5 truths about the St. Louis Cardinals that fans do not want to hear

4. If you want to place all of the blame for front office mistakes on John Mozeliak, then he also deserves credit for the great moves as well

Yes, the Marcell Ozuna trade was a huge mistake. So were the Randy Arozarena and Adolis Garcia trades. Dexter Fowler, Brett Cecil, Greg Holland, Mike Leake, and other signings can fall into these categories as well. Their trust in their internal pitching options turned out to be a massive failure. John Mozeliak has made his fair share of mistakes in recent years.

If you're going to hold each of these deals over Mozeliak's head, then you also need to give him major credit for the good moves he has made as well. Trading for Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt while giving up next to nothing in value long-term is absolutely incredible. I hate when people say "Well those don't count, anyone would have made those deals." Well, okay then, why didn't every other team in baseball outbid the Cardinals in those deals? John Mozeliak pulled it off. Would you rather have had him give up top prospects who went on to do great things so the deal was "harder" to make?

The Harrison Bader-Jordan Montgomery trade was a huge win for the Cardinals at the time and continues to reap rewards with the additions of Thomas Saggase and Tekoah Roby. Jose Quintana was a huge get for St. Louis down the stretch last year. They got a stud reliever in JoJo Romero for Edmundo Sosa. The Luke Voit for Giovanny Gallegos deal has been a big win. There's a lot more we could look at as well.

Randy Flores may be in charge of the Cardinals scouting department, but Mozeliak still deserves credit for helping build this farm system in recent years with the likes of Jordan Walker, Lars Nootbaar, Brendan Donovan, Masyn Winn, Nolan Gorman, Alec Burleson, Tommy Edman, Ivan Herrera, Andrew Knizner, Dylan Carlson, Tink Hence, and more on that end as well.

Mozeliak needs to hit a home run this offseason and fix the issues they've created for this club in order for them to compete in 2024. If they cannot do so, then real questions about the future of Mozeliak and the front office will have to be addressed. But one terrible season is not going to do that for me. This season has revealed some glaring weaknesses of the front office, but I do not believe it's fair to focus solely on the bad with this leadership group.