ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Cardinals have trimmed their staff by more than two dozen employees, a decision made as the franchise grapples with the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That includes about a dozen employees who were part of the team's business operations, Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III told the Business Journal.
“That covers a lot of different departments, but mostly in the sales and servicing and operations areas, which have been very quiet because of what’s going on,” DeWitt said.
The impacted employees will be paid through October and have severance packages that provide compensation through at least the end of 2020, DeWitt said. The Cardinals have also trimmed staff for on-field operations. President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak told reporters Friday the team has decided not to renew the contracts of several minor league coaches and instructors.
That decision involves around a dozen minor league coaches, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. The cuts in on-field staff stem in part from the Cardinals expectation to lose two of their minor league affiliate clubs as part of an anticipated cut in overall number of Minor League Baseball teams.
The Cardinals drop in headcount comes as the team and Major League Baseball deal with steep financial losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The league reduced its 2020 season to 60 games and has staged contests without fans. That’s led several clubs to institute a combination of pay cuts, furloughs and layoffs.
“We hadn’t done any of that to this point,” DeWitt said. “Obviously, this is not something we ever wanted to do, but as we look ahead to 2021, our business is just so different. We’ve got some major challenges. Obviously the revenue streams are hugely curtailed and a lot of the expenses remain. We’re really trying to position ourselves to be able to weather the storm and look to be sort of nimble and flexible for next year,” he said.
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