Join baseball writer Derrick Goold for his live Cardinals chat from the Winter Meetings
Bring your Cards questions and comments to Monday’s 11 a.m. live chat.
3rd & 7 37yd
3rd & 7 37yd
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It seems to me that a number of players with down years has covid, and that we may be seeing the long-term effects of that virus. "Undefined illness" has that ring. It has changed society-no reason to think that MLB is immune, and that some will never recover from a career standpoint. I believe we have a couple of those guys on the team.
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You have arrived at the bridge that I too cannot see crossing. Jansen is shorter-term, and if that's appealing then he's the move. But, again, there are other parties involved, and you don't want to be left without a chair. So they keep multiple options open. There are, if we're generous, five candidates to fill the spot. Could be three if you want to aim high. Could be four if you want to be conservative. If there are four teams shopping then you better be prepared to get any of the four.
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That's been going on for more than a decade now. Heck, the Cardinals were one of the teams that first added an assistant hitting coach. Mike Aldrete. And that was back when he could not be in the dugout during the game, could not be in uniform. The number of coaches in the dugout have grown since then, and so too have coaching staffs to include positions like the Cardinals and other teams have that link the analytics group to the dugout.This is not a cost that often gets brought up when talking about payroll. But it's there. And the Dodgers use their financial might to outfit not just their major-league staff with coaches but having more pitching coordinators at lower levels than the Cardinals, too.
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Sure seems so. They say otherwise. They don't expect to be close to $200 million when it comes to their opening day payroll. By the end of 2023, it's possible that they'll be slightly greater than $200 million with total expenses, the number that counts against the MLB calculations and luxury tax.
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Just because the Astros aren’t pursuing Vasquez doesn’t mean he’s not the right catcher for the Cardinals. Those teams don’t have the same pitchers, defense or stadium as the Cardinals. Or the same budget. The Red Sox will always go for the bigger bat than pitch framing or defense. So i don’t think it’s much of a factor.
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Can you please confirm some Cards ownership math for me:
-1997 DeWitt’s group buys Cards from brewery for $150m and promptly sells two parking garages for $75m
-2015 Disney purchased 33% of BamTech from MLB resulting in each owner receiving $33m
-2017 Disney purchased another 42% of BamTech from MLB resulting in each owner receiving $50m
-Last week Disney buys the final piece of BamTech resulting in each owner receiving another $30m
So aside from the annual revenue from 3m+ loyal fans, who also buy overpriced food, drink, and merch, and the $1 billion TV contract, this ownership has a +$38m basis in the team just from selling the garages and BamTech? Does that pencil?
"The industry isn't very profitable, to be quite honest.”
DeWitt, June 2020
Some financial honesty from this organization would actually be incredibly refreshing. -
DeWitt and Mozeliak clarified that statement because they recognized that in the comment on the St. Louis radio interview -- it was with Frank Cusumano -- he misspoke and did not convey what he was trying to say. Obviously baseball owners are doing quite well financially. Baseball is a good business. Look what players make. Yeah, and owners are above them. Clearly a misstep, as the Cardinals acknowledged. The Reds had a few this past season too with ownership.The only team with public financials is Atlanta, and they can be helpful when understanding the Cardinals' financials. They used to be fairly close with the gap being in the Cardinals' revenue from ticket sales and Atlanta's larger broadcast rights deal. Atlanta has widened the gap this past year -- and that's apparent with the gap in payroll spending, but also the benefit of being World Series champs and packed ballparks, etc.The MLBAM deal is a windfall for owners, all owners, and should be something that fans pay attention to and know about -- and it's been going on for years. That is a stream of revenue that teams have had and it makes some of the tanking all the worse, honestly.A few things to note: The Franchise Values that you see in some publications are only as good as how transparent those outlets are with how they arrive at those numbers. If they're using some secret sauce to pull together publicly available numbers, then cool, say as much, but make it clear that they are not getting insight into the actual books of the teams. Plus, please consider how those Values published compare to the actual prices that franchises sell for. They don't line up all that often. Which brings me to the final point: Teams are generate a lot of revenue and they make strong profits, but the jackpot comes with a team is sold and for that to happen the team has to be sold. The owner has to want to sell to cash out.
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I ask questions; they don't make the queue. Trying again: would infusion of financial support with an additional minority-stake owner add resource flexibility; would DeWitt accept that? Cards are in small media mkt, small broadcast rights in comparison to big guns and are at a comparative disadvantage. Drafting and developing players may not be enough if that is their model for the future.
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I see what you're saying, I'm not sure that would have the impact that you're suggesting, or I've not heard of it working that way. It's interesting. Like the Cardinals are a startup or publicly traded company and they get an infusion of cash by selling shares. They've had some owners come and go through the years, and the DeWitt holdings have grown the percent of the team owned by the family or affiliated businesses.The big bump in spending will come from the jump in rights fee. That has happened, and it's bigger each year, and if the Cardinals get back toward that $180m or $185m range then they are back to growing the payroll at the same scale as the rights fee increase.Is that enough is a fair question. It is, you could argue, the question.
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Good try, but no. It's a medical privacy question, and as you'll recall teams are not permitted to say that a player tested positive for COVID or had close contact with COVID even when they are putting the player on the COVID IL. A player has to agree to that becoming public, and some have not. Some have not even after returning from the COVID IL. That was negotiated with the union as a right the player had. So keep that mind. That's why I used the adverb that I did.
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Have the Cards had any discussions about just being sellers at this point? They might be able to get some serious prospect hauls for Edman, Flaherty, Gorman, maybe Carlson etc and really sure up the future. Probably going to take the division anyway. This appears to be a serious sellers market.
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Winter 2019 - Marlins trade JT Realmuto to the Phillies for his 28 year old season, for Jorge Alfaro (25 y/o), Sixto Sanchez (19 y/o, #13 best MLB prospect) and another minor leaguer in the top 20 phillies prospects. JT coming off .768 OPS with the Marlins, but .825 the year before, all star, silver slugger. signs 5 year 115m deal after it expires
Tomorrow - A's trade Sean Murphy to the Cardinals for his 28 year old season, for Nolan Gorman (22 y/o former top 100 prospect), Gordan Graceffo (22 y/o, current top 100 prospect) and another minor leaguer in the top 20 prospects. Coming off a .759 OPS year, .755 career OPS. Re-signs with the Cardinals before the 2024 season to a 5 year extension -
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Alright, that's a good place to stop. There are some press conference starting up here in San Diego. There will be coverage at StlToday going into the evening. Skip Schumaker is about to make his first appearance here as manager of the Marlins. There's a chance to catch up with the Cardinals' front office later tonight.Ben Frederickson will be at the keyboard for the chat tomorrow from San Diego.So if you didn't get your question answered today -- and there are still more than 400 of them in the inbox, and the screen is showing me one lengthy one, leaving ... goodness a lot to wade through -- there is always the chance he'll field the question tomorrow. Or, if you had a question about televised reports perhaps it would be best to ask that reporter directly. Would be a hoot if some reporters had a chat and only had to answer questions about the Post-Dispatch coverage.Thanks for your participation. Off to see what else I can track down.Stay healthy.