Cardinals hand out first major-league contract of the winter after Tony Clark says MLBPA is paying 'attention'

The Cardinals waited until two weeks before Opening Day to sign a major-league deal this offseason

The St. Louis Cardinals are on the board. The Cardinals signed righty reliever Phil Maton to a one-year contract on Thursday, the team announced. Maton is the first free agent St. Louis has signed to a major-league contract all offseason. They were the last team to give out a major-league deal. Maton, 31, had a 3.66 ERA for the Tampa Bay Rays and New York Mets in 2024.

Coincidentally -- or perhaps not -- the Maton signing came soon after MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said the union is paying attention to teams that cut their spending, like the Cardinals. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

"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," union chief Tony Clark said Wednesday when asked by the Post-Dispatch if the Cardinals' lack of spending caused any alarm.

"We pay attention to it. We pay attention to it."

The Cardinals are projected to open the season with a $144.3 million payroll, according to Cot's Baseball Contracts. That's down from a franchise-record $178.3 million in 2024. That $144.3 million payroll would be team's lowest in a non-pandemic season since 2015. St. Louis spent much of the winter trying to trade Nolan Arenado and as much of the $64 million they owe him as possible too, but have so far failed to do so.

The Cardinals took a hit to their local television revenue during the Diamond Sports Group/Bally Sports bankruptcy, and attendance dipped to 2,878,115 last year. It was the first time the Cardinals drew fewer than 3,000,000 fans in a non-pandemic season since 1997, eight years before they moved into the current iteration of Busch Stadium. Two key revenue streams took a hit in 2024.

"Disappointing when the industry is growing and yet less and less teams appear to be interested in being the last team standing," Clark told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "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."

Despite the uncertainty with local television revenue league-wide, MLB's revenues hit a record $12.1 million in 2024. The revenue-sharing system, which in essence takes money from big-market teams and gives it to small-market teams, ensures no team is ever truly broke. Whether teams spend that money is another matter, and a point of contention among the owners.