Did John Mozeliak put the final nail in the coffin on his legacy?

With the 2025 MLB trade deadline coming to a close, many Cardinals fans are facing a familiar feeling. Disappointment. What looked to be an exciting deadline turned into uproar as media and fans have given the organization a lot of pushback on how they handled this year’s trade deadline. While it is impossible to know what St. Louis has in their recently acquired prospects, some certainly look good (Joshua Baez and Blaze Jordan). In comparison to other deals on the trade market, fans have every right to question the return St. Louis received. As President of Baseball Operations, John Mozeliak finds himself under scrutiny from the Cardinals’ faithful once more.

The Cardinals haven’t made it beyond the Wild Card series in six years and have struggled tremendously in recent seasons. While Oli Marmol and the DeWitts have heard their fair share of criticism, no one has received more of it than Mozeliak. Have these last few troublesome seasons ruined Mozeliak’s legacy? Will recency bias define his legacy? Or will he be remembered as a champion? In this article, I will break down the good and the bad of John Mozeliak’s Cardinals tenure since he was appointed as General Manager, and how we can evaluate his time in command.

Starting with the good

Starting in order of good-bad, just like Mozeliak’s tenure, we begin in October 2007, when Mozeliak was first appointed General Manager. Beginning with good moves, one of the first ones that Mozeliak made was trading Jim Edmonds for what ended up being David Freese. Edmonds only went on to play 26 games for the Padres, while David Freese cemented himself as a Cardinals legend throughout his tenure and won World Series MVP honors in 2011. The next big win from a Mozeliak trade came in 2009 when the Cardinals acquired Matt Holliday. After the trade, Holliday signed to remain with the team and posted 23 WAR for the Cardinals in eight seasons. Along with Freese, Holliday was also a pivotal piece in the 2011 World Series.

Another piece from the 2011 World Series team and perhaps one of the best signings of Mozeliak’s tenure was Lance Berkman. After signing a one-year deal with St. Louis prior to the 2011 season, Lance Berkman posted 3.8 WAR and finished seventh in National League MVP voting at the age of 35. Finally from the 2011 Championship team, John Mozeliak did a tremendous job in trading Colby Rasmus to the Toronto Blue Jays for a plethora of players, none more notable than Edwin Jackson and Octavio Dotel. Both pitchers provided a great depth in 2011 as the Cardinals were crowned champions.

After the 2011 title, John Mozeliak made one of the toughest decisions in his entire career. In free agency, he let franchise star Albert Pujols walk. This could not have worked out better for the Cardinals, as they continued to compete after his departure. In 2012, St. Louis was one game away from the World Series, losing to the eventual champion San Francisco Giants in seven games during the NLCS. The signing of Carlos Beltran to a two-year $26 million deal certainly helped, as he provided 6.2 WAR from 2012-13. Also, in 2013, the Cardinals found themselves in the World Series once more. In 11 years with St. Louis before signing with the Angels, Pujols posted 86.6 WAR. In his 10 seasons with the Angels, Pujols posted a meager 12.5 WAR. Although his return to St. Louis was heartfelt and special, had the Cardinals kept Pujols for those ten seasons, things may have gotten rough.

The next good moves on this list are a pair of trades from 2014. At the 2014 deadline, the Cardinals acquired John Lackey from the Boston Red Sox. Lackey finished the season with St. Louis and then posted a 5.8 WAR season in 2015, earning him a ninth-place finish in the NL Cy Young award voting. In between the 2014 and 2015 seasons, the Cardinals made another splash in the trade market by acquiring Jason Heyward. This was another example of a trade in which the Cardinals received value much better than what they gave up. In Heyward’s lone season with the Redbirds in 2015, he posted the highest WAR season of his career with seven. He also finished 15th in MVP voting and earned a Gold Glove for his defensive efforts. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, both Lackey and Heyward signed with the division rival Chicago Cubs prior to the 2016 campaign.

Next from the list of good Mozeliak deals comes a great one, the Paul Goldschmidt trade. In another impressive trade for a star player, the Cardinals ended up fleecing the Diamondbacks to acquire Paul Goldschmidt. Despite struggling with the Redbirds in his final season with the team, Goldschmidt raked in St. Louis and won his first MVP award in 2022. Two years after acquiring Goldschmidt, Mozeliak struck again, trading for Nolan Arenado in a trade with the Rockies that was even more lopsided than that with the Diamondbacks. Just like Goldy, Arenado has struggled in his later years with the team, but also had his best season in 2022. In that season, Arenado posted 7.9 WAR, finished third place in MVP voting, won a Gold Glove, and a Silver Slugger. As of right now, Arenado has posted 17.9 WAR in five seasons with St. Louis, a number that fans hope will continue to increase despite his recent struggles.

