In today’s mailbag, we delve into a potential offseason plan for the Cardinals, the impact of managers, third base in Seattle, whether the Yankees should sign Juan Soto, NL playoff rotations, and much more.
Sam asks:
Hi Tim, imagine your phone rings and it’s Bill DeWitt Jr. he says, “Tim, I’ve always liked your work at MLBTR and I’ve decided that I want to focus all my attention on acquiring as many Arby’s as possible. 63 just isn’t enough. So I’ve decided to gift you the St. Louis Cardinals and enough money to maintain the team’s current ranking in payroll among the other 29 teams for the next 3 years, effective immediately.” How do *you* Tim Dierkes go about fixing the Cardinals?
I generally support efforts to put more Arby’s into the world.
The Cardinals’ current competitive balance tax payroll is about $216MM, so I’ll just stick with that. That gives me about $92MM to work with. Key arbitration eligibles include Ryan Helsley, JoJo Romero, Lars Nootbaar, Brendan Donovan, and Andre Pallante. I’m pretty sure those guys will cost less than $20MM, so if I tender them contracts I’ll have about $75MM with which to work.
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