Rosternomics
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Cardinals STL

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

2025 roster — every player, value & surplus

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-1.1
WAB — wins above budget
-1.1
TAB — roster Talent above budget
78–84 (0.481)
record
-8M
surplus $M (value/$)
30.4
roster fWAR
$120.0M
payroll
PlayerAgeServiceGfWARSalary $MSurplus $M
Sonny Gray 35 FA-elig 32 3.6 25.0 -11.3
Masyn Winn 23 pre-arb 129 3.5 0.8 +12.6
Brendan Donovan 28 arb 118 2.9 2.9 +8.1
Willson Contreras 33 FA-elig 135 2.8 18.0 -7.3
Iván Herrera 25 pre-arb 107 2.7 0.8 +9.5
Alec Burleson 26 pre-arb 139 2.1 0.8 +7.2
Matthew Liberatore 25 pre-arb 29 1.8 0.8 +6.1
Victor Scott II 24 – 138 1.7 – –
Pedro Pagés 26 pre-arb 112 1.6 0.8 +5.2
Kyle Leahy 28 pre-arb 62 1.4 0.8 +4.5
Steven Matz↔ BOS 34 – 32 1.2 5.1 -0.6
Matt Svanson 26 – 39 1.0 0.5 +3.3
Phil Maton↔ TEX 32 – 40 1.0 0.9 +2.8
Michael McGreevy 24 pre-arb 17 0.9 0.4 +3.0
JoJo Romero 28 arb 65 0.9 2.3 +1.1
Nolan Arenado 34 FA-elig 107 0.9 21.0 -17.7
Lars Nootbaar 27 arb 135 0.8 3.0 +0.2
Andre Pallante 26 pre-arb 31 0.7 2.1 +0.7
José Fermín 26 pre-arb 30 0.6 0.4 +2.0
Thomas Saggese 23 pre-arb 82 0.5 0.5 +1.5
Gordon Graceffo 25 pre-arb 26 0.5 0.4 +1.4
Ryan Helsley↔ NYM 30 – 36 0.4 3.4 -1.8
Riley O'Brien 30 pre-arb 42 0.3 0.6 +0.6
Miles Mikolas 36 FA-elig 31 0.3 17.7 -16.5
Yohel Pozo 28 pre-arb 67 0.2 0.7 +0.1
Nathan Church 24 – 27 0.2 0.2 +0.5
Anthony Veneziano↔ MIA 27 pre-arb 2 0.1 0.0 +0.2
Nick Raquet 29 – 2 0.0 0.0 +0.1
Luken Baker 28 – 19 0.0 0.2 -0.1
Andre Granillo 25 – 14 0.0 0.2 -0.2
Erick Fedde↔ ATL 32 – 20 0.0 4.4 -4.4
Michael Siani 25 – 19 -0.1 – –
Chris Roycroft 28 pre-arb 20 -0.1 0.4 -0.8
César Prieto 26 – 3 -0.1 0.0 -0.6
Ryan Vilade↔ CIN 26 – 7 -0.2 0.1 -0.8
Nolan Gorman 25 pre-arb 111 -0.2 0.8 -1.5
Garrett Hampson↔ ARI 30 – 35 -0.2 0.6 -1.4
Jorge Alcala↔ BOS 29 arb 15 -0.2 0.1 -0.9
José Barrero 27 – 22 -0.2 0.2 -1.1
Roddery Muñoz 25 pre-arb 9 -0.3 0.2 -1.2
Ryan Fernandez 27 pre-arb 32 -0.3 0.6 -1.7
Jimmy Crooks 23 – 15 -0.4 – –
John King 30 arb 51 -0.4 1.6 -3.3
Jordan Walker 23 pre-arb 111 -1.3 0.8 -5.6

44 players appeared (WAR is complete); salary & surplus are on record for 41 of them (93%). 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.