John Mozeliak provides sobering reason for Cardinals' muted trade deadline

The St. Louis Cardinals pulled off three trade deadline moves in their sell of this week, moving impending free agent relievers Ryan Helsley, Phil Maton, and Steven Matz to the New York Mets, Texas Rangers, and Boston Red Sox, respectively.

Noticeably absent from the Cardinals' list of selling moves were any players with team control beyond 2025. Contenders from around the league came calling on names like JoJo Romero, Lars Nootbaar, Nolan Gorman, Brendan Donovan, and Alec Burleson, but none of them were moved for value at this deadline.

John Mozeliak's reason for sitting on his hands isn't going to sit well with many fans.

John Mozeliak said that despite being hit hard with interest, the Cardinals weren't blown away with an offer for their controllable talent

According to Katie Woo of The Athletic, the Cardinals' outgoing president of baseball operations commented to the media immediately following the deadline, and gave his reason for why the club was reluctant to move their controllable talent at this year's deadline.

"We got hit a lot on our left-handed hitters ... but we were not motivated to move players that we had under control unless we were, to put it mildly, blown away. And we just weren't."

Furthermore, when asked about bats on the injured list like Nolan Gorman and Lars Nootbaar, Mozeliak said the organization was "open to it, but the timing just wasn't now".

I'll start with the bats. On one hand, I totally understand what Mozeliak is saying here. If the offers weren't up to par, then they did not need to be in a rush to move them. Speaking on Nootbaar and Gorman specifically, they can use the second half to rebuild their trade value, and Chaim Bloom can shop them in the offseason if he desires to move them.

On the other hand, saying they were "hit hard" with interest on those bats feels like a statement you would make a lot of aggressive offers come in, not that a bunch of teams called but weren't very serious with their offers. We saw how aggressive the San Diego Padres specifically were today, and they ended up getting Ryan O'Hearn to be their left field solution. And to say, unless we were "blown away" wild a mild way of putting their stance on trading assets...that tells me their asking price may have been too unrealistic, even for an extreme seller's market like the one we just saw.

It's hard not to question the weird dynamic that ownership set up for the club this season, having John Mozeliak running the show with Chaim Bloom working in more of the background. Yes, Bloom is very much involved in the decisions being made, and his front office will be very collaborative, like most are, but when you hear comments like "the timing just wasn't now", it's hard to shake the feeling that if Bloom were fully in charge, some of those moves would have been made.

On JoJo Romero, it's actually insane that the club did not move him right now. Romero has been incredible for the Cardinals this year and has one more year of club control, making him a reliever that should have brought back a return that may have even been similar to or more than what Ryan Helsley brought back for them. Instead, the Cardinals sat on their hands.

It was a "fine" deadline for the Cardinals. They did what they had to do. But that's part of the problem. They did not get creative and make something worthwhile happen, and that has been a common theme of trade deadlines under Mozeliak.