Cardinals Under Contract: Introduction

The inaugural post of the new Baseball Economics Series!

The Baseball Economics Series will eventually cover many aspects of the economic side of Major League Baseball and especially our St. Louis Cardinals. One of the most important aspects of the economics of the Cardinals organization is their MLB player payroll. The payroll varies from year to year, but one part of the future payroll is already set in the form of long-term contracts with current players.

All contracts in Major League Baseball are guaranteed for their full length basically (with the exception of incentive bonuses and options). The St. Louis Cardinals currently have 5 players under contract through 2011 or longer; Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Kyle Lohse, Ryan Franklin, and Yadier Molina. Additionally, the team holds club options for 2011 with Trever Miller and Albert Pujols. Adam Wainwright is under contract with the team longer than any other player with a club option for the 2013 season ending his current deal.

While long-term contracts only pertain to this small number of players, they are the talented core around which the Cardinals are built. Including the options for Pujols and Miller, these 7 players' salaries would be over $60 million in 2011. Beginning tonight, we will be releasing an analysis of each player's contract situation. For each of these 7 contracts, we will look at the terms of the contract, the rationale at the time of the signing, how the contract looks in December of 2009, and what the outlook for the remainder of the contract might be.

Chris Carpenter

Adam Wainwright

Kyle Lohse

Ryan Franklin

Yadier Molina

Trever Miller

Albert Pujols

Matt Holliday

This series of posts would not be possible without the information available on Cot's.