Very very very good column by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post Dispatch on what might be included in the Matt Holiday contract and on contracts of similar make-up.  Goold points to a conversation with a St. Louis Blues players earlier in his career when the player tried to make the argument that the team was paying him for his previous production, not for his current- and of course that is not true.  The team is paying the player based on the idea that his previous production will continue within reason.

The interesting thing that Goold points out for me, is that how hard Holiday has been to evaluate, both for scouts and for stats mongers.  Is Holliday truly as good as this contract suggests?  Only time will tell.  But the other question that Goold does not present is how much better does he make Pujols by being in the same line-up and how much easier (though more expensive)  is it now to sign Pujols?

Those are intangibles of this deal that no one has mentioned.

The other thing that I haven’t seen written is how do the Cardinals, who once always seemed to have a very tight budget now suddenly have a ton of money to spend?  Their stadium clearly makes them a ton of money, much more than the Busch Stadium that came before.  The increase from the Suites alone must pay for Holiday.  But, once they also resign Pujols, will they be able to cry poor to their fans ever again?  Doubtful.  The game has changed in St. Louis and in the NL Central.  The Cardinals could very well be the new Yankees- in a very unexpected way.  Especially with the Dodgers in financial turmoil, look for the Cardinals to run away with the NL.  That of course is assuming that these big paydays really aren’t eating up all the money available. I am doubtful that they are though, since Jon Mozeliak and many of his team come from business backgrounds- they know it can only hurt you to over pay for one player if you can’t fill the sports around him.  There is nothing Jim Hendry of the Cubs can do now.  The Cardinals have turned the corner.