The DeWitts are hamstringing the Cardinals with self-imposed limitations

Following other teams' blueprints is not something the St. Louis Cardinals are used to doing. But as the Cardinals spiral into irrelevance and Busch Stadium continues to experience an attendance hemorrhage, comparisons emerged regarding the Cardinals' current situation and that of the Philadelphia Phillies teams of 2011 through 2015.

Cardinals president Bill DeWitt III acknowledged the similarities between those Phillies squads and the present-day Cardinals and how the Phillies' solution was to fix the problem with boatloads of money. However, DeWitt poured cold water on the possibility that the Cardinals could replicate the Phillies' rejuvenation by taking the same approach.

According to DeWitt, while the Cardinals could make a splash in free agency in their next window of contention, their main focus would be developing from within and being smart about their moves while being opportunistic with trades and free agents rather than building their team around those moves. For Cardinals fans, this is just code for "We're going to be stingy with our money."

The DeWitts are preventing the Cardinals from soaring to their former heights.

One of the DeWitts' common refrains for their tight purse strings is the Cardinals' status as a small-market club. But with a market larger than that of the San Diego Padres, who threw money at several big-time players over the past few seasons, it's a flimsy excuse. Despite owners' insistence to the contrary, market size should not be a reason for teams to pinch pennies.

The DeWitts hammered on the idea of drafting and developing players as their preferred method of finding success, but according to Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt Jr. in an interview prior to the 2025 season, because the Cardinals' years of success prevented them from drafting highly, it's difficult to build a championship club. "You can't just spend your way into it," he said.

But the problem is that the Cardinals have never truly been a draft-and-develop franchise. The team has not had a homegrown superstar since Yadier Molina rose through the system at the beginning of the 21st century. Rather, the team developed solid pieces and then flipped some of them for stars. Scott Rolen, Matt Holliday, Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado all flourished with other teams before they were dealt to the Cardinals.

The Cardinals are revamping their focus on player development, and former President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak said before the season that the team would increase spending in that domain by 8%-12%. But as the team cut ties with their impending free agents after 2024, they cleared plenty of money off the books. Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat penned a piece near the end of that season that mentioned how millions of dollars were simply disappearing from the payroll with no explanation.

Occam's razor would suggest that the simplest explanation is the most likely: The DeWitts are pocketing the money after seeing that the team was in a freefall. The Cardinals have used Busch Stadium's attendance dip and the issues with their TV deal as excuses to cry poor and refuse to invest in improving the roster, and they've even stooped to the level of asking fans to take on the money for needed stadium renovations.

Of course, the Cardinals have also struggled to properly spend the money that was allotted to the team. One only needs to look at the division rival Milwaukee Brewers, another small-market squad, to see how a team can operate successfully on a shoestring budget. The Cardinals have acquired several free agents who blew up in their face, and some of their trades saw them give away players who developed into stars elsewhere.

If the DeWitts are unwilling to fork over the dough and help bring the Cardinals back to their rightful spot as one of the sport's premier teams, they should consider selling the club to someone who is less reluctant to splash the cash. Owners always make enormous profits after selling their team, so if the DeWitts are only looking to save money, there are few better solutions than letting someone who cares about winning take over the finances.

The Cardinals won't take the Phillies' approach to restoring the team to its former glory, but it's not because the team is incapable of doing so. Maybe the Cardinals' renewed focus on finding the next stars through the draft will bear fruit and allow them to replicate the Brewers' success, but don't fall for the DeWitts' claims that homegrown solutions are the only way out of the pit that the team finds itself in.