Rosternomics
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Cardinals STL

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

2023 roster — every player, value & surplus

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-12.6
WAB — wins above budget
-3.0
TAB — roster Talent above budget
71–91 (0.438)
record
-45M
surplus $M (value/$)
32.8
roster fWAR
$173.7M
payroll
PlayerAgeServiceGfWARSalary $MSurplus $M
Paul Goldschmidt 35 FA-elig 154 3.4 26.0 -12.4
Lars Nootbaar 25 pre-arb 117 3.1 0.7 +11.7
Miles Mikolas 34 FA-elig 35 3.0 18.8 -6.8
Willson Contreras 31 FA-elig 125 2.8 10.0 +1.0
Nolan Arenado 32 FA-elig 144 2.8 35.0 -24.1
Jordan Montgomery↔ TEX 30 FA-elig 21 2.6 6.6 +3.7
Tommy Edman 28 arb 137 2.4 4.2 +5.3
Nolan Gorman 23 pre-arb 119 2.3 0.7 +8.5
Steven Matz 32 FA-elig 25 2.0 10.5 -2.7
Jack Flaherty↔ BAL 27 FA-elig 20 1.6 3.7 +2.6
Brendan Donovan 26 pre-arb 95 1.5 0.7 +5.3
Paul DeJong↔ SFG 29 FA-elig 81 1.5 6.6 -0.7
Ryan Helsley 28 arb 33 1.5 2.1 +3.7
JoJo Romero 26 pre-arb 27 1.2 0.4 +4.3
Zack Thompson 25 pre-arb 25 1.1 0.7 +3.5
Jordan Walker 21 – 117 1.0 0.6 +3.5
Chris Stratton↔ TEX 32 FA-elig 42 1.0 1.8 +2.2
Jordan Hicks↔ TOR 26 arb 40 0.9 1.1 +2.3
Matthew Liberatore 23 pre-arb 22 0.8 0.4 +2.6
Tyler O'Neill 28 arb 72 0.7 5.0 -2.3
Richie Palacios 26 – 32 0.4 – –
Iván Herrera 23 pre-arb 13 0.3 0.1 +1.0
Giovanny Gallegos 31 FA-elig 56 0.3 4.8 -3.6
Dakota Hudson 28 arb 18 0.3 2.6 -1.5
John King↔ TEX 28 pre-arb 20 0.1 0.1 +0.4
Jacob Barnes 33 arb 13 0.1 0.2 +0.2
Packy Naughton 27 pre-arb 4 0.1 0.7 -0.4
Dylan Carlson 24 arb 76 0.1 0.7 -0.4
Guillo Zuñiga 24 – 2 0.1 0.2 +0.1
Óscar Mercado 28 – 20 0.0 0.2 -0.0
José Fermín 24 – 21 0.0 0.3 -0.1
Andrew Knizner 28 arb 70 0.0 1.1 -1.0
James Naile 30 pre-arb 10 -0.0 0.2 -0.3
Drew Rom 23 – 8 -0.1 0.2 -0.5
Juniel Querecuto 30 pre-arb 9 -0.1 0.1 -0.4
Andre Pallante 24 pre-arb 62 -0.1 0.7 -1.1
Tres Barrera 28 pre-arb 6 -0.1 0.1 -0.6
Michael Siani↔ CIN 23 – 5 -0.1 – –
Génesis Cabrera↔ TOR 26 arb 32 -0.1 0.5 -1.1
Ryan Tepera↔ ANA 35 FA-elig 2 -0.2 1.2 -1.8
Drew VerHagen 32 FA-elig 60 -0.2 3.0 -3.8
Kyle Leahy 26 – 3 -0.2 0.1 -1.0
Irving Lopez 28 – 5 -0.3 0.0 -1.1
Taylor Motter 33 FA-elig 29 -0.3 0.8 -2.1
Luken Baker 26 – 33 -0.4 0.3 -1.8
Andrew Suárez 30 pre-arb 13 -0.4 0.3 -1.7
Casey Lawrence 35 pre-arb 15 -0.4 0.2 -1.9
Adam Wainwright 41 FA-elig 23 -0.4 17.5 -19.2
Juan Yepez 25 pre-arb 28 -0.5 0.2 -2.3
Jake Woodford 26 arb 15 -0.6 0.7 -3.1
Alec Burleson 24 pre-arb 107 -0.7 0.7 -3.3
Masyn Winn 21 – 37 -0.8 0.2 -3.4

52 players appeared (WAR is complete); salary & surplus are on record for 50 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.