When he spoke to the largest gathering of Cardinals fans toward the end of last year’s last-place season, John Mozeliak walked to the microphone with a joke at the ready to defuse the boos. He mused with a smile that the crowd at Busch Stadium was calling for outfielder Lars Nootbaar and not shouting a more critical chorus that nearly rhymes with “Noooooooot.â€
Less than an hour before he had held his annual town hall with fans at Saturday’s opening of the Winter Warm-up at Ballpark Village’s main stage, Mozeliak was asked what he expected this time, three months and three new starting pitchers removed from a 91-loss summer.
“You think I’m going to get booed?†he said.
It had happened.
“It’s a tough business, right?†said Mozeliak, who is entering his 17th year in charge of the Cardinals’ baseball operations, seeking his 16th winning season at the wheel, and nearing 30 years with the club. “Had a lot of success here. But one bad year, and it’s throw him out. Hopefully, we rebound.â€
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The first chance to introduce the Cardinals faithful to the agents of that rebound came Saturday as new starters Sonny Gray and Kyle Gibson were both introduced to the crowd on the same stage Mozeliak sat during lunchtime. Throughout his comments to the fans and media, Mozeliak stressed the importance of adding “veteran voices†like theirs to a clubhouse that he felt, in hindsight, missed the presence of Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina more than the team “calculated.†At one point, the president of baseball operations stirred the crowd by asking if the fans were excited Molina was back, because, Mozeliak announced, “he is.†Molina will be an adviser and do some coaching.
During 30 minutes with the media, Mozeliak discussed how he viewed reasserting the Cardinals in the coming year as a contender and the final two years on his contract. He outlined the “self-evaluation†for the team and for himself forced by this past season. He said the team sought to add innings and veteran starters like Gray, Gibson, and Lance Lynn, and then did so. He said the Cardinals then wanted to build a better bullpen that could benefit from throwing fewer innings, and they’re still doing so. The Cardinals remain in talks with free-agent, late-inning relievers, multiple sources confirm, and Mozeliak said there is budget space to still add before spring training begins on Valentine’s Day. And then, when he took the stage, to field unvetted comments from fans, he was immediately confronted with … no boos.
Just a question about Steven Matz’s offseason and how to keep the lefty healthy and part of the new-look rotation.
The next question was if they did enough to add 15 to 20 wins and reach the playoffs.
“Why do we think we’re going to be better this year than we were last year?†Mozeliak said. “A couple of things come to mind. I think when you look straight across the board — starting pitching, relief pitching, everyday club — we just did not play very well. The fact is (odd’s makers) thought we were going to be better than we were, right? So, something happened in all of this. …
“We got away from doing the little things,†he continued. “I learned a long time ago, if you don’t do the little things, you’re never going to do big things. We sort of got away from that last year. We’ve got to get back to that. So this offseason, we’ve taken a look in the mirror. We’ve done a lot of self-evaluation on how we can get back to that. That’s really what drives our spring training.â€
The Cardinals reach spring with optimism, Mozeliak stressed, but the nature of multiple contracts also gives them options. Two prominent members of the team, former MVP Paul Goldschmidt and manager Oliver Marmol, start spring with contracts that expire in the fall. Mozeliak said Saturday extension talks with Goldschmidt are likely to wait because “everybody wants to see how this season starts.†Gibson and Lynn are both on one-year deals that include team options, and the recent bullpen addition, former All-Star Andrew Kittredge, is a free agent at season’s end.
The Cardinals have offramps if this year’s road to rebound gets bumpier than imagined or the Regional Sports Network collapse creates a financial pothole on the horizon.
One fan took note of the similar contracts in his question.
Josh Korlin grew up a Cardinals fan and always wanted to attend Winter Warm-up as a kid, but never did, he said. He flew up from Fort Lauderdale this weekend to take his nephew. From the crowd Saturday, he told Mozeliak that he sees an “inflection point†for the team and asked if “we’re not doing well†in the middle of the season how likely is a “total teardown,†one as dramatic as the Astros or Cubs did.
“Wow,†Mozeliak replied.
He took a breath.
Tanking is not something the Cardinals feel their brand or fans could stomach.
“I feel like it’s a very difficult question for us to do or maybe a strategy to actually try because of our fan base,†Mozeliak answered. “When you think about the teams that are willing to do the teardown and start over, they’re willing to basically go dark for a couple of years. I don’t think we’re in a position to do that. Did we leave ourselves a little door by doing the strategic way with those contracts? I suppose you could argue yes. That really wasn’t why we did it.
“I don’t think we see ourselves in a position where we want to hit the reset button,†he continued. “Even if we were to struggle this year.â€
But what’s at stake this year came through in other answers.
Mozeliak and ownership have consistently said their spending this winter was not influenced by the uncertainty caused by broadcast partner Bally Sports Midwest’s parent company going into bankruptcy. But beyond this year? That is an unknown. And that emphasizes the Cardinals’ need to stoke and maintain ticket sales. The surest way they know how to do that is just win, baby. Mozeliak said it’s the 3-million-ticket-strong support of the fans that allows the Cardinals to “punch a little bit above our weight.†If winning lags again, so could that revenue.
“For us, we kind of went into this year knowing we have to rebound so we weren’t going to look at ways to try to penalize on the operational side,†Mozeliak said. “(The RSN situation) hasn’t had a real adverse effect on us. But it could down the road if we don’t right this ship.â€
From the main stage Saturday to mainstream conversation this winter, the free-agent starters are the most overt example of how the Cardinals’ addressed last year’s failings. Beyond those headlines, the Cardinals also expanded manager Oliver Marmol’s staff and recently formalized the addition of Chaim Bloom as an adviser in the front office. A baseball operations leader for both Boston and Tampa Bay, Bloom already had input on some of the Cardinals’ moves, including the recent trade for Kittredge.
Mozeliak said it was important to add an outside voice to inform where the Cardinals stand out or are a step behind in the industry, and he acknowledged that at some point a “different voice†would make “a lot of sense†in his role. For the past 16 years, he has been the most visible spokesman for the team, and he said he does not expect that to change because “I don’t want to sound like a control freak, but I do think that messaging and how you position things is critical to a successful franchise.â€
He spoke later about messaging and what last year taught him.
“There’s probably a little arrogance when you do something as long as I’ve done it, and approaching it in that way is not helpful,†Mozeliak said. “You have to have a little sense of humility on what can happen. Realizing that it’s hard to keep everyone happy but still trying to be true to how we make decisions and why we make decisions. Have we decided to tinker a little bit on how we make decisions? Yes. Because clearly what we did last year didn’t work. That’s part of it. On a personal level, it’s understanding mistakes do happen.â€
While Cardinals broadcast Polo Ascencio hosted Mozeliak’s talk with the fans at Ballpark Village, televisions showed events elsewhere on the team’s campus. There was David Freese, the player acquired in 2007 as part of Mozeliak’s first trade as leader of baseball operations, signing autographs. Nearby was David Eckstein, the shortstop Mozeliak once helped sign in 2004 by triangulating phone calls between Hawaii and the Caribbean to make it happen. The Davids are the team’s past two World Series MVPs. It’s been 12 years since the last one. And NL goliaths are only getting better.
The penultimate question from a fan Saturday asked Mozeliak to predict a win total for the 2024 Cardinals. He declined to pick a specific number.
He did something more, something he rarely does.
He said what he thinks they should win.
And he didn’t stop at the division title.
“I expect us to be a good team,†Mozeliak told the crowd. “Expectations are high. We want to get to October. We want to have a run in October. And our goal is to win it.â€
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