St. Louis Cardinals
National League · National League Central · Busch Stadium
Umpire favor
+13.9 net runs over 162 graded games — the zone was kind to the club on balance.
Biggest swings: +2.0 vs MIN · +2.0 vs PIT
The season ahead
The 2026 season is over for the St. Louis Cardinals. Their next game is on Opening Day, March 25, 2027.
On the radar
| What the market sees | What the engine sees | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Pos | Age | Results | Sample | Board | Signal |
| JJ Wetherholt | 2B | 24 | OPS .704 | 139 G | INDEX | EV95 104.4 |
| Alec Burleson♛ | 1B | 27 | OPS .816 | 160 G | INDEX | EV95 108.6 |
| Riley O'Brien★ | P | 31 | ERA 4.08 | 64.0 IP | INDEX | — |
| Jordan Walker★ | RF | 24 | OPS .793 | 158 G | INDEX | EV95 112.1 |
| Iván Herrera★ | DH | 26 | OPS .735 | 161 G | INDEX | EV95 107.37 |
| Leo Bernal | C | 22 | OPS .807 | 24 G | INDEX | EV95 106.8 |
Left of the rule is the league’s own line on the player — his results, not our numbers, and never an input to any FVR signal. Right of it is what the engine measures.
The Card Pulse
What the collector market pays for this roster — movers first. A rising price is demand, not our read on the player. The full board →
Paid link — as an eBay Partner, FVR earns from qualifying purchases.
What they pay
A market fact, not an engine read — and the club’s own row from the payroll board, computed once so the two pages cannot disagree.
- Cash payroll
- $66.0M
- Tax payroll
- $93.0M
- vs the tax line
- +$154.0Munder
- MP/MW
- $1.55M3 of 30 — 1 is cheapest
PROPOSED Below the floor the owners proposed on 2026-07-21 — this club would have to spend up. A proposal out of a negotiation that has not happened, not a rule. The line in force is the $247M tax threshold above.
The five biggest commitments this season
- Alec Burleson$7.8M
- Andre Pallante$7.0M
- Jordan Walker$4.3M
- Matthew Liberatore$3.3M
- Iván Herrera$3.3M
Cash is what the club pays out; the tax payroll is average annual values under the CBA’s own rulebook. Two answers to one question, never subtracted from one another. Figures from Cot’s, as of .
A second set of books
The numbers above are Cot’s. These are MLB Spreadsheets’s, and they answer two questions Cot’s cannot: what this payroll is made of, and where it has moved since Opening Day. We keep both sources rather than merging them, because the only thing that catches an error in one is the other.
Where the two sources disagree
- On cash payroll, Cot’s reads $66.0M and MLB Spreadsheets reads $99.8M — $33.8M apart, with 247 days between the two sheets.
- On tax payroll, Cot’s reads $93.0M and MLB Spreadsheets reads $111.6M — $18.5M apart, with 247 days between the two sheets.
Both are reputable and neither is wrong on its own terms. A gap on sheets a month apart is one source catching up; a gap on sheets a few days apart is a real disagreement about what a club is paying, and nobody prints those. We do not average them, and every figure on this site says which source it came from.
- Cash payroll
- $102.3M → $99.8M −$2.5M
- Tax payroll
- $114.6M → $111.6M −$3.0M
A move is not a verdict. Adding payroll is not virtue and cutting it is not vice, so nothing here is colored — the sign is the whole fact. And a move in dollars is not a payroll in dollars: we never compare one to the other.
Cash payroll
$99.8M
Tax payroll
$111.6M
| Line | Cash | Tax |
|---|---|---|
| Players on the rosterSalary to the men actually playing, majors and minors. | $51.4M | $53.3M |
| Major-league salary | $48.6M | $50.4M |
| Minor-league salary | $2.8M | $2.8M |
| Players who are goneSalary buying this club no player at all. | $1.0M | $1.0M |
| Termination pay | $0.6M | $0.6M |
| Outright assignments | $0.3M | $0.3M |
| BonusesSigning bonuses charged against this season, buyouts of options declined, and bonuses already earned. | $3.4M | $6.0M |
| Cash in tradesMoney sent out with a player traded away, or taken in — a negative figure — to absorb someone else's contract. | $44.0M | $29.8M |
| League chargesThe same for all thirty clubs — no front office decided to spend this. | — | $20.2M |
| Benefits | — | $18.6M |
| Pre-arb bonus pool | — | $1.7M |
| Adjustments and creditsBookkeeping between the club and the league office. | — | $1.3M |
| Total | $99.8M | $111.6M |
An em dash in one column and a figure in the other is not a missing number — it is the two rulebooks sorting the same money differently. A prorated signing bonus is in the cash figure and already inside the average annual value the tax is assessed on; league charges are the reverse. That is why the two totals differ, and why they are never subtracted from one another.
Composition and Opening Day figures from Ethan Hullihen (@EthanHullihen, MLBSpreadsheets), from a workbook whose oldest relevant sheet is dated . The workbook carries a different date on every tab, so this is the oldest of the ones we read rather than the file’s own. Every line above was checked to sum to the club’s stated total before it was printed.
Down on the farm
Organization prospects on our Triple-A boards.
| What the market sees | What the engine sees | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Pos | Age | Club | Results | Sample | Board | Signal |
| Joshua Báez☆ | LF | 23 | St. Louis Cardinals | OPS .901 | 103 G | TRIPLE-A | EV95 110.8 |
| Chase Davis | CF | 24 | Memphis Redbirds | OPS .692 | 50 G | TRIPLE-A | EV95 110.185 |
| Blaze Jordan | 3B | 23 | St. Louis Cardinals | OPS .658 | 58 G · MLB | TRIPLE-A | EV95 108.6 |
| Quinn Mathews☆ | P | 26 | St. Louis Cardinals | ERA 3.27 | 99.0 IP | INDEX | Stuff -0.079 |
| Rainiel Rodriguez | C | 19 | Springfield Cardinals | OPS .999 | 87 G · AA | INDEX | — |
Left of the rule is the league’s own line on the player — his results, not our numbers, and never an input to any FVR signal. Right of it is what the engine measures.
On the record
- C0005 — Joshua Baez · hit
Follow the Cardinals
The Cardinals, in your inbox — every game scored mark for mark, the morning after they play. Every number reconciled to the official line, or the card doesn’t print. Nothing on off-days.
Collect the Cardinals
The organization’s 2026 cardboard, from commons to the high end:
2026 St. Louis Cardinals cards on eBay →Paid link — as an eBay Partner, FVR earns from qualifying purchases.