Significant shift for Cardinals standing with MLB may shake up how they do business

It's no secret that the St. Louis Cardinals have been seeing dramatic losses in their revenue streams during the 2020s. Between the pandemic, unraveling with their own regional sports network deal, and an on-field collapse that has caused Busch Stadium to be emptier than we've ever seen before, ownership is not seeing the cash flow they used to.

No, this isn't a "feel bad for Cardinals' ownership article", but rather, the shift they've experienced in profits has actually caused them to change an important status among MLB teams, and it actually gives them a bit of a competitive advantage in free agency moving forward.

The Cardinals' status as a revenue-sharing team may encourage them to be more aggressive in the future

For possibly the first time in MLB's current revenue-sharing model, the Cardinals are a revenue-sharing recipient. At least since 1996, the Cardinals have been one of the few teams in baseball that neither receives revenue sharing nor pays into it, but because of their lost revenue in recent years, they'll actually receive money from the teams paying into that program this year.

The financial side of things doesn't matter a ton to Cardinals fans, but there are competitive advantages to that designation that go beyond receiving money. As a revenue-sharing recipient, the Cardinals now receive a greater benefit if they lose a free agent on a qualifying offer, and are penalized less for signing one.

If the Cardinals sign a free agent who has a qualifying offer while they have this designation, they will only have to sacrifice their third-highest draft selection, not their second-highest like they had to before when signing guys like Sonny Gray or Willson Contreras. They also will not be stripped of any of their international signing bonus pool money as they would have in the past.

If they lose a player in free agency who they gave the qualifying offer to, they will now receive a draft pick right after the first round of the MLB Draft, as long as the player signs a deal of $50 million or more. In the past, they would have received a pick much later.

Now, this likely doesn't change anything for the Cardinals this offseason. They did not have a free agent worth of the qualifying offer this year, and it is very unlikely that they will go out and sign a big free agent this year. But assuming they remain in this bracket before being true contenders again, this will allow the Cardinals to be more selective with holding onto talent, knowing they can get a high draft pick if they lose them in free agency, but probably more important is the lower penalty for pursuing high-end free agents.

The signings of Gray and Contreras were impact moves for the Cardinals, but losing their second-highest pick in both of those drafts hurt their ability to add high-end talent to their farm system. Losing their third-highest pick isn't without pain as well, but it is a far softer price to pay in order to go after a big-time free agent in the future to add to their roster. Plus, losing that international bonus money was another hard pill to swallow as well.

Consider this another arrow in Chaim Bloom's quiver as he looks to rebuild the Cardinals. They've proven they are willing to go after players on qualifying offers before, but now they have even more reason to do so when the opportunity presents itself.