Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak fields questions and comments on pitching depth, pitching prospects, Yadier Molina’s return, the coaching staff and manager, and more, including an area of interest still in market.
During an on-stage interview Saturday at Ballpark Village, John Mozeliak tried to pump up the thawing crowd of Winter Warm-up fans:
“So, you guys excited about Yadi coming back?â€
There were some applause, sure.
But it wasn’t like he’s coming back to actually play for the Cardinals.
Yadier Molina, the retired legendary catcher, enters 2024 as the Cardinals’ special assistant to the president of baseball operations.
In other words, not everyone knows exactly what that means.
“He's going to be someone that gets his feet wet,†said Mozeliak, the president of baseball operations.
But having Molina around the club leads to the biggest question of them all. It was asked at a news conference earlier Saturday with the media and Mozeliak.
Manager Oli Marmol, coming off a 71-91 season, is in the final year of his contract. Molina has stated his wishes to someday manage in the majors. Is Mozeliak concerned about possible friction?
“Not really, but I can understand why there would be a question,†Mozeliak said. “It could become real, we’ll find out, but I don't think entering into this would make sense to approach it that way. Clearly, I’m a big advocate for Oli, I believe in him, but we also recognize like last year was not good. So we have to make some adjustments. We (need to) do things differently. Hopefully we do it in a successful manner.â€
Mozeliak spoke at the Winter Meetings about Molina’s potential contributions to the 2024 team — including possible time in the dugout during games. On Saturday, Mozeliak said he will meet with Molina after Molina’s managerial season ends in Puerto Rico’s top winter ball league.
“I plan on meeting with him in terms of kind of letting him understand how we think about player acquisitions, how we value players — and just really give him an introduction to that side of the business. Of course, anything you can do to help some of our younger catchers, we're going to welcome it.â€
Asked about interacting with the coaching staff, Mozeliak said: “I think he's going to want to do that a lot. So my guess is his comfort level is going to be more towards that side of things. But we definitely know that we want to work on some of the things that we deal with on the front office side. He wants some exposure to that.â€
Cardinals baseball exec John Mozeliak talks moves, plus more Winter Warm-up videos
Hear from Cardinals executive John Mozeliak and players, who spoke to fans and the press on Saturday at the team's annual Winter Warm-up.