The St. Louis Cardinals have finally made a move in free agency. They signed relief pitcher Phil Maton to a one-year contract on Thursday, making them the last team in baseball to sign a free agent to a major-league deal this offseason.
Maton, 31, posted a solid 3.66 ERA while pitching for both the Tampa Bay Rays and New York Mets last season.
The timing of the signing raised some eyebrows around baseball.
It came shortly after MLB Players Association chief Tony Clark publicly noted that the union is keeping tabs on teams that are cutting payroll—like the Cardinals.
"Rest assured, because we track all 30 teams all the time, when a team that has historically functioned a certain way suddenly finds them functioning different, yeah," Clark told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "We pay attention to it. We pay attention to it."
The Cardinals are on track to open the season with a $144.3 million payroll, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts.
That’s a steep drop from their franchise-record $178.3 million spent in 2024.
If the projections hold, this would be the team’s lowest payroll in a non-pandemic season since 2015. That’s pretty significant for a franchise that’s traditionally been willing to spend.
The team even spent much of the winter trying to trade away Nolan Arenado and as much of the $64 million they still owe him as possible. So far, they haven’t found any takers.
Why the sudden budget crunch in St. Louis?
The Cardinals took a hit to their local TV revenue during the Diamond Sports Group/Bally Sports bankruptcy mess that’s affected several MLB teams.
Fan attendance also dropped below 3 million for the first time in a non-pandemic season since 1997. Last year, they drew 2,878,115 fans to Busch Stadium.
That’s a double whammy to their bottom line.
Clark didn’t hold back when addressing the situation: "Disappointing when the industry is growing and yet less and less teams appear to be interested in being the last team standing. That is a concern… The idea of being in an industry that is growing and teams having the wherewithal to continue to improve their club deciding not to is a concern."
The players’ union chief has a point. Despite all the talk about TV revenue problems, MLB reported record revenues of $12.1 million in 2024.
And thanks to baseball’s revenue-sharing system—which essentially takes money from rich teams and gives it to smaller-market clubs—no team is truly broke. Whether they choose to spend that money on players is an entirely different question, and one that continues to create tension between owners across the league.
