DeWitt said there is flexibility to add a core player, and the club’s business model has been to harvest players from the system with an emphasis on retaining premium talent before a player reaches free agency. Internal spending has been the rule.

There is room, however, to make a move outside the organization, if appealing, as they did last winter by signing Peralta.

“That’s potentially the case,” DeWitt said. “As we look into the future the (salaries) will grow organically, internally. Having said that, we would have the capacity for an additional core player or players depending on their quality, their compensation, and our need.”

The deepest point of the upcoming free agent market is pitching, where St. Louis native Max Scherzer and solid veteran James Shields will be available. DeWitt insisted that the team does not have a rule about the length of contracts that can be offered pitchers. He pointed to the five-year extension for Wainwright that was signed in 2013 but started in 2014 as a willingness to offer a pitcher six years guaranteed. He agreed that a lot of that stemmed from Wainwright already being in the organization, as its ace.