Happy New Year?

There's still a ton of questions about what 2025 will look like for the Cardinals.

So I didn’t intend to take the entire month of December off from writing about the Cardinals. However, December tends to overwhelm at this house and between decorating outside and in (pictures of the outside at the end), preparing for an annual party/open house that usually has 100 or more folks at it, the whole present hunt, writing daily devotionals for my other site, and trying to find a few minutes to actually enjoy the family and the season, posting here fell by the wayside.

And, let’s be honest, it’s not like the Cardinals helped much here.

Since we last talked, the biggest news has been a rejected trade. The Cardinals seemed to have a deal in place that would have sent Nolan Arenado to Houston, but that wasn’t one of the places that Nolan had said he’d waive his no-trade clauses for so it went up in smoke.

Working around an NTC has to be difficult. You don’t want to ignore possibilities, since so often a player will waive it in the right situation or for the right consideration. However you don’t want to spend so much time on the deal, getting all the details right, without checking to make sure it’s good with the player. We’ve heard that the Cardinals were willing to send around $20 million in the deal, so in theory they would have received at least some higher level prospect, but as far as I know we’ve never had names attached and it’s possible the club didn’t get that far anyway.

It was a little odd to see Arenado turn down that deal. After all, Houston has been a much stronger team than the Cardinals over the past few years and it probably would be the best team he’d ever been on. The Astros just won the AL West and would be strong favorites to do it again. And once you get your ticket punched to the playoffs, anything can happen, right?

So maybe he just doesn’t like Texas, which is fair. Maybe he saw the Astros trade away Kyle Tucker and let Alex Bregman walk and was afraid he’d have to carry a larger load than he was comfortable with at this stage in his career. Maybe he thought the Rangers and Mariners might be able to pass up Houston next year. Maybe he was hoping for a different phone call.

There’s no telling. It’s probably relevant that getting traded wasn’t really his idea, even though he was fine with it. He’s comfortable enough in St. Louis that he’s going to make sure everything is just right before he allows a deal to go through, I expect. Which is completely his right. The fact that his presence doesn’t fit the Cardinals’ new approach is not at all his fault and he is under no obligation to make it work for them. They sold him a competitive team when he opted into his contract. He committed to them. He doesn’t have to let them out of their side of the bargain.

Now, they have to pay him, they don’t have to play him. If Arenado isn’t dealt by spring training, could you see his playing time decrease as they continue to try to figure out what they have with Nolan Gorman, Jordan Walker, etc? I would guess it was theoretically possible, especially in a lame duck year for John Mozeliak which might mean a lame duck year for Oli Marmol. I wouldn’t think you’d see Arenado benched 40% of the time or anything, but he’s played between 144 and 157 games since he’s been in St. Louis. Even if he played just 125, that gives at least some more time to evaluate Gorman at third and keep the chairs rotating. It’s not ideal, not for this brave new world of Cardinal baseball, but it can be done.

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It’s also frustrating to me that the optics around an Arenado trade have gone from, “Let’s get him to a team that can win” to “We need to cut payroll and this is the best way to do it.” After all, the team has already lost:

• $26 million (Paul Goldschmidt)

• $12 million (Kyle Gibson)

• $10 million (Lance Lynn)

• $5.5 million (Giovanny Gallegos)

• $5 million (Keynan Middleton)

• $2.3 million (Andrew Kittredge)

• $2 million (Brandon Crawford)

• $740,000 (Matt Carpenter)

That’s about $63 million dollars, which is a significant reduction in payroll. I know that some of those savings are taken up with players going to arbitration and contract escalators—Sonny Gray gets a $15 million boost himself this year, though that’s about the only one and it looks like, according to Roster Resource, Arenado’s dips $3 million this season—but still, right now the Cards would be going into the season significantly lighter in payroll.

The TV contract is settled and while it should have never been a huge concern, given that the Cardinals are one of the few profitable teams for Diamond Sports and they were unlikely to walk completely away from it, it’s locked down now so the uncertainty is over. They know how much is coming in—less than the original amount, but not an overwhelming haircut—and, let’s be fair, they’ve not maxed themselves out in the good times so they shouldn’t immediately cut to the bone in the bad times.

I imagine they’ll get something done, though the options are getting pretty limited. The Yankees are at least posturing that they are good. Houston has moved on. The Dodgers, while they seem to be acquiring everyone, eventually run up against roster limitations if not financial ones. Boston would still seem viable unless they sign Bregman, I guess. It’s hard to see any other real options, though. He’s not going to Minnesota, for instance.

The club has said if they can’t trade him they’ll have to move others, which 1) as we’ve said, seems less of a need than a want and 2) they should be looking to deal Steven Matz and Erick Fedde anyway. If someone will take Matz for most of his contract, pull the trigger. Fedde should have more value than perhaps anyone (that would reasonably be moved) other than Ryan Helsley. If the idea is to make the team better, to improve the talent that is in the organization, these are the things that are worth doing.

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When this winter started, we thought that rebuilding/resetting would be disappointing but there was some excitement about what we might see the club do. There was an interest in the return for Arenado. It seemed smart to move Helsley. The front office issues were important as well, of course, but there seemed to be an opportunity to strip down to the core (which is larger than a lot of teams) and start developing.

Instead this winter has been duller than if I was doing a solo podcast.

The only addition to the 40-man roster, save those added to protect from the Rule 5 draft, was Roddery Munoz who was claimed from the Marlins. The organizational chart has been built out and that’s been of interest, but it’s hard to imagine that will be reflected in the 2025 roster. So far this “reset” has just been “let all the free agents walk”. The Cardinals have said they expect ticket sales to be slower for 2025. What they have done is worked up a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s hard to get fired up about “the same as last year, less 25%”.

Not that there aren’t exciting pieces—Masyn Winn is awesome and Sonny Gray will be on the bump every fifth day. The club will be worth watching, but if it’s just a development year it becomes more difficult to justify going out to the ballpark instead of watching the games at home (and even home watching probably becomes more sporadic).

We’ll see how this all works out and, truly, it’s going to be 3-4 years before we can really render a fair judgement about this transition. However, early returns are bringing a “meh” vibe.

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Season 11 of Meet Me at Musial kicked off last night as Allen and I welcomed Jeff Jones to the show. You can listen to that here and find out Jeff’s thoughts about the cold winter, the upcoming season, and just what project he’s been taking meetings about recently. It’s always a great time talking with him and getting his perspective on the team.

We’ve got a great lineup of guests coming up as well on Musial. Brenden Schaeffer, Bernie Miklasz, Matt Pauley, Katie Woo, and Jim Hayes will take us through the beginning of February. After our run of media we’ll have other podcasters and bloggers through May until Allen gets done with his coaching commitments.

Also, don’t forget Gateway to Baseball Heaven. David and I did a show right before Christmas and will probably get back to a regular routine soon.

I promised pictures of my lights display. The first picture is mine, the other two came from my friend’s drone.

We keep our lights on through Epiphany, which will be Monday. When we turn them off for the season the first couple of days are so dark and slightly depressing. And, of course, the whole process of undecorating isn’t a whole lot of fun either, but it’s nice when it is all put away and I can start planning for next year. (I’ve already bought some new things on sale.)

I hope all of you had a good holiday season. Christmas was enjoyable here. I got a Boston Scally cap, my first but probably not my last. I’ve never felt like I could pull off hats like that and I probably can’t but I’ve enjoyed wearing it the last couple of weeks. As an accountant, the new year is usually a time for dread as the busy season kicks off, but for me that’s usually more of a February worry.

Until next time, whenever that may be!