Not sure who you're talking about. Gibson, Lynn, Kitteridge and Romero all did well last year. But now they're gone except Romero Our main problem last year was hitting last year and I don't think we brought in any veteran players except for Brandon Crawford and Matt Carpenter and their roles were expected to be (and were) limited.
Yes not all of them have been bad and last years was definitely a decent crop of free agent signings. But there’s also been absolutely terrible signings in Brett Cecil, Dexter Fowler, Mike Leake, Greg Holland, Luke Gregerson, Andrew Miller. And a lot of them cost a lot of money. And can’t forget Mikolas extension aging like sour milk.
No one is saying they should be spending like the Dodgers or Mets, but when you are drawing 3 million fans per year over a 20 years period, we should not be 19th in league, at $125 million we are planning on spending $80 million less than the Cubs.
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Oh trust me some fans want to spend crazy amounts of money. But the truth is it’s not worked out for the Cardinals to keep spending money on assets that are more harmful than good. That’s why they’re focusing more on development. They cut the payroll of the team to reinvest it into 1. New farm directors 2. New coaches 3. New scouting department members 4. New equipment for scouting and developingNo one is saying they should be spending like the Dodgers or Mets, but when you are drawing 3 million fans per year over a 20 years period, we should not be 19th in league, at $125 million we are planning on spending $80 million less than the Cubs.
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St. Louis Cardinals Attendance Records (1882-2025) | Baseball Almanac
St. Louis Cardinals attendance records in a year-by-year format by Baseball Almanac.www.baseball-almanac.com
He's going to be an big asset somewhere, but maybe not in St. Louis (or Boston).
Yeah I don’t know how the cardinals can bring him back with all this talk. But as a red soxes fan they were doing the same thing to Casas and brought him back
BS, the team was skimping money on the minor leagues and it finally caught up to us. We had 5 roaming coaches, when teams that continue to win had 12 to 15. Look at the attendance numbers, over 3 million for a couple of decades, look that prices for tickets and other things, compared to the Reds, Pirates, Royals and other teams. This ownership group spent money on Ball Park Village both parts instead of putting that money back into the team. No one is saying they should not make a profit, but this ownership group has crossed a line, with their skimping on the team. Spend money, no $300 million, but the Cardinals should always be in the top 10 on spending, and have a world class minor league, not stealing from Peter to pay Paul, like they have been doing.
I don't know but I assume Mo's merely been following the direction of the owners. Shildt's firing was definitely a head scratcher and the ship hasn't been right since.
Shildts wanted more say with the roster, and Mo, wanted to keep him as a "yes" man, so he was let go. Oli does what ever he is told by the front office, and the fan base can see it. Its one of the reasons, many of us thought he should have been canned after the season, but they brought him back.
I’ll make a plug again for Joe Maddons book. He mentions Shildt by name.
And decisions like that is why no good manager that has won in the past is going to take the job if it opens up. Even someone like Shumacker is going to want to have the final say on the lineup, and Mo and his team are not willing to give that up. Many of our minor leaguers have been forced to learn at the major league level and now they are struggling. Hell we have people like Edmunds saying that they are being told they do not need their help during spring training, that they have it covered.
That’s exactly what I just said man. The organization had minimal coaches for minor league development and scouting and it has caught up to them. They kept trying to fix it through free agency and it’s not been sustainable. Now they’re reinvesting into development. I don’t know where that got lost in translation when I laid it out in more detail than you said it
The way I think about it is the Cards were one of the first to figure out analytics. Lunhow and that whole crew were way ahead of the game compared to everyone else. Add into that striking lightning in a bottle with Pujols+a HOF manager and you have a 10 year stretch of domination. Yadi played a big part in all that, too, of course.
I am saying they could and should have been doing both instead of saving money by skimping on the minor leagues, so that money could be spent on the MLB roster. Do the Phillies, Braves or other successful teams go all in on one part of the origanization and forgot about the other part? No they fund today, the MLB team, and the future by having plenty of coaches and scouts down below. There is zero reasons that St. Louis choosing to let the minor leagues slide other than to save money. 19th in baseball in salary for the MLB does not scream to me, we are spending money, and that is while letting the minors go to crap. Now they are going to spend that money in the minors, and the major league team goes to crap.
They got complacent when other organizations were figuring out how to do it better. They were the cream of the crop and now they’re middle at best. Hopefully this new crop of farm system directors/coaches do a good job. They come from organizations that have figured it out and aren’t exactly big market teams so they know how to do more with less
