Rosternomics
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Cardinals STL

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GM: Walt Jocketty (since 1995)

1999 roster — every player, value & surplus

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-6.7
WAB — wins above budget
-3.1
TAB — roster Talent above budget
75–86 (0.466)
record
-10M
surplus $M (value/$)
31.2
roster fWAR
$49.5M
payroll
PlayerAgeServiceGfWARSalary $MSurplus $M
Mark McGwire 35 FA-elig 153 6.0 9.4 -1.8
Darren Oliver 28 FA-elig 35 4.1 3.5 +1.6
Ray Lankford 32 FA-elig 122 3.8 6.6 -1.8
Fernando Tatis 24 pre-arb 149 3.2 0.3 +3.8
J.D. Drew 23 pre-arb 104 2.5 1.8 +1.3
Kent Bottenfield 30 FA-elig 31 2.2 0.8 +1.9
Jose Jimenez 25 pre-arb 31 2.0 0.2 +2.3
Joe McEwing 26 pre-arb 152 1.7 0.2 +1.9
Edgar Renteria 22 arb 154 1.2 2.0 -0.5
Darren Bragg 29 arb 93 1.1 0.8 +0.6
Alberto Castillo 29 arb 93 1.1 0.2 +1.1
Lance Painter 31 FA-elig 56 0.9 0.8 +0.3
Rick Ankiel 19 pre-arb 9 0.9 0.2 +0.9
Garrett Stephenson 27 arb 18 0.8 0.2 +0.8
Rick Croushore 28 pre-arb 59 0.8 0.2 +0.8
Craig Paquette 30 FA-elig 48 0.8 0.3 +0.7
Heathcliff Slocumb↔ BAL 33 FA-elig 40 0.7 0.9 +0.0
Kent Mercker↔ BOS 31 FA-elig 26 0.5 2.1 -1.4
Mark Thompson 28 – 5 0.5 – –
Eduardo Perez 29 – 21 0.5 – –
Thomas Howard 34 FA-elig 98 0.4 0.3 +0.2
Mike Mohler 30 FA-elig 48 0.4 0.5 -0.0
Donovan Osborne 30 FA-elig 6 0.3 5.1 -4.7
Manny Aybar 27 pre-arb 67 0.3 0.2 +0.2
Marcus Jensen 26 – 16 0.2 – –
Shawon Dunston↔ NYM 36 FA-elig 62 0.2 0.4 -0.1
Eric Davis 37 FA-elig 58 0.1 3.4 -3.3
Ricky Bottalico 29 arb 68 0.1 2.3 -2.2
Alan Benes 27 arb 2 0.0 0.6 -0.5
Curtis King 28 pre-arb 2 0.0 0.2 -0.2
Scott Radinsky 31 FA-elig 43 0.0 2.5 -2.5
Larry Luebbers 29 FA-elig 8 -0.0 0.2 -0.2
Luis Ordaz 23 pre-arb 10 -0.1 0.2 -0.3
Clint Sodowsky 26 – 3 -0.1 – –
David Howard 32 FA-elig 52 -0.2 0.9 -1.2
Mike Busby 26 arb 15 -0.2 0.2 -0.5
Rick Heiserman 26 – 3 -0.3 – –
Adam Kennedy 23 pre-arb 33 -0.3 0.2 -0.6
Juan Acevedo 29 arb 50 -0.5 0.5 -1.1
Placido Polanco 23 – 88 -0.7 – –
Eli Marrero 25 pre-arb 114 -0.9 0.2 -1.3
Willie McGee 40 FA-elig 132 -2.6 1.0 -4.2

42 players appeared (WAR is complete); salary & surplus are on record for 36 of them (86%). 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.