Cardinals News: Payroll decrease, players on the trade block, updates on free agents

The St. Louis Cardinals are starting to embrace much-needed changes this offseason. While others may call it a rebuild, the Cardinals insist on 2025 being more of a "reset", stating their objectives to overhaul player development will position them for long-term success once again.

Well, John Mozeliak's comments about payroll decreasing paired with the rumored trades the Cardinals may make this offseason certainly don't quite the opinion of many fans that this is going to be more of a rebuild in St. Louis.

When Bill DeWit Jr. was asked if the Cardinals intend to trade high-priced veterans and embrace a smaller payroll in 2025, he avoided addressing the question and stating that those conversations still need to happen, but Mozeliak jumped in and stated the hard truth that yes, payroll will be decreasing in 2025. He then deferred to Bill DeWitt III to explain why revenues have decreased.

Payroll decreasing is not a huge surprise considering where the organization is at right now, but fan's displeasure will certainly grow if that payroll shrink is as substantial as it seems like it may become, especially since reporters like Jeff Jones have pointed out that the actual dollars needed to revamp player development will likely be far less than the amount of payroll they decide to slash.

Cardinals News: Cardinals' payroll will decrease in 2025, veterans could be traded, and multiple free agents unlikely to return

One major reason we should expect payroll to take a significant step back in 2025 is the growing expectation that one, but likely more of Nolan Arenado, Sonny Gray, Wilson Contreras, and Ryan Helsley will be traded this offseason. While the Cardinals may have to eat some money on some of those deals, that is approximately $82 million that is owed to the four of them in 2025 that may be off their books.

The thought of trading any and/or all of those guys makes a lot of sense for this "reset" they are embracing. Helsley will be a free agent following the 2025 season and should bring them back a nice return. While Helsley has been an important part of this club for years now, having an elite closer when you are not a winning team doesn't make a ton of sense. Gray and Contreras were highly productive in 2025 but are aging veterans who likely want to win. Arenado may be a tough contract to move, but I doubt he wants to hang around for a rebuild...sorry, "reset".

Adding even more fuel to the payroll fire is the added expectation that the Cardinals will let Paul Goldschmidt and Andrew Kittredge walk in free agency, and may even decline the options on veterans like Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson. If those four are also let go of this offseason, that would be an additional $50 million coming off of their books this offseason. That, combined with potential trades, could mean over $100 million is coming off the books this offseason with little, if any, outside payroll is expected to be added.

Now, the club will have arbitration raises due to guys like JoJo Romero and John King, and then Lars Nootbaar, Brendan Donovan, and Andre Pallante all are hitting arbitration for the first time. But even with those raises baked in, the Cardinals are clearly looking to save money on their big league club in 2025 while moving some of those resources to the player development overhaul.

While some of these things make sense in a vacuum, the complete lack of self-awareness here is baffling. The mixture of keeping most of their leadership in place this next year while also not investing money into the big league club is going to anger a lot of fans, and rightfully so. Hopefully Chaim Bloom is able to work his magic with player development this year, as getting fans to buy back in is going to become more and more difficult as time goes on.