Winning the World Series isn't worth what it once was to the Cardinals.
Five years after setting a record for the largest individual postseason payouts to the World Series champs, the Cardinals learned Monday that a full playoff share will be worth $323,170. The award is up from last year's $317,631 for the San Francisco Giants but off the $362,173 that individual Cardinals received after the 2006 World Series, which remains the highest share value for baseball.
Major League Baseball announced Monday that the players' purse for the postseason was $57.3 million. The Cardinals received $20.6 million of that total and divided it into 51 full shares, 11.962 in partial shares and eight cash awards. The total take for the Cardinals was larger than the $20 million in 2006, but the team elected this season to divvy it up to more people, including three more full shares.
During a players-only meeting, the team decides who receives full shares and how to distribute partial shares and cash rewards.
This year's team elected to award full shares to any player who appeared on an active roster at any time during the postseason, Cardinals players familiar with the meeting confirmed. That meant rookies Adron Chambers and Lance Lynn, who made a pro-rated minimum during their regular-season time in the majors, received full playoff shares that significantly supplemented their salaries. Coaches also received full shares, in some cases tripling their salaries for 2011.
Full shares also went to select members of the support staff.
For players such as Colby Rasmus, Trever Miller and Ryan Franklin, who spent part of the season with the club before being traded or released, the players decided to award partial shares. Each player received a pro-rated amount based on the time they spent with the team. The same measure was used to determine the amount awarded minor leaguers who contributed to the team during the regular season but did not appear in the postseason.
All of the players who appeared in uniform for at least a game this season will receive World Series championship rings, team president Bill DeWitt III said.
DeWitt said Monday that the team is still finalizing the ring list. That would include the host of minor-leaguers who made their big-league debuts during the summer but were not with the team at the end. The Cardinals did the same for players in 2006.
"They have a way that you can fractionalize the (playoff shares)," DeWitt said. "You can't fractionalize a ring."
The players' pool is determined by 60 percent of the gate receipts from the first three games of the four division series and 60 percent of the gate receipts from the first four games of the two league championship series and the World Series. Twelve teams receive a cut of the total purse — the eight playoffs teams and the four second-place teams that did not qualify as wild cards.
A year ago, the players' purse was $54.9 million, according to the commissioner's office. The record was set in 2009, when the players split $59.1 million. In 2006, the players had $55.6 million to split, a record at the time because it was up from $40.8 million in 2005.
The Texas Rangers, who lost the World Series to the Cardinals in seven games, split their total take into 47 full shares, 6.5 partial shares and 19 cash awards. A full share for the Rangers was worth $251,516. That was up from the Rangers' losing share in 2010 of $246,280. In 2006, the Detroit Tigers, who lost to the Cardinals in five games, received full shares worth $291,668.
