Cardinals Fans Keep Smiling, Blame Mozeliak
John Mozeliak stepped down as the Cardinals’ president of baseball operations after the 2025 season.
Sorry, but I find the vitriol pile-on Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak as he leaves the building to be misbegotten. And in some ways, Mozeliak has only himself to blame. That is, his administration enjoyed too much success before the other shoe dropped.
Sports is nothing if not a “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately” world. For all the “baseball heaven” labeling, all the Cardinals Kool-Aid consumption, all the pampered play by play, St. Louis is not much different than a lot of other American cities with major league sports franchises.
Yes, this is a celestial baseball environment, a pastime paradise … when we’re consistently contending. And for most of Mozeliak’s tenure, that’s exactly what the home team did. They kept it interesting.
But when things go south for an extended period of time … so does all the “sea of red” sap.
That becomes evident when the ballpark features as many ushers seeing people to their seats as there are people looking for their seats. Even Busch Stadium crickets got quiet as the 2025 season reached its unceremonious close.
When you talk to people on the streets of St. Louis - if you can find any people on the streets of downtown St. Louis - that lonesome landscape was all about John Mozeliak. He is Bill Bidwill incarnate, Stan Kroenke in caps, “The Judge” in The Natural, enticing Roy Hobbs to stand down.
But when you compare him to all of those sinister figures, there’s one thing Mozeliak isn’t that all of the others are - he’s not an owner. That’s a rather important distinction.
Now that he has cleared out his desk, the restless insist the clouds have lifted, the age of malaise is over. It’s a whole new ballgame now that Chaim Bloom has the wheel. Happy days are here again, don’t you know.
So how did Mozeliak become Snidley Whiplash in a bow tie? Turns out “the best fans in baseball” have the same short memory as all the other fans in baseball, and all the other fans in all the other sports.
When things go wrong, the wronged go looking for someone to blame. Or, as cartoonist Ashleigh Brilliant once said, “If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame.”
We’re all smiles in St. Louis.
Mozeliak was the Cardinals general manager and president of baseball operations from 2007 to 2025. Over those 18 years, the club made 10 postseason appearances and had a franchise-record 15 consecutive winning seasons (2008-2022). Baseball America named the Cardinals the “Organization of the Year” in 2011 and 2013. During that period, the team won 1,521 games, the most in the National League.
Mozeliak became affectionately known as “Mo” to every media person in town, like he was a friendly bartender at the neighborhood tavern, like he was a favorite uncle, an old college roommate.
Now he is back to being “Mozeliak.”
Research shows that, during 11 seasons of his association with the Cardinals, which included partial seasons in 1980 and ‘90, and a strike-fractured 1981, Whitey Herzog’s teams averaged a tick under 86 wins per 162-game segments, winning three pennants and one World Series. “The Rat” passed away in April, 2024. He remains a revered figure in St. Louis, the charismatic architect of “Whiteyball,” a colorful and definitive piece of the Cardinals’ brand. As he should.
During Mozeliak’s reign, the Cardinals averaged 84.5 wins, won two pennants and one World Series. Yet, many of the faithful speak of him as some kind of infirmity, a ball-and-chain holding the organization down. When he called it quits at the end of this season, their only wish was that the door not hit him in the back on his way out.
Now, don’t start hemorrhaging. I’m not suggesting those two are one in the same. Herzog was not always the general manager during the 1980s, not officially anyway. Mozeliak was never the field manager, not officially anyway. They’re influence and their personalities were not equivalent.
But the correlation makes a point. Not everything Dorrel Norman Elvert Herzog touched turned to gold. In December, 1980, he traded Ted Simmons, Pete Vuckovich and Rollie Fingers to the Milwaukee Brewers for David Green, Sixto Lezcano, Dave LaPoint and Larry Sorenson. Statistically, that has to rank among the worst trades in baseball history.
The following summer, which was strike-shortened 1981, Fingers won the NL Cy Young Award, finishing with a league leading 28 saves and a 1.04 ERA. For his part, Vuckovich won a league-leading 14 games. In ’82, Vuckovich won the Cy Young Award, fashioning an 18-4 record. Meanwhile, Simmons became the cleanup hitter in a power-laded Milwaukee lineup. He had 14 home runs and 61 RBIs in 100 games in ’81, 23 HRs and 97 RBIs in ‘82, .303 with 13 HRs, 39 doubles and 108 RBIs in ’83.
With those three, the Brewers won their AL division in ’81 and ’82 and faced the Cardinals in ’82 World Series, losing in seven games.
On the Cardinals' end, Green did not turn into Roberto Clemente. Lescano and Sorensen were one-season placeholders. LaPoint wound up being the best of the return, winning 34 games over four St. Louis seasons. To be sure, Herzog engineered wonderful deals - Garry Templeton for Ozzie Smith, Bob Sykes for Willie McGee. But he also traded Keith Hernandez for Neil Allen.
