ChiefsPlanet - Cardinals ***Official 2023 STL Cardinals Thread ***

You see the latest completely tone-deaf slap in the face from these craven cockchuggers?

Spoiler!

Quote:

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Within the 30 minutes he spent Wednesday talking to reporters, Cardinals executive John Mozeliak diagnosed his team’s need for pitching upgrades in bulk. He mentioned the club’s excitement for young talents who could arrive by 2025. And he stressed how “uber-competitive” the market is already for free-agent starters this winter.

It was only later, as he walked briskly back toward the team’s suite, that Mozeliak fielded a question that brought those topics together.

If their need for pitching is so obvious and the competition for that pitching so onerous, is there a scenario this winter where they cannot add pitching and must step back, adjust their focus toward when the talent surfaces in 2025, and even considering trading star veterans?

Near the resort’s pool, Mozeliak slowed his pace.

“Not at all,” he told the Post-Dispatch. “That’s not on our radar.”

There is, after all, more at stake than the standings.

The Cardinals’ budget for player spending is tied to the billion-dollar rights deal with Bally Sports Midwest. (“Heavily” so, Mozeliak said.) With the Regional Sports Network (RSN) marketplace in upheaval as a result of a bankruptcy filing and hemorrhaging cash, a handful of teams have not received payments, and others are unsteady. Mozeliak said he has not been told by ownership to scale back spending due to rights-fee concerns, and the team received all of its payments in 2023.

With that uncertainty, the Cardinals feel they must invigorate fans after a last-place season so the club can count on a revenue flow from old faithful: ticket sales.

“I do think there are a lot of question marks for next year (on RSNs), fair,” said Mozeliak, the team’s president of baseball operations. “Our other revenue source is our attendance. So that is something, from an organizational standpoint, we want to be focused on. And we want to make sure that we can maintain that. We understand it’s product-driven. So we want to improve the team to help that happen.

“That is the plan.” During the third day of MLB’s annual general manager meetings, Cardinals brass gathered with Scott Boras’ group and representatives from Creative Artists Agency, as well as others. The talks with CAA reps included a discussion on Jordan Walker’s recent move to Jupiter, Florida, and how the Cardinals will make their facility and coaches available to the rising star for work on his defense. But most of the Cardinals’ meetings focused on what their winter will hinge on: pitching. Mozeliak said the team’s checklist is “starter, starter” and then see about adding another starter.

Before meeting with the Cardinals, Boras described the market for pitchers as “really, really a frenzy.” He said seven teams had already told him they needed to add two pitchers.

Cardinals make eight.

“This is kind of like the commercial airlines,” Boras said during his opening monologue for the media about the rewards of spending on free agents. “We don’t fly around on planes with one engine. We have two. The FAA requires it. Well, (to be) competitive in our game, we need an FAA. And that is free agent acquisition. All owners, please, take heed. This has been done. ... I suggest that everyone come on aboard. Understand what success is. Be bold. Step out. Understand what great talent we have available in these markets. Utilize them.”

In his annual address at the GM meetings, the agent preps one-liners that often extol his clients — “Let’s Make a Deal” for Jordan Montgomery, he said, to get a “Monty haul” — and sometimes skewers teams and owners. A decade ago, he famously accused the Mets of shopping in the “freezer section.” The Cardinals have mostly avoided Boras’ rhetorical sting in public. His fondness for the organization dates back to his playing days and George Kissell.

And it has outlasted recent years when Boras’ clients, such as Max Scherzer, have been clear fits for the Cardinals’ needs or their brand and they’ve not engaged in the bidding.
“Bill DeWitt, over the years, has always made every effort to put a competitive team on the field,” Boras said. “I think sometimes you get caught in the projections of your pitching, particularly when you’re advancing young pitching. ... I think St. Louis is a very valued market, always has been. Players love to play there. A lot of times it’s competitive. When you’re in the contract world, you’re competing. It’s no different than a player playing. You’ve got to beat the other teams. You have to do more in years and dollars to win those players.”

Whether the Cardinals have the appetite to do that is what they must prove.

Count reinvigorating ticket sales as part of the motivation.

The Cardinals said previous hesitations imposed by ownership on pitching spending have been adjusted this winter, modernized to meet a market passed them. In the coming three weeks, agents will get a sense whether that green light manifests in competitive offers as the Cardinals chase pitchers such as Sonny Gray, Aaron Nola and others.

The cost for starters is climbing, the demand for starters is increasing, and that’s happening a time when innings expected from starters is shrinking — which has been a challenge for the Cardinals’ spending model to adapt.

“It’s not great for the industry as a whole, right?” Mozeliak said. “Just because we don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not happening. ... For us to get back to where we need to be, have to upgrade there. I think we’ll be able to do that, but they’re not all going to be ‘the guy.’ That’s going to be hard. The upper tier of this market is going to be uber-competitive, whereas we know we need innings.”

Mozeliak said most of his time at these GM meetings has been spent exploring the free-agent market, with limited talks about trades because there are limited teams trading pitching.

The Cardinals are open to dealing from their outfielder and infielder depth to acquire pitching and streamline their major league roster. Trades could bring clarity to their outfield, for example. They are going to entertain offers for Gold Glove winner Tyler O’Neill, multiple sources said. A few teams, including Toronto, have asked about Dylan Carlson, according to another source. The Yankees are shopping for two outfielders and want to add some “left-handed balance” to the lineup, general manager Brian Cashman said. Multiple sources said the Yankees see the Cardinals as a fit for trade talks involving Alec Burleson or Brendan Donovan.
Mozeliak declined to discuss any specific trade talks.

“If we have the ability to address some other need, it’s worth considering,” he said.
During his oration, Boras mentioned how the Texas Rangers spent a half-billion dollars on free-agent infielders and spurred a turnaround that led them to a World Series title this season. He detailed how championship teams operate on two tracks: player development and free-agent spending.

That is how Texas accelerated from 100 losses two seasons ago to a parade this month. They weren’t a team that intended to “go incrementally,” the agent said.
“We’re going to go from 60 wins to 70 wins to 80 wins,” he cataloged. “We received notice in baseball this year that five- to seven-year track to become a winner (is over).”

The Cardinals are not trying to rebuild from 100 losses. They’ve long stated they don’t think a rebuild is part of their brand. They also do not plan to wait for a two-year turnaround. They know their fans won’t, not the ones who annually purchase more than 3.3 million tickets, even as attendance dwindled and sales slowed during this 91-loss summer.

There are tickets to sell to fund the team.

There is a team to fund to sell those tickets.

“It is still a simple thing: Fans want their team to be successful, and they don’t look at it what you did for me yesterday. It’s what do you do now,” Mozeliak said this week. He added Wednesday: “We have to find (pitching), and I’m not here to define where we end up — we know we need it. It’s good to understand what you need. We still feel like we’re a desirable place to be. We still feel we’re an attractive club to come to regardless of this past season.

“I’m not naïve,” he concluded. “I know it’s going to be competitive, and I know it might be difficult to do. We’re certainly going to try.”