With the Cardinals sitting out another postseason, it’s interesting to see what’s happening with some of the playoff teams.
Milwaukee Brewers: still winning, still impressing, still outsmarting the big clubs, still doing it on a low-budget payroll, still thriving in MLB’s smallest market. The Brewers also continue to confuse the very silly people who think payroll is everything and are wholly incapable of understanding the importance of front-office intelligence in putting together a contending team and creating sustained success. The folks who pop off about how the Brewers haven’t had much postseason success evidently forget that Tony La Russa didn’t win a NL pennant until his ninth season as Cardinals manager. The people who savage the Cardinals for failing to make the playoffs in three straight years are the same people who refuse to give much if any credit to the Brewers for competing in seven of the last eight seasons.
Chicago Cubs: still overhyped, still losing, still coming up short, still waiting for next year, still a big-market fraud that’s won six postseason games in the aftermath of winning the World Series trophy in 2016. The Cubs are 3-10 in their last 13 postseason games and haven’t scored more than 3 runs in any of them. Cubs fans have completely turned on their $40 million manager, Craig Counsell. The Cubs trail the Brewers 2-0 in their best-of-five NL division series. Wait a minute! That can’t be right! The Cubs are outspending the Crew by $90 million in payroll. We all know that you need a large payroll to win! Actually, no, some of us realize that a big payroll can be helpful but it isn’t everything. The Brewers have been embarrassing the Cardinals and Cubs for years.
Philadelphia Phillies: the window for winning a World Series is closing … closing fast. The fantastic Philly sports fans are booing Kyle Schwarber and razzing Bryce Harper and other players. And it’s gotten so ugly with manager Rob Thomson, we can only hope that he doesn’t end up like “The Chicken Man” in the Springsteen song, Atlantic City. After failing to make the postseason for 10 straight years, the Phillies loaded up their payroll in the usual “all-in” expedition for a World Series title. They got close – losing the 2022 World Series to the Astros. Even though the Phillies are competing in their fourth straight postseason, time is running out because the Dodgers lead them 2-0 in the best-of-five NLDS as the teams relocate to Los Angeles. The Phillies are gone as soon as the Dodgers win another game. Over the last four seasons the Phillies have tried to buy themselves the trophy by spending nearly $1.1 billion in payroll. The Phillies are 2-9 in their last 11 postseason games. It was a helluva lot of fun while it lasted.
New York Mets: I’m putting them in here because they choked late in the season and didn't make the playoffs. That’s quite a story. Since Money Daddy Steve Cohen purchased the Mets before the 2021 season, they’ve missed making it to the postseason three times in five seasons. Wait. That can’t be correct. Isn’t Cohen one of the world’s richest men? Isn’t he a lifelong Mets fan who will spend, spend, spend, spend to get what he wants? Well, yes, Cohen loves to spend money on his Mets, so that makes him a fantasy owner … a perfect owner … because winning is all about the money. In Cohen’s five seasons (2021-2025) the Mets have invested $1.47 billion in payroll. Their annual payroll ranking over the five seasons has been No. 1 three times and no lower than third.
The Los Angeles Dodgers: they’re from another planet financially. They spend so much money, and their revenue flow is as deep as The Congo River. And no matter how many times some Dodger payroll decisions blow up, there’s always enough talent to compensate for their mistakes.
New York Yankees: they haven’t won a World Series since 2009 and won’t win it in 2025. Since winning the ‘09 series the Yankees have ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in payroll 14 times. Oh well, can’t win it every year. There are many, many piles of Steinbrenner money there to be wasted, so keep trying, you feisty Yankee underdogs. Since the Yanks won that 2009 World Series, seven teams have captured more league pennants than New York: Astros 4, Dodgers 4, Rangers 3, Giants 3, Red Sox 2, Royals 2, Cardinals 2.
Toronto Blue Jays: won two World Series in the early 1990s, failed to make the playoffs for 20 straight seasons, tried to go through a couple of half-hearted rebuilds, got serious about rebuilding – and here the Jays are with their best chance of getting back to the World Series for the first time since 1993. Toronto currently leads the Yanks 2-0 in their best-of-five ALDS.
Seattle Mariners: By beating the Tigers on Sunday night in Game 2 of their ALDS matchup, the Mariners won their first postseason game at home since the 2021 postseason. The Mariners have been a middle-pack payroll spender for a long time, and they’re back in the hunt because of power pitching and power hitting. That seems like a smart way to go for a team that plans on conservative spending. The Mariners ranked 15th in payroll this season.
Detroit Tigers: they won the World Series in 1984, then missed making the playoffs 20 times over the next 21 seasons until reaching the World Series and losing to the Cardinals in 2006. The Tigers weren’t serious about rebuilding but finally got after it around 10 years ago. The rebuild took too long, and didn’t have to last as long as it did. But better baseball leadership has keyed a turnaround, the Tigers will stay in the hunt for several more seasons, at least. This is not a big-spending club, but the Tigers have finally figured out the “getting smarter” aspect of rebuilding.
Let’s circle back and come home to the NL Central, which had three teams make this year’s tournament (Brewers, Cubs and Reds.)
I’ll leave the Reds out of the decision for now other than to say there’s a lot of young talent in Cincinnati, and this team could develop into something special. The 2026 season will be an interesting experience for the Reds.
The Cardinals have to catch the Reds, the Cubs and the Brewers while holding off the Pirates … and they’ll do it while cycling through a rebuilding mission.
