ST. LOUIS — Cardinals President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak is one of the best-known sports figures in St. Louis. He is at the center of discussion when it comes to player moves by the Redbirds, or moves that fans feel the team should and/or don’t make.
For over a decade now, “Mo” has owned his place as one of the faces of the Cardinals. But it wasn’t always that way.
He toiled in relative obscurity upon coming to St. Louis as one of general manager Walt Jocketty’s lieutenants in 1995. It would seem that he has been one of those baseball “lifers” that play the game and then seamlessly move into the front office. But it might surprise you that John Mozeliak’s baseball career was neither destined or seamless.
We pick up the story after he graduated from the University of Colorado, with a degree in business in 1991. He had played high school and American Legion baseball, but wasn’t a headline grabber as a pitcher/first baseman. It appeared that would be as close to a baseball career as he would get.
So, what was the plan after college?
“I had no idea where my life was going,” Mozeliak remembers.
As smart as he has proven to be, he didn’t really know enough about himself to have created a career path; a Plan A, or even a Plan B.
“I just thought I’d get a job and go to work," Mozeliak said.
But life rarely puts a straightforward path in front of us, and many times there are no gentle curves in that road. In this case, a career path was started with a quick veer to an unexpected trail, one that hadn’t appeared on the horizon.
There is an old saying that says success comes where preparation meets opportunity. The opportunity was there, for sure, in the form of an expansion baseball team.
“I had a good friend was working for the Colorado Rockies, Jay Darnell. And he was the one that asked for me to come down to the Rockies and help out down there," Mozeliak said. "Their infrastructure was very thin. They were looking at people just trying to get in to help with their video scouting. It was all things I had interest in but never realized it was a career path for me.”
So Mozeliak signed on as a clubhouse assistant, where was of his tasks was as a batting practice pitcher. He was coveted for his left arm, given the Rockies plethora of righthanded hitters, including Andres Galarraga, Dante Bichette, Vinny Castilla and Charlie Hayes.
Mozeliak’s career path took off from that point like a well-struck baseball at Coors Field.
He soon found himself working out of the general manager’s office for Bob Gebhard and his assistant, Walt Jocketty. After the Rockies’ third season, Jocketty was hired by the Cardinals to rebuild the team in the post-Whitey Herzog and Joe Torre regimes. Jocketty brought along Mozeliak, then 26 years old.
While Jocketty was grabbing headlines in St. Louis for the rebuild of the Cardinals along with manager Tony LaRussa, Mozeliak began as an assistant in the scouting department and by 1998 was the team’s assistant scouting director. But he had a vision for more.
“When I was at a young point in my career, one of the things I realized was that I needed to be in charge of something, running a department," Mozeliak said.
That next year he took over as the Director of Scouting and by his own admission, his career took off.
“That’s when I knew I had a chance to grow in this game," Mozeliak said.
Grow, indeed; both he and the Cardinals’ organization flourished as a result. Under his direction the Cardinals drafted a couple of players named Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina. Those players would prove to be living, breathing resume pillars and the baseball world was taking notice. Teams came knocking at the Cardinals’ door, asking to speak to John Mozeliak as a potential general manager. He would interview for at least two big league jobs while the Cardinals continued to push him up their organizational ladder, making him the assistant to Jocketty.
The Cardinals’ philosophy at the time was to groom their minor league prospects both for the big league roster and to be able to pull off blockbuster trades at the deadline for the likes of Mark McGwire, Scott Rolen and Larry Walker. So Mozeliak was seeing the full breadth of experience while waiting for his own opportunity to come.
That opportunity came at the end of the 2007 season. Team president Bill DeWitt Jr. wanted to put more emphasis on developing their farm products to re-stock the Cardinals’ roster, not necessarily the rosters of the other teams in the majors. Eventually, Jocketty was out and Mozeliak was named as his successor.
With a new emphasis on the farm system as the primary roster pipeline, the Cardinals have had winning records in all twelve seasons with Mo at the helm. Add in the 2011 World Series win, a Fall Classic appearance in 2013, three other appearances in the NLCS, and recognition for their farm system as the best in baseball by both ESPN and Baseball America and the resume is an impressive one. The Cardinals further recognized Mozeliak by giving him a new title in 2017: President of Baseball Operations.
And it all started with a phone call. That conversation put him on a path he never saw coming.
“I never thought I’d be where I am today, no," Mozeliak said.