The forecast for this weekend calls for a warm front of fans rolling into downtown Ƶ, flurries of autographs, scattered interactions with Cardinals players, Cardinals greats, and Cardinals executives, and the first chance this year for the club to take the temp of its faithful.
The clouds from a losing, last-place season loomed over their offseason, giving the Cardinals all winter to distance themselves and their roster from a misspent summer and try to provide fans a sunnier outlook for the coming spring.
Or, is that the chill in the air?
“I think it’s a whole lot of things before it’s a litmus test, but I will grant you that it kind of is a little bit of one,” club president Bill DeWitt III said this past week in his office. “This doesn’t feel like a year that can’t be fixed at this point. I think (John Mozeliak) has that attitude, the baseball guys have that attitude, and we’re taking that attitude from an ownership and management standpoint. Everybody is entitled to a bad year now and again. We just had ours. Now, if we have another bad year, OK, yeah, that starts to feel like a trend.”
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The 27th annual Winter Warm-up to benefit Cardinals Care begins Saturday and concludes Monday. For the second time the Cardinals are hosting the event at Busch Stadium and Ballpark Village, and for the first time in 15 years they’re coming off a losing season. It has been a decade since their most recent NL pennant, almost 13 since their newest World Series trophy. Most of the children on a $25 weekend pass weren’t born the last time the Cardinals finished below .500. The Warm-up did not exist the most recent time the club finished in last place.
The Cardinals are trying to avoid back-to-back losing years with a full season of games since 1958 and 1959, back when Stan Musial covered first base.
And that’s not the only storm overhead.
The unraveling of the Regional Sports Network (RSN) model will buffet professional sports all year, possibly giving fans uncertain access to their teams before a better structure emerges and definitely reducing the revenue jackpot teams have counted on until new faucets open. DeWitt called it “a huge story on the business side for teams, not just the Cardinals, but the whole industry.” There is localized turbulence, too. The Cardinals’ most significant offseason spending was accomplished before Thanksgiving, and in the lull since NL rivals like the Dodgers and recently the Cubs flexed financially with moves. Planned construction on a new and needed spring training facility has been delayed in Florida. There are the team’s ongoing efforts to legalize sports betting in Missouri while big-league rivals benefit from it elsewhere. And, internally, the Cardinals are expecting last year’s results to slow ticket sales.
At his Busch Stadium office this week, DeWitt repeated the team’s pledge that “payroll is going up” while “revenue is challenged.” He was asked then if investing more in the team and its performance could invigorate sales — essentially, pay now for the payoff of support during the season.
“One hundred percent. Yes. There is a bet in that, too,” DeWitt said. “There is a bet in that commitment, embedded into that commitment. Teams get into trouble when they defiantly challenge the sentiment of their fans. If fans are not happy, it is not our job to tell them they’re unhappy for the wrong reasons. Our job is to put a better product on the field.
“That’s such a critical success factor for us,” he added. “It’s a big year to get back to where we’ve been.”
The Warm-up gives the Cardinals a chance to introduce (or re-introduce) their additions. Sonny Gray, the centerpiece of the Cardinals’ offseason moves and runnerup for the American League Cy Young Award, will be introduced on the main stage at Ballpark Village at 3:15 p.m. Saturday. Tickets for his autograph cost $50 and sold out swiftly. (All proceeds from the tickets go to the Cardinals’ charitable arm, Cardinals Care.) Tickets are still available at $30 for the other two free-agent starters acquired this offseason, Kyle Gibson on Saturday and Lance Lynn in his return to Ƶ on Monday.
The Cardinals added reliever Andrew Kittredge via trade this past week, and they remain in talks with a handful of free-agent relievers. They intend to sign one more. Their current projected opening-day, 26-man payroll is close to $170 million. Adding another reliever would put it ahead instead of near where the Cardinals opened a year ago, at $168 million, per Post-Dispatch research.
“Our biggest weakness was pitching,” DeWitt said. “When you look at the draft in the summer, when you look at the trade deadline and all these trades, and when you look at the free agent signings — we have a whole stable of arms. We’ve done a million things to address the pitching problem, and we’re talking about still adding a bullpen arm, too. There is very much an intention to get back to our competitive ways.”
There will be an early barometer of fans attending the Warm-up.
On Saturday morning at 11:20, Mozeliak, president of baseball operations, will be on the main stage for his annual meeting with fans, and he’ll field unfiltered questions from the audience. Expect payroll and high-priced deals for pitchers like Yoshinobu Yamamoto to be topics. On Sunday, other members of the front office, including general manager Michael Girsch and assistant general manager Randy Flores, will participate in a main-stage “Talking Baseball” panel. DeWitt and his father, chairman Bill DeWitt Jr., follow at 9:30 a.m. Sunday, and that afternoon manager Oliver Marmol will be interviewed on the main stage at 12:30.
All of the events on the main stage at Ballpark Village will be broadcast live at Busch Stadium, allowing fans in line there for autographs to not miss a question.
Or a comment.
Relocating the Winter Warm-up from a downtown hotel to the ballpark campus has brought fans closer and into the Cardinals’ home. (“It feels like where it should be,” DeWitt said.) A weekend adult ticket costs $50, and daily tickets range from $30-$35 for adults and $15 for children. All tickets include access to the team’s Hall of Fame and a tour of the home clubhouse. The route of the tour makes it possible to hear players in the batting cages if some choose to work out. This year, for the first time, the visitors’ clubhouse will be used as a venue for presentations and panel discussions. The UMB Champions Club at the ballpark will also be used this year as an autograph signing station. The team encourages fans to get in line only when their ticket numbers are called to avoid long waits and congestion.
The weekend launched with the Cardinals Caravan and over the weekend, former and current players will make 20 stops in six different states.
As of Friday, the Cardinals had not made any changes to the schedule due to potential inclement weather. Moving from Busch Stadium to Ballpark Village for signings and events will require being outside, but all areas with activities will be heated, a team official said.
The weekend also includes the 64th annual Ƶ Baseball Writers’ Dinner, held Sunday night at downtown’s Missouri Athletic Club. Adam Wainwright will be honored for his 200th win and stellar career, and catcher Willson Contreras will receive the Ƶ Baseball Person of the Year Award for how he performed and handled his first season with the Cardinals. The commissioner’s office will receive the Branch Rickey Award for innovation. Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa is this year’s recipient of the Red Schoendienst Medal for a lifetime commitment to the game.
The evening begins with a sold-out, pre-dinner event featuring a conversation with outfielder Jordan Walker and shortstop Masyn Winn, two 2020 draft picks and two of the top young talents the Cardinals have had in years.
Perhaps that’s another gauge of the fan base — the future.
A look Friday afternoon at the autograph tickets that are already sold out and a projected lineup emerges from the young players and prospects with signatures in demand: Lars Nootbaar, Nolan Gorman, Brendan Donovan, Walker, Winn, and then three prospects who have yet to reach the majors in Tink Hence, Thomas Saggese and Victor Scott II. All sold out. That’s a mix of the collectors coming for a future investment and fans doing, well, the same. A first look at future players has become a fixture of the Warm-up and part of its goal.
The first sign of spring and the thaw.
“We’re going to have good crowds, we’ve sold a lot of tickets for the Warm-up, and I think it’s more a celebration of baseball in the dark days of January, and obviously there’s a huge charitable component to it,” DeWitt said. “It feels like the writers’ dinner is always a way of putting that final cherry on top of the season. You celebrate the achievements and now pitchers and catchers are only weeks away. Coming off a bad season and what does it mean?
“I think it means it’s a way for us to turn the page.”