STL Cardinals Rumors: Matthew Liberatore plan, Mozeliak contradicting, Tyler O’Neill trade buzz

STL Cardinals Rumors: John Mozeliak contradicts himself about 2023 offseason

One of the big questions about the St. Louis Cardinals offseason was the lack of addressing starting pitching. It seemed to be an obvious need for the club, yet they made no move of consequence in that department, apparently content to ride it out with the five-man rotation of Adam Wainwright, Jack Flaherty, Miles Mikolas, Jordan Montgomery, and Steven Matz.

President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak said as much about the situation in January, per Katie Woo of The Athletic, as he said, “A lot of people had us connected to the shortstop market, the starting pitching market, and candidly, we weren’t all that active in it.”

Seems pretty cut-and-dry that they made a conscious decision to not be in the starting pitching market.

Fast-forward from January to May, though, and Mozeliak seems to be singing a different tune. Appearing on BK & Ferrario on 101ESPN, he was asked again about what he felt now about the team’s approach to pitching in the offseason and Mozeliak’s answer completely contradicted his January comments:

"“I can say this; there were a lot of starting pitcher we were engaged with in the offseason and I can tell you that almost all of them are either on the IL now or are not pitching well.”"

He also added that the “engagement” was to supplement the Cardinals’ five guys and “build in some protection”.

Unless he’s debating the semantics between being “active” and “engaged” these are two completely different approaches. Subsequently, it reads like he’s trying to save a bit of face by saying the Cards are lucky that their pursuits didn’t work out because they wouldn’t be helping the cause anyway.

Where the truth in what St. Louis and Mozeliak were doing this offseason in the pitching market lies is hard to tell. But his latest comments are far from flattering given his previous statements on the matter.