Cardinals Rumors: One team was interested in hiring Mike Girsch

Mike Girsch has been the Cardinals’ general manager since 2017, and one team wanted to potentially hire him away from St. Louis.

The St. Louis Cardinals’ front office is led by president of baseball operations John Mozeliak and general manager Mike Girsch. The team has had winning seasons in all 13 years under Mozeliak, making the playoffs in eight of those seasons.

Girsch, who has been GM since midway through the 2017 season, is the No. 2 person in the front office and has input on all roster moves. He was among the list of candidates for the Philadelphia Phillies president of baseball operations job, according to Jayson Stark of The Athletic.

The Phillies ultimately did not hire a president of baseball operations. The teams search came up short, as they were denied permission to interview most of the candidates they coveted most, and ultimately hired Dave Dombrowski as general manager.

It is unknown if Girsch interviewed with the Phillies, but it was noteworthy that he was among candidates such as Cleveland Indians GM Mike Chernoff, Twins GM Thad Levine, White Sox GM Rick Hahn and Cubs GM Jed Hoyer, among others. Girsch is a highly respected executive in baseball circles and it is why he and Mozeliak earned contracts extensions in 2019.

“What Mo and his group have accomplished since he took over in 2008 as the head of our baseball ops is pretty impressive,” Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. said after extending Mozeliak and Girsch in 2019. “We’ve been in the playoffs seven times. We’ve had 12 consecutive winning seasons, two pennants, a world championship. … We continue to have a robust farm system, which is not easy to do. When you have winning seasons, you do not draft high. But we’ve got a very strong scouting and player development group.”

Even then, Girsch and Mozeliak deserve criticism for recent moves. Marcell Ozuna struggled in St. Louis and Paul Goldschmidt has had his ups and downs. Dexter Fowler, Mike Leake and Andrew Miller, among others, have had varying levels of success since signing in St. Louis.

But there is no doubting that their tenure in St. Louis has largely been a success and signing an extension, it is possible Girsch a future candidate for teams when they look for president of baseball operations.