That’s how it is. Things don’t always work out for even the best baseball people. Sometimes moves are made because of extenuating circumstances (Hernandez). Sometimes a “can’t miss” prospect” misses (Green). Sometimes injuries or just plain bad luck spoils the broth.
That’s why Bing Devine said, “You have to have the guts to make a deal.” And he knew from experience. Devine famously traded Ernie Broglio for Lou Brock, but he also traded Steve Carlton for Rick Wise. Both took guts.
Mozeliak had smash hits and he had duds. Generally, filling the shortstop position was especially challenging - what with the disaster of Kahlil Green, the disappointment of Ryan Theriot and the flameout of Paul DeJong. There were some head-scratching contracts- DeJong, Matt Carpenter, Dexter Fowler - and some questionable outfield choices - giving up on Randy Arozarena, Adolis Garcia and Lane Thomas, banking on Tyler O’Neill, Harrison Bader and Lars Nootbar.
There’s certainly criticism to be had there.
But the ledger goes back farther. Mozeliak moves were essential to the 2011 world championship. He signed 35-year old Lance Berkman and got a summer of .301, 31 homers, and 94 RBIs. Berkman then batted .423 in the postseason and played a pivotal World Series role in sensational Game 6. Speaking of Game 6, Mozeliak also traded a fading Jim Edmonds in December, 2007 to get Game 6 hero David Freese.
In late July of 2011, Mozeliak addressed a pitching shortage by trading Colby Rasmus for Edwin Jackson, Marc Rzepczynski, Octavio Dotel (and Corey Patterson). Those three arms helped get the Cardinals over the pennant-chasing hump.
Mozeliak also secured players like Matt Holliday, Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado at points in their careers when they were among the best in the game. Holliday now wears a red jacket on Opening Day. Goldschmidt had an MVP season here in ‘22. And while Arenado’s recent decline has been startling, he had 301 RBIs during his first three seasons here.
In other words, like many of his baseball operating predecessors, Mozeliak made moves that worked and moves that fizzled. And like all of those ancestors, he served at the behest of his owners. For most of his tenure, the Cardinals were consistently postseason contenders, if not postseason conquerors.
But there has been a disturbance in the force. The sports environment, the MLB landscape, is in flux. It has become even more challenging for mid-tiers to keep pace with upper-tiers, i.e the Dodgers, Yankees, Phillies, etc. Revenue waters are choppy, a new labor agreement is looming, the broadcast/television/streaming universe is fluid and unstable.
Cardinals ownership - the guys who sign the checks - have decided to invest in a long game rather than a quick fix. Again, they make those decisions, not the president of baseball operations.
Franchises in Milwaukee, Detroit and Tampa Bay are doing it successfully, putting their money toward research and development. The alternative is handing someone like Juan Soto - one player, that is - $765 million for 15 seasons. For a mid-tier team, that kind of business sense is built on copious amounts of LSD.
Unfortunately, the long game can be hard on the turnstiles. Gratification is not usually immediate and evaluation hiccups are inevitable. Patience isn’t just a virtue, it’s mandatory, along with thick skin.
The Cardinals are 232-254 over the last three seasons. Prospects they have counted on most publicly - Nolan Gorman, Jordan Walker, DeJong, Victor Scott - have not panned out.
They were supposed to be the transformative foundation. They were to arrive while Goldschmidt, Arenado and Wilson Contreras held the fort. That hasn’t happened. Worse, the baseball gods have been cruel to the Cardinals’ pitching portfolio. A number of their most promising arms have been sidetracked by injuries. Fortunes of war when it comes to pitching.
Goldschmidt is gone, Arenado is a shell and it turns out Contreras was a first baseman masquerading in catcher’s clothing. As a result, the 3 million guarantee at the box office has evaporated.
But, ‘Ding-dong, the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low,” let them know Mozeliak is gone. A new sheriff is in town, hell bent and pennant bound. Well, if that’s how you see it, OK. But I can’t go there with you.
Bloom will bring his own personality and skills to the table, and perhaps you will appreciate those. Seems certain he will move to bolster a system that is recently ranked 18th among MLB organizations. But if you’re thinking he'll go blockbuster, remember he will require the same ownership blessings Mozeliak needed.
Sure, the voice will be different, but the message is likely to be quite similar.
At the Bloom introductory press conference, Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. made that clear.
“We’re not out there trying to buy the most expensive free agent, and historically, this franchise is at its best and most successful with players it developed.”
But if you’re disturbed by the direction the Cardinals are taking, and you need to do it with a smile, go ahead. Blame John Mozeliak.