St. Louis Cardinals Gearing Up for the Real Moves
The St. Louis Cardinals decision to trade Jaime Garcia did not happen in a vacuum. Now that some payroll has been cleared, the real moves will be happening.
A franchise like the St. Louis Cardinals doesn’t just deal a pitcher like a Jaime Garcia and give him away for nothing. Okay, it’s a three for one deal and maybe one of these Single A players will develop into something. But it’s not about the players involved. It’s about the $12 million the Cardinals are saving by moving Garcia and what they can now do with that money.
Jaime Garcia, despite his wretched last few starts when the Cardinals were chasing the Wild Card, is no slouch as a starting pitcher. He went 62-45 in his eight years with the team with a 3.57 ERA. Not Cy Young numbers, but still very respectable.
The Cardinals Are Not Without A Plan
More from Call to the Pen
- Philadelphia Phillies, ready for a stretch run, bomb St. Louis Cardinals
- Philadelphia Phillies: The 4 players on the franchise’s Mount Rushmore
- Boston Red Sox fans should be upset over Mookie Betts’ comment
- Analyzing the Boston Red Sox trade for Dave Henderson and Spike Owen
- 2023 MLB postseason likely to have a strange look without Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals
So what are the Cardinals really up to? For one thing, they just put themselves smack in the middle of the Dexter Fowler Sweepstakes , a free agent player who everyone seems to agree is a perfect fit in St.Louis.
One of the reasons for the Cardinals success (ten division titles since the turn of the century), is that they watch their payroll versus revenue percentage very closely. And unlike other teams like the Tigers and Dodgers who spend nearly 70% of their revenue on players salaries (figures from 2015), the Cardinals, while not cheap by any means in paying their players (120 million payroll), they make sure that salaries don’t eat up the need to enhance other areas of their franchise. In fact, they spend only 38% of their revenue on salaries.
So what the Garcia move reduces down to is to keep the trend of that line and way of thinking moving. Beyond Garcia, the Cardinals might also seek to unload Jhonny Peralta, who is in the final year of his contract. And that in turn could allow them to make a run at Justin Turner, who’s suddenly become the hottest free agent on the planet with money saved on Peralta. Injuries to Peralta last season may have brought his value down as far as receiving the player(s) you want, but that’s not the goal to begin with.
The goal, and nobody does it better than the St. Louis Cardinals, is to free up payroll so you can add by subtracting and still stay within your means as a franchise in the risky venture of baseball. You consistently put a quality team on the field, you pay them well, and 3 million or more fans come to see you play every season.
And when you see that the time has come to add by subtraction, you don’t hesitate and you deal a quality pitcher with some current issues that may or may not be corrected, for three bags of peanuts and you don’t look back.
The Cardinals Are Primed And Ready
The Cardinals may never catch or even come close to the Cubs this year, or even for the next several seasons. But you can be darn sure that they won’t be shooting themselves in the foot in trying to do so. And they’ll never be the Dodgers who go on a spending crack binge only to find themselves at the mercy of MLB with direct orders to reduce their payroll – or else!
Again, using the same figures , even the Yankees, who have revenues of more than a half billion dollars a year only devote 43% of that to salaries. And that’s before the salary purge of last year, this year, and even next year due to expiring contracts and trades.
Next: Nationals Acquire Derek Norris
So, let’s see what the St. Louis Cardinals are Really Up To in the Winter Meetings and beyond. Because the Garcia trade was just the first salvo in a well thought out plan to take them into the 2017 season. Just watch.