I'm going to say something that should not be possible to say in professional baseball in 2026, and I want you to really hear it: the St. Louis Cardinals - the franchise with 11 World Series championships, one of the most storied histories in professional sports, the team that Busch Stadium was built for - are on track to carry a lower active payroll on Opening Day than the Miami Marlins.
The Miami Marlins. Long considered baseball's gold standard for organizational austerity. The benchmark for spending as little as humanly possible while still technically fielding a major league team.
Per Spotrac projections, the Washington Nationals are projected at $32 million in active Opening Day payroll. The Cardinals are at $38 million. The Marlins? $39 million. The Cardinals and Nationals are going to out-spend precisely nobody in Major League Baseball, and it is a disgrace.
Let me be very clear about what this is. This is not rebuilding. This is not a smart reset after some painful years. This is tanking, and it should be called exactly that. Teams are deliberately fielding rosters that have no reasonable shot at competing for a playoff spot, collecting revenue sharing and draft picks and prospect rankings, while fans sit in the stands watching a product that ownership has explicitly decided is not worth investing in.
When I was growing up watching baseball in Cleveland, the Indians weren't flush with cash either. But they put a team on the field that tried. They made deals to be competitive. They cared about what was in the stands every night.
The Cardinals have one of the most passionate, knowledgeable, loyal fanbases in all of American sports. The folks who pack Busch Stadium on a Tuesday night in August - who know the lineup changes, who care about the prospects, who have bleeder-red blood - they deserve better than $38 million in active payroll. They deserve an owner who is willing to spend to win.
Commissioner Rob Manfred should be asked about this. Every. Single. Day. The collective bargaining agreement has mechanisms to address spending minimums, but clearly they are not working well enough when you have storied franchises camping at the bottom of the payroll table like it's a competitive strategy.
