Rosternomics
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Cardinals STL

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President of baseball ops: John Mozeliak (since 2018) · GM: Mike Girsch (since 2018)

2018 roster — every player, value & surplus

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+3.9
WAB — wins above budget
-3.8
TAB — roster Talent above budget
88–74 (0.543)
record
-46M
surplus $M (value/$)
32.5
roster fWAR
$154.4M
payroll
PlayerAgeServiceGfWARSalary $MSurplus $M
Miles Mikolas 29 FA-elig 34 4.5 7.5 +8.0
Matt Carpenter 32 FA-elig 156 4.1 13.8 +0.3
Harrison Bader 24 pre-arb 138 3.7 0.5 +12.0
Yadier Molina 35 FA-elig 123 2.7 20.0 -10.6
Carlos Martinez 26 arb 34 2.4 11.7 -3.4
Jack Flaherty 22 pre-arb 31 2.4 0.5 +7.6
Marcell Ozuna 27 arb 148 1.9 9.0 -2.6
Kolten Wong 27 arb 127 1.8 4.0 +2.1
José A. Martínez 29 pre-arb 152 1.8 0.6 +5.5
Jedd Gyorko 29 arb 125 1.6 9.0 -3.5
Luke Weaver 24 pre-arb 34 1.4 0.6 +4.1
Paul DeJong 24 pre-arb 115 1.3 1.2 +3.3
John Gant 25 pre-arb 28 1.1 0.4 +3.4
Tyler O'Neill 23 – 61 1.1 0.3 +3.3
Tommy Pham↔ TBR 30 arb 98 1.0 0.4 +3.0
Austin Gomber 24 – 29 0.9 0.3 +2.7
Daniel Ponce de Leon 26 – 12 0.7 – –
Michael Wacha 26 arb 15 0.7 5.3 -3.0
John Brebbia 28 pre-arb 45 0.6 0.4 +1.8
Tyson Ross↔ SDP 31 FA-elig 9 0.6 0.5 +1.5
Jordan Hicks 21 pre-arb 73 0.4 0.5 +1.0
Adam Wainwright 36 FA-elig 8 0.4 19.5 -18.1
Mike Mayers 26 pre-arb 50 0.3 0.5 +0.5
Patrick Wisdom 26 – 32 0.3 0.1 +0.8
Dominic Leone 26 pre-arb 30 0.2 1.1 -0.5
Bud Norris 33 FA-elig 64 0.1 3.0 -2.5
Dakota Hudson 23 – 26 0.1 0.2 +0.1
Tyler Webb↔ SDP 27 pre-arb 18 0.1 0.1 +0.1
Luke Voit↔ NYY 27 – 8 0.1 0.0 +0.2
Sam Tuivailala↔ SEA 25 arb 31 0.0 0.5 -0.3
Giovanny Gallegos↔ NYY 26 pre-arb 2 0.0 0.0 +0.1
Alex Reyes 23 pre-arb 1 0.0 0.5 -0.5
Edmundo Sosa 22 – 3 -0.0 0.0 -0.0
Greg Holland↔ WSN 32 FA-elig 32 -0.0 8.0 -8.0
Yairo Muñoz 23 pre-arb 108 -0.0 0.5 -0.6
Steven Baron 27 – 2 -0.1 – –
Luke Gregerson 34 FA-elig 17 -0.1 5.0 -5.3
Ryan Sherriff 28 – 5 -0.1 0.1 -0.5
Matt Bowman 27 pre-arb 22 -0.1 0.6 -1.0
Preston Guilmet↔ TOR 30 – 2 -0.2 0.0 -0.6
Tyler Lyons 30 arb 27 -0.2 1.2 -1.8
Greg Garcia 28 arb 114 -0.2 0.6 -1.2
Chasen Shreve↔ NYY 27 arb 20 -0.2 0.3 -1.0
Adolis García 25 – 21 -0.2 0.1 -0.9
Carson Kelly 23 pre-arb 19 -0.5 0.2 -1.9
Matt Adams↔ WSN 29 FA-elig 27 -0.6 0.9 -2.8
Brett Cecil 31 FA-elig 40 -0.7 7.8 -10.0
Francisco Peña 28 arb 58 -1.1 0.7 -4.5
Dexter Fowler 32 FA-elig 90 -1.5 16.5 -21.8

49 players appeared (WAR is complete); salary & surplus are on record for 47 of them (96%). Players without a salary show "–" — no single historical salary source is fully complete (especially 2020–2022).

WAR = FanGraphs (fWAR). Green = produced more value than paid (bargain); red = paid more than produced. Service: pre-arb (<3 yr) / arb (3–6) / FA-eligible (6+). Click headers to sort.

History: front-office performance & develop-vs-buy (1985–2024)

Trade ledger (realized WAR, all-time)

Best acquisitions
PlayerYearWAR for STL
Adam Wainwright200352.6
Ozzie Smith198148.0
Paul Goldschmidt201821.3
Mark McGwire199719.7
Nolan Arenado202118.3
Édgar Rentería199817.4
Carlos Martínez201316.0
José Oquendo198515.3
Ones that got away
PlayerYear tradedWAR elsewhere
Andy Van Slyke198731.1
Lance Johnson198817.3
Keith Hernandez198316.5
David Peralta201414.5
Mike LaValliere198712.9
Jack Wilson200011.0
Marco Gonzales201710.1
Coco Crisp20029.9
Rosternomics — quantifying front-office skill, attribution-clean. Follow @rosternomics on X. Decision-makers on record back to 1933; resource-controlled metrics (WAR & payroll) cover 1985–2026.
Data: FanGraphs (WAR), Baseball-Reference & the Chadwick Bureau register (rosters, IDs), the Lahman Database, Baseball America prospect rankings (via The Baseball Cube), and public payroll records. Transaction and trade data was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Executive birth/death data via Wikidata (CC0); bios are original. Emoji graphics by OpenMoji (CC BY-SA 4.0).
All figures are franchise-level outcomes credited to the decision-maker in the acquisition year — not solely attributable to one executive.