Cardinals: Will St. Louis increase their payroll this offseason?

The St. Louis Cardinals need to make major upgrades to compete with the NL’s best, but will they actually increase their payroll?

The St. Louis Cardinals are one of the most well run organizations in all of baseball, and have found a way over the years to compete with the biggest markets in baseball, despite being the 23rd ranked market in professional sports.

According to Fangraphs, the Cardinals’ payroll ranks 12th in all of baseball with a payroll of $163 million, putting them just above average for spending. All five of the other National League playoff teams have a higher payroll than St. Louis, and will likely continue spending going forward. The Cardinals currently only have $85 million in committed salary before bringing back arbitration and pre-arbitration players.

There are multiple different factors at play here that should indicate a rise in payroll entering 2023, the first an most important of these being that 2022 was the first full season not impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Clubs around the league could fall back on reduced revenue as a reason not to spend, but especially with St. Louis, that should not be a talking point anymore. Sure, they are coming off multiple seasons prior of lost revenue, but fans are not going to take that answer anymore.

Second, is the club’s willingness to add salary at the trade deadline in the form of Juan Soto. Even though St. Louis did not may a serious offer in the end for Soto, they were interested in acquiring him and his $17 million salary this season, projected $20 million in 2023, and potentially $30 million in 2024 in just arbitration numbers. This indicates a willingness to add salary, the question is, was that just unique to Soto?

Lastly, the Cardinals experienced an incredible revenue boost from from Albert Pujols in his final MLB season. Making just $2.5 million this season, the amount of dollars the Pujols made for the Cardinals organization for his reunion season and chase of 700 will far exceed that number, to say the least.

The Cardinals are in a position to spend money, whether they want to publicly say it or not. Hopefully the way the 2022 season ended will push ownership to approve larger spending this offseason.