STLToday.com wrote:Cardinals payroll experiencing growing pains?
By Joe Strauss
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
10/02/2007
The Cardinals learned this season that $101 million mixed with rampant injuries is worth only third place. In the upcoming weeks they must decide what a return to first place will cost.
With nearly $84 million already committed to 12 players next season, Cardinals Chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. must determine how much general manager Walt Jocketty may spend to flesh out the rest of a revitalized roster.
Of the dollars already committed, $48.5 million is owed to players who endured season-ending, or even career-threatening, injuries.
Ace Chris Carpenter probably will miss at least four months after undergoing elbow-ligament-transplant surgery.
Lefthander Mark Mulder is questionable to open 2008 after requiring his second rotator-cuff operation in barely 12 months. Third baseman Scott Rolen (shoulder surgery), second baseman Adam Kennedy (knee surgery) and right fielder Juan Encarnacion did not accompany the team on its final trip. Encarnacion's career is in doubt after he sustained a horrific eye injury while standing on deck Aug. 31.
"It's going to be more difficult," Jocketty acknowledged last week about the looming numbers crunch. "I don't know if that represents more pressure. I haven't sat down yet to completely take it apart."
The process began in earnest Monday during a meeting with DeWitt and his uniformed personnel.
The desire for another power hitter and two additional starting pitchers was broached. A vacancy also exists at shortstop as David Eckstein approaches free agency.
"We've got flexibility," DeWitt said. "Our payroll is over $100 million this season. We expect next year it will be as well. A lot depends on who's out there. We'd like to be aggressive. But how prudent that is within this player market remains to be seen."
DeWitt would not commit to either an initial number or a season-ending projection for next season but allowed the possibility payroll could reach $110 million to $115 million.
The Cardinals opened this season with about $91 million in payroll, not including incentives and buyouts, a lower number than in their final season at old Busch.
"The projected payroll for the entire 2008 season is the relevant number, not the face value of contracts," maintained DeWitt, who includes all likely incentives and buyouts into his projections before opening day. "We submit projections to Major League Baseball, not the number at which we start the season."
"We've always been within a small band of being accurate when we start the year," DeWitt said. "If we add a big salary at some point during the season, as we have at times in the past, then it's above that band. Generally, we've been on target."
WEIGHING OPTIONS
With the Cardinals concerned about next season's payroll, free agency offers the appeal of back-loading contracts. The trade market may offer players such as Atlanta Braves shortstop Edgar Renteria or Chicago White Sox starting pitcher Jon Garland.
The Cardinals also could part with experience for potential, a move that reaped a big dividend with the trade in 2003 of outfielder J.D Drew and Eli Marrero for three Atlanta Braves pitchers — Jason Marquis, Adam Wainwright and Ray King.
Promoting from within, however, holds little appeal.
La Russa dismisses the notion that the club could try to "go young" next year by flooding the roster with organizational products. A lack of pitching help from Class AAA Memphis this season reinforced his point.
"For 2008, I don't think you can legitimately make this a transition club, where you bring in young guys who pitch and hit. We ain't got that," La Russa said. "If that's true, help has to come through trade or free agency."
GROWING ISSUE
While new Busch Stadium sold out for the second consecutive season, a faction of the team's fan base has become increasingly sensitive to a comparison of ticket prices and payroll.
Ownership is likewise sensitive to suggestions that it has not acted in the competitive interests of the franchise, which is in the game's 21st largest media market.
The defending World Series champions began the season with the game's 11th-highest payroll and, according to an annual survey prepared by Team Marketing (a private firm that annually compiles a survey of ticket and concession costs), the sport's fifth-highest average ticket price.
The club has long emphasized its dependence on attendance with its relatively small media-market size.
Because of expanded capacity, this season's record attendance of 3,551,778 outpaced the 3,407,104 that paid during the ballpark's inaugural season.
After holding firm on ticket prices last winter, the Cardinals are expected to announce an increase later this month when they address season-ticket holders.
Team President Mark Lamping insisted Monday that the club has not formalized its decision.
"It's fair to say for this organization especially, if attendance goes down it's a negative. If it goes up it's a positive," Lamping said. "But we have not finalized what we are going to do regarding ticket prices."
For now, few other obvious revenue enhancements exist. The Cardinals' contracts with rightsholders, sponsors and their concessions contractor factor only inflationary increases and are not back-loaded, as are numerous player deals.
Broadcast rights increase only with the number of games televised.
That number is expected to remain steady for 2008. Lamping said the club anticipates its 2008 attendance will approximate this season's.
"We still believe demand for our tickets is very high," he said.
SPENDING POWER
DeWitt assured Jocketty, La Russa and the coaching staff during Monday's meeting that the club would commit whatever is necessary to return the club to contention next season.
"Bill made it very clear that we have resources, and if the right people are there we would be very aggressive," La Russa said. "That's the correct way to describe it.
"If the right people aren't there, you don't just spend money for the fans to say, 'Oh, they're willing to spend.' And then they start criticizing you for spending it stupidly. They made it clear that we have resources and if the right guys are there we're going to be aggressive."
jstrauss@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8371
