Is the St. Louis Cardinals front office scared to repeat past mistakes?

John Mozeliak’s Free Agency History

The Cardinals are currently in a tough position. After the Los Angeles Dodgers just signed Freddie Freeman to increase the talent in their lineup, the NL race is going to be more than difficult.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are already consistently contending for the World Series and call me crazy, but I don’t think them signing Freeman hurts their chances of making it back to the World Series this season. In fact, I’d consider them front runners.

I’m saying that because when you look at the current favorites for the World Series, it’d be arguable that it’s the Yankees and the Dodgers. Which, if you recall, are two headlining teams that are willing to trade and sign any and every player that will make their roster better. The Cardinals are not one of them.

Some will say that’s good. It protects their prospects and their development so if they pan out, it doesn’t bite them in the butt. However, when you look to create a winning environment, sometimes you have to take a chance to win. The chance that the Cardinals need to take in this case is by hitting the free agency market.

Previous Signings

The Cardinals front office has done very well with trades over the past couple seasons. With the acquisitions of both Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt, it’s hard to critique Mozeliak and Girsch when making trades. However, when it comes to free agency, it’s a totally different narrative.

Looking at some of the previous signings by the Cardinals front office, they have signed:

• Dexter Fowler: five years, $82.5 million
• Brett Cecil: four years, $30 million
• Luke Gregerson: two years, $11 million.

Those don’t exactly scream “great contracts.” Now, is it possible that the Cardinals are afraid to make big signings after missing on multiple previous signings.

Cardinals Lackluster offseason

The St. Louis Cardinals current roster has promise, but is there enough talent to really make a run for the World series?

You look at their roster there is a lot of questions and when it comes to a team looking to win a World Series, question aren’t good. First question that is currently being asked is in light of a recent injury.

Jack Flaherty’s status for the start of the season in question after an injury that was recently brought to the Cardinals attention. So, with Flaherty possibly out for a period of time, what are the Cardinals rotation going to look like?

Given the fact that the Cardinals just signed Steven Matz, you can already assume that he’ll be taking on a higher role that what was originally anticipated. But is that a good thing?

This year’s free agency class was filled with a lot of pitching talent, and yet the Cardinals walked away with Steven Matz. They could’ve had Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Jon Gray, Robbie Ray and many more. Yet, once again, they ended up with Matz.

It’s not the fact that they signed Matz that’s getting me. It’s the fact that there were a lot more pitchers out there that could potentially give you more than Matz that the Cardinals didn’t go after.

The second question is who is going to be the Cardinals’ Opening Day shortstop?

With Paul Dejong coming off a very poor season, the outside opinion is that the Cardinals should either start Edmundo Sosa or sign someone. However, after reading a lot of reports and the fact that spring training is right around the corner, it seems a lot more likely that the Cardinals will role with the combination of both Sosa and Dejong.

I expect, knowing the Cardinals’ previous problems at the shortstop position, they will more than likely play the hot hand to start the season. But is that the best course of action?

In this year’s free agency, the Cardinals could’ve pursued Carlos Correa, Javier Baez, Trevor Story, Corey Seager or Marcus Semien, but they didn’t. Now, they do have Paul Dejong on a team friendly contract, and Sosa showed promise last season, but when you look at how they matchup to the rest of the league, the Cardinals are undoubtedly at the bottom half.

Trevor Story is still out there along with Correa, but recent reports have stated that the Cardinals are not very interested in either. They don’t want to give a big contract to someone when it could later impact their team and prevent them from making moves in the future.

St. Louis Cardinals are Afraid of the Past

The St. Louis Cardinals, as I stated above, have a hard time with free agency signings. There have been a couple very good signings. I mean, you can even look back to last season.

They signed Luis Garcia and T.J. McFarland, and without them two, don’t make the playoffs. They were both such a huge part to their success, and quite frankly, I’m still trying to figure out why the Cardinals didn’t re-sign Luis Garcia.

They did sign Matz to a big contract, but his name doesn’t hold the same weight as Max Scherzer or Robbie Ray.

Now, if you recall from the previous slide, the Cardinals have a lot of needs and it could’ve been addressed with some of the players out there. Between the need of starting pitchers, relief pitchers, and the shortstops out there, they could’ve easily addressed the holes. But they didn’t really do much.

In contrast to that, It’s been reported that the Cardinals are looking to add depth which is important, but it’s also important to make sure you have firepower. Someone you can always count on to give you a good outing, or someone that can give your lineup a boost.

That’s what leads me to believe that the front office is scared to go out and make that move. They don’t have a great history when signing those types of players and maybe the backlash of how the Fowler signing worked out, they are afraid to make the same mistake twice.

I could be wrong but when it comes to competing, you have to put out a team that can win games against the best. Because of the holes this team has that hasn’t quite been addressed, it’s hard to think that they weren’t scared.

This was a perfect offseason to address the needs this team has, but they didn’t do anything other than sign a couple relief pitchers and a starting pitcher. Hard to think there isn’t a secondary narrative to just “trusting the farm system.”