Rehashing the bad

Now, onto the bad Mozeliak moves. Many of these bad moves are free agent signings, in addition to a few poor trades. To begin with, signing Mike Leake to a five-year $80 million contract was quite poor. After just one and a half seasons, the Cardinals shipped him off to Seattle and had to assist them in paying his contract in order to facilitate the trade. If Cardinals fans thought Mike Leake’s 1.6 WAR in less than two seasons was bad, signing Dexter Fowler to a five-year, $82.5 million dollar contract was like setting money on fire. In four seasons with St. Louis, Fowler produced just 1.8 WAR. Like Leake, the Cardinals had to send money along with Fowler in order to trade him.

Lumping the next four relievers together, Mozeliak committed a combined $92.5 million to Brett Cecil, Luke Gregerson, Greg Holland, and Andrew Miller. These four pitchers combined to post -2.7 WAR for the Cardinals in seven and a half seasons. Cecil was released just two years after signing his four-year contract. Greg Holland was traded before he could finish his one-year deal.

Another bad move for the St. Louis Cardinals was the Steven Matz signing. Although Cardinals fans are now very happy to have turned him into Blaze Jordan at the trade deadline, committing 44 million dollars only to receive two WAR in four seasons is less than ideal. In 2019, Mozeliak made one of his worst moves in recent history, extending Matt Carpenter for big money. Although Carpenter produced plenty for the Redbirds, he produced negative .8 WAR after extending for two years and $37 million. In 2021, Carpenter hit .169 in 249 plate appearances. In those two seasons, Carpenter combined for a measly seven home runs and 45 runs batted in.

Next, was one of the few Mozeliak trade mishaps that handcuffed the Cardinals future. After the 2017 season, John Mozeliak traded away four players to acquire Marcell Ozuna from the Miami Marlins. Two of those four players ended up being Sandy Alcantara and Zac Gallen. Alcantara has gone on to win a Cy Young award and make two All-Star appearances while Gallen has an All-Star appearance of his own to go along with a third-place finish in Cy Young voting. Although Marcell Ozuna was not bad for the Cardinals, producing 5 WAR in two seasons, his defense took a huge nosedive as a member of the Cardinals. Had this trade not been made, the Cardinals would not have had such a struggle to find quality starting pitching as they’ve had in recent seasons. Furthermore, a team featuring Alcantara, Goldschmidt, Gallen, and Arenado could have certainly made a deep playoff run.

The next two trade blunders are also from recent memory and just like the Marcell Ozuna trade, they continue to haunt Cardinals fans to this day. The first of which was the most painful as Mozeliak dealt Adolis Garcia to the Texas Rangers for cash considerations. At the time, the Cardinals were much higher on prospects Tyler O’Neil and Dylan Carlson, so they decided to move on from Garcia. In six seasons with Texas, Garcia has posted 14.5 WAR and 137 home runs. For a Cardinals team lacking a power bat these days, Cardinals fans are always saddened to be reminded of trading Garcia away so early into his career.

The next trade of an outfielder is another that Cardinals fans remember all too well. With similar reasoning to the Adolis Garcia deal, the Cardinals moved on from Jose Martinez and Randy Arozarena in 2020 because of their surplus of outfield prospects. In return, the Redbirds received a package headlined by Matthew Liberatore. Although Liberatore has had his best season this year, he has a long way to go in order to catch up to the production Tampa Bay received from Arozarena.

Tampa Bay also got the better of Mozeliak in 2018 when trading for Tommy Pham. In one and a half seasons with the Rays, Pham put together 6.4 WAR, while the three players St. Louis received combined to produce negative WAR over their tenure. Of the three players returning to St. Louis in the deal, fans will remember Genesis Cabrera most, while Justin Williams played in 54 games for the Cardinals and Roel Romero went onto to pitch a single inning for the team.