But even though the NL Central is improving collectively, it’s a good place to be for a rebuilding team. Because while the Cardinals had a much lower payroll this season, their spending power will increase over time. But in 2025, the Cardinals outspent the Brewers and the Reds, two playoff-bound teams. So while spending should be down during the St. Louis rebuild, the Cardinals should probably be more competitive than we assume.
If Chaim Bloom makes some low-key but really effective moves the Cardinals can compete sooner than expected with the rebuild still in progress. And he has a great model to follow in the Brewers.
From 2017 through 2025, the Brewers had an average payroll ranking of 21st. The Cardinals’ annual payroll average over the last nine seasons ranked 12.4. The Cubs’ average payroll ranking over the last nine seasons is 7.5.
Since the start of the 2017 season, the Cubs have outspent the Brewers by $642 million in payroll; with the Cardinals the payroll gap is $362 million over the last nine years and $300 million over the last seasons. But despite investing a lot less in talent than St. Louis or Chicago, the Brewers have dominated the NL Central.
Milwaukee’s winning formula includes drafting, developing, the international talent market, astute roster construction, resourcefulness in accumulating and enhancing pitchers. Effectively finding low-cost, high-value players to sign. Snatching up good players that other teams overlook. Confidently identifying ways to salvage and fix players or pitchers who flopped elsewhere.
And then there’s an offensive philosophy that features the versatility to score runs in any number of ways including speed, athleticism, slugging, lots of doubles, timely hitting, situational hitting, plate discipline, stealing bases, rolling up a league-leading total of infield hits. There’s a smart approach to two-strike hitting, playing small ball and rolling up productive outs to move runners up and create scoring opportunities.
No one on the outside can possibly comprehend how the Brewers have pulled this off … especially after manager Craig Counsell defected to the Cubs on a five-year contract that’s paying him $8 million per year. But because of his background, Bloom has a better understanding of the Milwaukee Model. I can only hope that he can do the same here.
Despite being at a disadvantage to the Cubs and Cardinals in payroll strength, the Brewers have made the playoffs more times than their two rivals. They’ve won more division titles than the Cubs and Cardinals. Since 2017, the Brewers have the NL’s second-best winning percentage to the Dodgers. The Brewers have 10 postseason wins since 2018; over that time the Cards-Cubs have combined for only six postseason victories.
Bloom is familiar with the Brewers and Matt Arnold, who runs the baseball department. Some of Bloom’s associates during his years in Tampa Bay now work for the Brewers. So Bloom doesn’t have to be told anything about the high level of intelligence in the Milwaukee baseball ops department.
Tuesday on KMOX, I asked Bloom about Milwaukee and if the Brewers are a team to emulate. Bloom delivered a thoughtful answer that resonated with me. Here is what he said in full:
“I mean, you look at the Brewers as an example of the way you wanna go, not step for step, but just in terms of general team building,” Bloom told me. “Yeah, how can you not? They're operating at a really high level, and you should always look at your competition.
“Like you said, you never wanna copy the competition, and for that matter, I don't wanna copy the places I've been, even if I'm proud of what we did there, because every organization is different, and all that trying-to-copy guarantees is two things.
“One, you're probably gonna be behind because they're still moving forward, and two, you're basically wearing somebody else's clothes, and they're not gonna look quite as good on you as they did on the person who actually owns them.
“You gotta find your own way, but at the same time, understanding best practices, learning from the game, learning from the competition is really important, and they've done some really good things there.
“There are people that have come out of that organization that I've worked with since they were in that organization. Matt (Arnold) and I were together with the Rays for a number of years. (I have) a lot of respect for a lot of the people there.
“There are some things that I know they've done, systematizing development in some of the ways that I've talked about that they were on earlier, really able to build replicable processes, especially in their pitching development.
“They've done some amazing things in the international market. They do a lot of things up and down their organization where they are just winning on the margins everywhere.
“Sometimes when you say that, people say, okay, great, winning on the margins is good, but what about the big stuff? Well, I don't think it has to be an either or – and we should try to dominate every area that we can. Those little things add up, just like little things add up over the course of 162 games. It's no different.
“So much of what seems like revolutionary steps in this game are really just the result of just getting after it day after day and moving the ball every day, finding little things to get better at.
“They've done an amazing job of that. I hope, obviously, we can take some things from them, as we should from all of our competition, but also that we find the best way to do it here …It's been a big part of how I've wanted to set this up.”
Bloom branched off in another direction, talking about how it’s important for the Cardinals to do things their way – and not just follow another team’s script, page by page. He will continue to bring in baseball analysts, front-office types, scouts and others who excel at processing information. This won't happen right away -- but it will happen soon enough.
“Look, we have amazing people in this organization. I wasn't surprised to find that because I know the success that the organization has had and the respect that the organization carries in the industry.
“My hope is that by bringing in some new perspectives, fresh voices, and if there are people that have the right values, that everybody comes together, collaborates to build something that's better than what any of us has experienced individually.”
Thanks for reading …
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STLSportsCentral, catch him weekdays on the “Gashouse Gang” or “Redbird Rush Hour” on KMOX, and Bernie does a weekly “Seeing Red” podcast on the Cardinals with his longtime pal Will Leitch. Bernie joins Katie Woo on the “Cardinal Territory” video-podcast each week, and you can catch a weekly “reunion” segment here at STL Sports with Bernie’s appearance on the Randy Karraker Show every Friday morning at 10:30 am.