5 decisions the Cardinals would make right now if they were serious about a reset

#2 - Extend Brendan Donovan

Back to ownership and John Mozeliak's comments about payroll. If they do not need to cut salary elsewhere if they cannot move Arenado's contract, then that implies they've trimmed enough salary to appease ownership and their expected revenue losses this year.

But if they are able to move Arenado, or if they actually were motivated to move a Fedde, Steven Matz, or others from their roster, that would surely free up cash flow to extend a player like Brendan Donovan.

I understand why the Cardinals do not want to hand out long-term deals this offseason with Mozeliak in his final year in charge. With Matz, Fedde, Ryan Helsley, and Miles Mikolas coming off the books after 2025 along with potentially some of Arenado's money, Mozeliak is setting up Bloom to have as much financial flexibility as possible. But with the major reduction in payroll this year, the club would be foolish not to use some of that space and offset future costs by extending someone like Brendan Donovan.

Mozeliak has said they are open to exploring extensions during spring training, and Bloom would obviously influence if that were to happen. The last time the Cardinals handed out an extension to a pre-arbitration or arbitration player during camp was in 2016 with Kolten Wong, so they would definitely be breaking out of recent norms if they did so with Donovan while they are in Jupiter.

Donovan needs to be a part of this core long-term. And the Cardinals seem to agree, as they have "shut down" conversations with teams who call to express interest in Donovan. If they like him that much, then why hold off on an extension? It's just another example that fans can point to as the Cardinals having one foot in both directions.

Donovan, since coming up in 2022, has been top 15 in all of baseball in on-base percentage, won a Gold Glove, is reliable at five different positions, has grown into a clubhouse leader, and is almost 20% above league average offensively. Donovan is the exact kind of player the Cardinals should want to have around long-term, both on and off the field.

So, instead of waiting to sign him and seeing that dollar number only rise, why not lock him in now long-term and save some money on the back end? Even if they were to pay up for him a bit right now, spreading more of that money to this year and next year will save them dollars on the back end of the deal, when they supposedly want to get payroll back to where it was. From a competitive side of things, having Donovan at a lower AAV when the Cardinals are back to competing will only help them to have more financial flexibility when that time comes.

I really don't understand why a deal is not already done. The Cardinals need to get Donovan's agent on the phone right now. (Bonus: They should try and lock up Masyn Winn, too).