Bill DeWitt Jr. has stuck with his operating philosophy for more than two decades. Try as they might, fans can’t get him to budge.
Perennial playoff contention has been his stated goal. DeWitt wanted to keep his team in the chase. And from 2000 to 2022, he usually did. The Cardinals relied increasingly on the draft-and-develop model to yield year-to-year consistency.
They quit winning postseason games, though, so fans grew restless. Some argued that they should take the tank-and-rebuild route the Chicago Cubs traveled to win a World Series.
Some fans insist they would be willing to endure multiple bad seasons to build a singular powerhouse. But would they really?
All those empty seats at Busch Stadium this summer remind us why DeWitt has rejected that strategy. Fans won’t pay a premium to bathe in their own greasy sweat and watch a team sputter.
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Ownership takes note. Failure is bad for business — and DeWitt and Co. have a lot of business tied to the ballclub’s fate.
Fans have quit buying tickets. Fans possessing tickets have quit coming to the game and quit spending money at Busch Stadium and Ballpark Village. Hotels, restaurants, bars, retail shops ... many enterprises are feeling the pain of lost revenue.
Over the years, the Cardinals have become a bigger and bigger enterprise. The franchise’s commercial footprint and operational scope expanded.
Deliberate failure is not an option for this ownership. And as we’ve seen this summer, unintentional failure is just as costly.
Hence DeWitt’s need to get back into perennial playoff contention.
While some folks judge the Cardinals’ success or failure based on what does or doesn’t happen in October, DeWitt considers a much bigger picture.
During a 23-year span, the Cardinals posted a winning record 22 times and reached postseason play 16 times. In the 21 seasons that weren’t impacted by the pandemic, the team averaged well over 3 million in yearly attendance.
Along the way, Ballpark Village rose from the vacant lot and expanded. The franchise’s valuation increased tenfold.
The team suffered one previous downturn during that span, going 86-76, 83-79 and 88-74 from 2016-18 while missing the postseason each year. The Cardinals still drew more than 3.4 million fans in each season.
Then the resurgent Cardinals reached postseason play from 2019-22 while winning 90 or more games in the non-COVID years. But they won just one playoff series during that period, so fans kept grousing.
When would this franchise go “all in†to win? Why was it satisfied with just making the bracket while hoping to get hot at the right time?
(Long-suffering fans of the Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates saw such gripes as first-world complaints, given what they have endured.)
Then the Cardinals finally gave their fans something to really lament: their 71-91 plunge in the National League Central cellar last season followed by their dreadful 15-24 start this season.
That sustained struggle, unprecedented on DeWitt’s watch, combined with plenty of heat, humidity and rain led to entire sections of the stadium remaining empty on game day.
Do Cardinals fans feel entitled? Sure, but they have earned the right to expect compelling baseball. They have supported their team at crazy levels despite facing higher and higher pricing.
A competitive ballclub in this market size should draw 2 million to 2.5 million fans per year, not 3 million to 3.5 million. The collective commitment level of this fan base astounded industry observers for decades.
Diehard Cardinals fans have seen their team as special, given its extraordinary history and enduring modern success.
Has this franchise taken that fan support for granted? Bill DeWitt Jr. and Bill DeWitt III say all the right things, but folks can’t help wondering if the franchise has been running on autopilot.
Now the franchise must rebuild support. The Cardinals don’t need to take a whole new approach, but the franchise must refresh its familiar M.O. to produce better results.
Running a franchise like a business is fine if its bottom line depends on offering a popular product. That’s the motivation to succeed, something less ambitious operations like the Pirates and Marlins lack.
The perennial playoff contention model is fine, if executed well. Having a good team every year is positive, not negative, even if that goal makes it harder (but not impossible) to stack a team for a particular playoff push.
The draft-and-develop model is also fine, if executed well. The Cardinals have plenty of home-grown position players on the cusp, but they need more pitching, power and speed to flourish in today’s game. Getting more impact talent out of Latin America would be a great place to start.
Lord knows the franchise can afford to bolster its scouting and player development operations and outbid rivals from time to time. Sometimes you must spend money to make money.
For more than two decades, The Cardinal Way of operating delivered consistently good baseball. Now it’s time to resume the usual business — but better.