JUPITER, Fla. — In seven days, the St. Louis Cardinals will take on the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium, kicking off what is arguably the most critical season in John Mozeliak’s 17-year tenure atop the Cardinals’ baseball operations department. This will mark the first bounce-back attempt of Mozeliak’s decorated career. After last year’s abysmal and embarrassing 71-91 performance — which resulted in a last-place finish and the first 90-plus-loss season for the Cardinals in 30 years — Mozeliak is eager to put the first losing season of his tenure behind him and restore winning baseball in St. Louis.
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Easier said than done.
The Cardinals have not won a playoff series since 2019. They have lost nine of their last 10 playoff games. It has been 11 years since they last appeared in a World Series, 13 since they last won one. Mozeliak, who is under contract as the Cardinals president of baseball operations through the 2025 season, is feeling considerable pressure after last season’s debacle. Already the season is off to an unideal start.
St. Louis will be without at least two key players in Tommy Edman (right wrist) and Keynan Middleton (forearm strain) to start the season. Lars Nootbaar’s path to be cleared from two rib fractures for Opening Day looks murky at best, and top offseason acquisition Sonny Gray (hamstring strain) will not be able to make his scheduled Opening Day start but could avoid an injured list stint depending on the progress made over the remaining days of camp.
Manager Oli Marmol landed a two-year contract extension last week, answering at least one major question about the organization, but plenty more remain.
In an interview from his office at the Cardinals’ spring training complex, Mozeliak addressed many of those questions, ranging from Opening Day roster decisions to what he learned from the 2023 season and the pressure he feels to field a winning ballclub this year.
Note: Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.
You’re going to be down some key players come Opening Day. What are the remaining questions you feel you need to address pertaining to the Opening Day roster?
I still think it’s trying to identify who the names are that we’ll carry. Obviously, the decision of if we’re going to (place) Sonny Gray on the IL or not is going to be pivotal to what else could happen. On the pitching front, I think we probably have a pretty good understanding of what that will look like at this point, but we just have to let a few things play out.
On the position player side, I think the key thing is what do we want to do in center field? That’s the big question. Over the next few days, we’ll try to work through that.
What’s the biggest factor in placing Gray on the injured list to start the season?
The main question for him is what’s best for him and the team long term. A lot of times when you break from spring training, you’re so focused on short view and getting off to a great start, but it’s a long season. I think the most important way to look at this is what’s going to be best for him so we don’t have a setback or find ourselves in a position where he’s having to go short and it’s not helpful to the rest of the bullpen or staff. I think we really have to understand what all those options look like. I certainly know where I’m leaning, but I do want to see where others are on that topic.
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Gray is slated to throw a minor-league game on Friday. Your decision is contingent on how he comes out of that, correct? Is there a scenario in which, even with him missing Opening Day, he’s clear to pitch either later in the first road trip or the home opener (on April 4 against the Miami Marlins)?
All of those things are on the table, but so is the IL. It’s hard for me to answer that until we see how he pitches and recovers over the next couple of days and really just how he feels day to day. But really the overarching theme for me is what’s in the best interest of him long term.
Center field has been a popular topic this spring. What are you looking for as you construct your outfield, as you’ll be without Tommy Edman and potentially Lars Nootbaar to start the year?
Right. First off, when you look at how (Alec) Burleson and (Dylan) Carlson have played, that’s good to see. And obviously, you have an emerging young player (Victor Scott II). That’s certainly exciting. I don’t think Nootbaar will be out that long, so there’s that component, and we are continuing to get encouraging news on Tommy, but I still don’t know if we’ll be without him two weeks, three weeks yet, so that’s a bit of unknown. But again, I don’t feel like you need to panic just simply for Opening Day or the opening road series. We’re going to get players back.
Are you prioritizing offense, defense or finding an ideal combination of both when configuring the outfield?
Both. There’s a way you can set up your outfield for the offensive look early in the game, and then you can switch to a more defensive-minded look late in the game, or you can have a hybrid of that throughout. I feel like the good news is we have a lot of guys that can do other things. (Brendan) Donovan is someone that can play the outfield if necessary. Michael Siani is a very good defensive outfielder. I do think there are pieces where we can structure some things that give us a little bit more flexibility than maybe we feel we have at the moment.
Michael Siani, who has impressed the #STLCards coaches and font office with his elite defensive skills, shows off his tracking abilities.
Siani got a great jump and covered 95 feet to haul in this 102.5 mph bullet off the bat of #Marlins CF Jazz Chisholm Jr. Siani later doubled. pic.twitter.com/WO4dZJeSu5
— John Denton (@JohnDenton555) March 15, 2024
Let’s shift to a little about you. What did you learn most about yourself after the 2023 season?
Well, I think there was a lot of humility, really. In the type of sense where you have the type of success we’ve had — even during some difficult times prior to last season, there were ways we could make fixes, and we felt like there was always some sort of solution. Last year, no matter what we tried, it just never really got working. So you know, you look in the mirror, you realize it’s not always going to be perfect, and hopefully you grow from it.
How difficult was that? Last year was the first time this organization had truly lost in your tenure. What was that like?
Frustrating. Disappointing. I think I speak for everybody, it certainly wasn’t how we planned it. But when you peel back the onion and look back at what really went wrong, you realize it was sort of a collection of everything. When you see something like that, you can say that it’s random, and it’s going to happen from time to time. And if it happens once every 15 years, I think that’d be pretty good. With what we were able to accomplish this offseason, hopefully the vibe of this group is different than it was a year ago. And I think when you look at the overall roster with this veteran presence versus last year, when we went with a much more younger approach, we can strike that balance that gets us back to winning.
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How will what you, Bill DeWitt Jr. and Oli Marmol learned in 2023 make this organization better this year?
I think a couple of things. One thing for me is that when you’re trying to create opportunity for younger players to get their chance, you have to do that with the right balance of what is already on your roster. I think last year was slightly flawed in that regard, and that’s certainly on me.
We all understand the game is changing. There is a rush to get drafted players up quicker, but there is some levels of patience you always have to remind yourself of because trying to develop in the big leagues is doable but much more difficult.
If we’re operating under the pretenses of returning to the postseason as winning, how much pressure are you under to win this season?
It’s important. Obviously, my relationship with this ownership group is very solid, but expectations are high. I get it. We need to get back to where we once were. Hopefully, the moves we’ve done — and certainly there are things that can also happen within a season in terms of decision-making — can touch the right buttons and we can make it work.
Do you feel like you, Oli and this team will face pressure to win early, especially given how last April went?
I could see how that might be a narrative, but I don’t know if that’s fair. I mean, probably the most successful team I was ever a part of was 2004, and they were basically .500 in mid-May and then ended up winning 105 games. There is still time to do some things, but there are telltale signs as to if things are going directionally right or not. A lot of that will depend on what we look like health-wise.
There are factors that aren’t in your favor to start the year. You’ll be without a few key players, and your April schedule, both opponent-wise and travel-wise, is pretty rigorous. Do you think that will intensify internal pressure to win? Can you see a snowball effect like last April happening again?
I think you’re asking me if I’m going to let outside pressures dictate how we make decisions or how we operate this business. And that answer is going to be no. That’s such a slippery slope. My biggest pressure is making sure this ownership group is happy and making sure our fans feel good about what they’re seeing. If things get off to a slow start, we’ll make adjustments to go from there.
We’ve talked about baseball for 45 straight days. We talked about baseball before we even got here (to spring training). Now it’s just time to play baseball.
(Top photo: Jeff Curry / USA Today)