least three of them became major contributors to the club – Kyle McClellan, Joe Mather and Chris Perez, while Mitchell Boggs, Jaime Garcia and late addition Jason Motte all showed promise.

Two players were invited to join Team USA for the Olympics and five were selected to play in the Futures Game. While Memphis had just one All-Star, Springfield had eight, Palm Beach seven, Quad Cities three and Batavia six. Johnson City and the Gulf Coast League Cardinals had one All-Star each, with the former’s representative, Curt Smith, was named the Appalachian League’s Player of the Year.

In addition to individual success, there were positive results on the field in 2008, too. The Cardinals top six minor league affiliates all had winning records and combined to win 60 more games than lost (376-316, .543).

Chris Maloney’s Triple-A Memphis Redbirds reversed several losing seasons, finishing in second place in the Pacific Coast League American North Division.

The Springfield Cardinals of the Double-A Texas League just missed the second-half North Division crown. Pop Warner’s team actually had the division’s best first half-second half record combined, but did not make the post-season.

The Palm Beach Cardinals won the first-half East Division crown in the Florida State League, but lost in the playoffs to the eventual league champion.

Steve Dillard’s Quad Cities River Bandits ended the season two games over .500 in Midwest League play.

Not only did the Batavia Muckdogs win the Pinckney Division of the New York-Penn League, they took the league crown. It was the first title in the 51-year history of the franchise. Mark DeJohn was named our Scout.com Cardinals Minor League Manager of the Year.

The Johnson City Cardinals of the Appalachian League finished six games over .500, their first winning season since all the way back to 1996!

Only the Gulf Coast League Cardinals struggled, as they were a feeder for other clubs while relying on high school draftees and Caribbean academy players making their US debuts. One of the league’s youngest clubs finished 17-38.

In addition, a vast majority of the managers and coaches will be returning in 2009, offering continuity and the potential for further improvement next season.

7. Long-Term Extensions for Young Stars Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright

Some may be surprised to see this topic rate so highly. On the other hand, I feel so strongly about it that I can’t help but wish I could have scored it higher.

While many fans focus on the bottom line of payroll spent and agonize over high-priced free agents, the key to be able to afford such luxuries is to grow and protect top talent.

Such was the case early in the year when the Cardinals locked up two important parts of their future, catcher Yadier Molina and pitcher Adam Wainwright, long before they had to. Each player signed a long-term deal that carry into his free agent years, assuring him of remaining with the Cardinals for some time.

Molina was first. In January, he agreed to a four-year contract extension worth $15.5 million with a club option for a fifth season. With the agreement, the Cardinals and Molina avoided salary arbitration and keep one of the game’s best young catchers in the organization through at least 2011. The deal includes the first and potentially second of Molina’s free-agent eligibility years.

The catcher rewarded the club with his trademark defense, recognized as the NL’s Gold Glove backstop for 2008. It was Molina’s first award. He also batted a career-high .304.

Wainwright followed. In March, he inked a deal that covered 2008 plus Wainwright’s three arbitration-eligible seasons, 2009, 2010 and 2011, along with a pair of team option years that would eclipse his first two seasons of free agency. As a result, the now-27-year-old could remain in a Cardinals uniform through the 2013 campaign.

Financially, the contract can be four years, $15 million, five years, $24 million or six years, $36 million. No matter how you slice it, the deal looks to be a bargain for the club, while giving the player earlier financial security than he would achieve otherwise.

6. Troy Glaus for Scott Rolen Trade

Two birds with one stone. Addition though both subtraction and addition.

Characterize it how you want, but make sure you recognize this deal for the masterful stroke it was.

On January 14, Mozeliak and the Cardinals traded disgruntled third baseman Scott Rolen to the Toronto Blue Jays for their third sacker, Troy Glaus. Rolen’s once powerful offensive game had declined after three shoulder surgeries and his dissatisfaction with team management deteriorated to such a level that something needed to be done.

All over baseball, it was known the Cardinals had to move Rolen. Not a great bargaining position to be in. To that time, the best (and perhaps only) public offer for Rolen was made by the division-rival Milwaukee Brewers, who anted up injured left-hander Chris Capuano. Mo wisely passed.

Glaus, while a solid player since coming up with the Angels in 1998, had struggled with foot injuries recently, possibly aggravated by the artificial turf in Toronto. In addition, Glaus’ name was among the many that had come up in the Mitchell Report.

Following the trade, the newest Cardinals third baseman did everything that was asked of him and more. Though lacking the range of Rolen, Glaus was very dependable, with a league-high fielding percentage at the position of .982 against just seven errors all season long, the latter setting a new club record.

Offensively, Glaus answered the bell for 544 at-bats over 151 games, with the former his highest count since 2002. He delivered results, too, with 27 home runs and 99 RBIs that were both third-best on the club as was his OPS+ of 124. Glaus typically batted in the number five spot in the lineup, behind Albert Pujols and either Ryan Ludwick or Rick Ankiel.

As noted above, Glaus is under contract with the Cardinals for 2009. He has the right to test free agency following the upcoming season. On a Cardinals team that was labeled by many as being “in transition” in 2008, the addition of Glaus was huge, though it was generally unheralded.

Already posted:

Top 20 Cardinals Stories of 2008: #16-20

Top 20 Cardinals Stories of 2008: #11-15

Coming soon:

Top 20 Cardinals Stories of 2008: #1-5

Projected Top St. Louis Cardinals Stories of 2009