The next flaw in Mozeliak’s tenure is an issue that Cardinals fans have seen throughout many of his recent trades. Failure to maximize returns on trade-eligible players either due to bad business or due to dealing them at the wrong time. A case can be made that Mozeliak failed to handle the trades of Tyler O’Neil, Dylan Carlson, Erick Fedde, Phil Maton, and Ryan Helsley well due to these issues. Many experts and fans believe that the Cardinals could be sitting on many more assets, had Mozeliak gotten a few more of these trades right.

Lastly on this list of “bad moves” is another issue that Cardinals fans continue to see within the organization today, that is handing out full no-trade clauses to too many players, some of which are undeserving. Five recent examples of this include Paul Goldschmidt, Matt Carpenter, Miles Mikolas, Willson Contreras, and Sonny Gray (Nolan Arenado’s contract was signed as a member of the Rockies). While I’m not suggesting that a player like Paul Goldschmidt didn’t deserve a full no-trade clause or at least a partial one, I am suggesting that players like Miles Mikolas, Matt Carpenter, and Willson Contreras certainly should not have received them. These clauses have hampered the Cardinals' ability to create financial flexibility, add prospects, and open up playing time for their young prospects. While Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras have been solid members of the Cardinals, the opportunity to trade them at this year’s deadline could’ve seen the Cardinals recoup plenty of prospects to aid their farm system that has failed to produce in recent years.

Continuing with evaluating Mozeliak’s performance, we must also evaluate the draft. For the sake of the length of the article, and in the length of the MLB draft, there is no point in going over missed picks. There are 20 rounds in the draft and every team in the league has passed on a huge name at one point or another in the draft, especially since Mozeliak became GM in 2007. With that being said, what we can look at is the percentage of the Cardinals draft picks to reach the major leagues.

From 2013-2023 the Cardinals ranked 15th in this category tied with three other ballclubs at 15%, as 50 of their 334 draft picks reached the majors in that span. Because this statistic isn’t indicative enough of Mozeliak’s timeframe with the team, in addition to prospects in the farm system acquired via trade, this graph courtesy of Baseball America shows the Cardinals’ farm system ranking in every season from 2001-2024. From 2007-24, this graph displays the Cardinals' ranking in the top half of the league in 12/17 seasons, ranking in the top ten four times and in 29th once. With that said, it is important to note that the team has ranked in the top 10 just once in the past nine years and continue to slip from their rank in 2024 (20th) today, having ranked 23rd before the 2025 season began.

Successes and evaluation

What has Mozeliak achieved with the team? Has the success outweighed the failures? Assuming the Cardinals miss the playoffs this year, Mozeliak will have seen the Cardinals reach the playoffs in 10/18 seasons during his tenure. This includes six division titles, four Wild Card appearances, two World Series appearances, and one World Series win. But, in the last ten seasons, St. Louis has made it beyond the Wild Card round only once.

In the end, I feel that evaluating John Mozeliak as an average General Manager/President of Baseball Operations is fair, especially in comparison to others out there (I’m talking about you Bill Schmidt and Ben Cherington). But I’m willing to accept evaluations of Mozeliak being a little above or below average as well. Not to discredit Mozeliak at all in the 2011 championship run, while he did make some great moves, he also inherited a great roster including two certain Hall of Famers (Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina) in addition to a 200 game winning pitcher Adam Wainwright. While going deep into the playoffs from 2012-2015 was impressive, especially in an era where the NL Central was one of the most competitive divisions in baseball, the team lost steam after the 2015 season.

From then on, apart from winning a couple big trades, John Mozeliak has put together quite a poor showing. With their success especially during the 2019 and 2022 seasons, in addition to the caliber of players rostered like Goldschmidt and Arenado, had money been spent better, I think at the very least, another World Series appearance could have been on the horizon. After an abysmal 2023 and another mediocre showing this season, the Cardinals organization is left with a few glaring issues from Mozeliak’s term. The team has a great defense, but has lacked power and starting pitching for many seasons now. Furthermore, the farm system is at the lowest point that it’s been since 2011 and unfortunately, the Cardinals have only one World Series title to show for it. John Mozeliak’s ability to bring in star position players via trade will be remembered by older fans, in addition to his championship in 2011.

With that being said, his many terrible free agent signings, unreasonable no-trade clauses, and his struggles to extract value from his own major league talent will be how he is remembered by a new generation of Cardinals fans as the team stares a couple more years of mediocrity in the face.