Bernie’s Redbird Review: Bill DeWitt Jr. Still Doesn’t Get It.

THE REDBIRD REVIEW

The Cardinals are Bill DeWitt Jr.’s franchise, and he can do what he wants. But it’s a mistake to keep John Mozeliak in place as the president of baseball operations for 2025.

Mozeliak planned to retire after next season, anyway. And DeWitt didn’t have to fire his longtime head of the baseball department. But Mozeliak could have played out the final year of his contract with a background role as a consultant or an adviser. He’d be there in a secondary position, offering suggestions and answering questions when asked.

Meanwhile, DeWitt could introduce Chaim Bloom as the new baseball boss at Busch Stadium and begin his pitch to the fans: time for a new direction, led by new leadership. Cardinals fans are irritated by the stat of the franchise, and I guess most would be receptive to the idea of a two-to-three year rebuild supervised by Bloom. His area of expertise is player development, and the Cardinals’ ramshackle minor-league operation is in need of a substantial makeover.

There’s a shortage of coaches and instructors, inferior technology, and not enough funding. The incomprehensible neglect of such a vital and historically prominent part of Cardinals baseball is a major failure of the DeWitt-Mozeliak administration.

DeWitt and Mozeliak let the franchise down. They let the fans down. DeWitt and Mozeliak have damaged the Cardinals’ esteemed brand, leaving a huge mess for Bloom to clean up. Which he will. The project will require Bloom’s attention and time. This can’t be fixed in a few months. But if (as expected) Bloom hires a new director of player development to oversee the comprehensive job, Bloom can make more of an overall impact by taking over for Mozeliak as well.

As long as Mozeliak is around, front and center, it will be extremely difficult for DeWitt to convince the fans of ownership’s commitment to profound change. The fans will see Mozeliak as the same guy in the same job leading to a similar outcome.

Unlike Bloom, Mozeliak won’t be viewed as an agent of change; he’ll be seen as more of the same. That’s because Mozeliak IS the same. It’s too late for him to adapt and modernize and reinvent himself as some sort of baseball visionary. That needed to happen years ago.

Post-Dispatch columnist Benjamin Hochman recently posted some DeWitt quotes from the chairman’s media session during the annual Cardinals’ Winter Warm-Up in January. DeWitt was asked why the Cards hired Bloom as a consultant. DeWitt began thinking of Bloom as soon as the Red Sox sacked him as chief baseball officer late in the 2023 season.

“I immediately thought: We could probably use someone like that (to be part of the front office),” DeWitt said. “Someone who’s been with a small market (franchise), big market (franchise), a very smart guy to kind of help see what’s going on with our organization.

“And interestingly, ‘Mo’ thought the same thing. He called me two days later, and I said, ‘John, it’s interesting because I had the same thought.’ We were on the same page there, which is great.

“I think (Bloom) can be very helpful. I mean, our team has been together a long time, and you never know what else is out there that maybe our guys have not been in touch with. The world changes — it’s helpful to get the perspective of somebody who’s done it with different organizations.”

The final part of the DeWitt quote is remarkable. The team’s owner openly acknowledged that his front-office operation could have been outdated, behind the times, and stuck in the past.

DeWitt was correct. But despite the honest assessment, DeWitt is still sticking with Mozeliak as the leader of St. Louis baseball ops.

If your team’s baseball model is stagnant, dormant and set in its ways – and has put the organization at a competitive disadvantage – then why stay the course?

Why would DeWitt entrust Mozeliak to lead the Cardinals’ revival when Mozeliak was a large reason for the Cardinals’ decline?

Pardon my clumsy analogy, but if someone haphazardly sets fire to your property, you don’t turn around and ask that same person to extinguish the blaze and repair the extensive damage. You bring in someone from the outside who can take charge of the problem … someone who wasn’t the origin of the problem.

Truth is (as you know), this is a DeWitt-Mozeliak partnership. It’s been that way since Mozeliak took over as the top baseball executive following the 2007 season. DeWitt and Mozeliak are fully aligned. They make all of the baseball decisions. This alliance deserved and received credit for the team’s incredible run of success – just as that alliance now deserves blame for the ongoing collapse.

DeWitt put Mozeliak in a tough spot by putting the funding of the player-development and minor-league system in the same resource pool as the funding for the major-league payroll.

It was pretty much left up to Mozeliak to determine what he should invest in the big club, and how much he should spend on the farm/development operation. One would assume there was enough money available to adequately cover both of these important areas, but I digress.

Even though Mozeliak had to make difficult choices – and as I wrote on Friday, DeWitt shouldn’t have done that – I see no reason to have empathy for Mozeliak.

Number one, Mozeliak enjoys complete job security. He has never had a reason to worry about getting fired. In other words, he wasn’t held accountable. In this DeWitt-Mozeliak fellowship, both men had to answer to each other … and no one else. That’s how complacency takes root and pulls the competitive product down.

Number two, Mozeliak has a respectable major-league budget. The Cardinals ranked 12th among 30 teams in the 26-man payroll this season – and 14th in the 40-man competitive balance tax payroll.

The Cardinals have a larger 26-man payroll than six teams that qualified for the 2024 postseason. Here’s the list, with the Cardinals at the top. I’ve rounded these numbers off …

— St. Louis, $177 million
— San Diego, $171 million
— Baltimore, $134 million
— Kansas City, $122 million
— Milwaukee, $117 million
— Cleveland, $106 million
— Detroit, $92 million

Under Mozeliak the Cardinals have made some unwise choices on where to put their payroll dollars. And with the player-development program in disarray, Mozeliak had no choice but to make short-term free-agent deals. Over the past three seasons the Cardinals have invested $286.25 million to sign these six players: Willson Contreras, Steven Matz, Miles Mikolas, Sonny Gray, Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn.

According to media reports, the Cardinals are strongly considering a payroll-reduction plan to redirect the savings into the farm-system initiative. Moving veterans off the books would also open up extensive opportunities for younger pitchers and players who loom large in the rebuilding stratagem. Putting closer Ryan Helsley on the trade market this coming offseason – with one year to go before he reaches free agency – could lead to a windfall return.

All of this makes sense; why have a $177 million 26-man payroll – and $215.7 million for a 40-man payroll – only to top off at 82 wins and fail to make the playoffs for a second straight season? And the Cardinals must find out more about their younger pitchers and players.

In theory, the trading of dollars would give the Cardinals a chance to add premium prospects in return. But once again, this all circles back to Mozeliak. Why would anyone – other than DeWitt – trust Mozeliak to make the shrewd trades necessary to speed up the roster replenishment? As of now, Mozeliak didn’t get much in return for trades.

As the years have gone by, Mozeliak’s grip on power has remained strong. DeWitt defiantly stands by his man, Mozeliak.

In doing so, Dewitt still seems oblivious to Mozeliak’s harsh low-approval ratings among the fans. And BDJ is apparently unaware of how the mere mention of Mozeliak’s name sets off instantaneous hostile reactions and vows to stop purchasing tickets to home games until Mo is gone.

The many fans who don’t know much about Bloom will have a question: if Bloom is a mastermind, then why isn’t DeWitt putting him in charge of the team’s baseball bureau right now? If Bloom is everything that DeWitt is looking for, then why is Bloom in the bullpen, warming up as Mozeliak’s replacement? In a way this decision to stick with Mozeliak will only undermine Bloom’s credibility before Cardinal fans get a chance to know him. And that would be a shame.

DeWitt’s effort to persuade the customers that the new era is about to begin is subverted by the presence of the old-era leader that the owner empowers to stand in the way of true progress.

Thanks for reading …

–Bernie

A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has provided informed opinions and perspective on St. Louis sports through his columns, radio shows and podcasts since 1985.

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Stats used in my baseball columns are sourced from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, Statcast, StatHead, Baseball Savant, Baseball Prospectus, Brooks Baseball Net, and Sports Info Solutions unless otherwise noted.