John Mozeliak has earned this extension, through savoy contracts and great amateur drafts.
In John Mozeliak’s first years as the Cardinals' general manager, he had to concede to Tony LaRussa’s roster decisions at the Major League level. LaRussa liked to have a veteran-laden roster. You could see with some of Mozeliak's minor moves during this period, that Mozeliak wanted to start building the team through the farm system.
The first move that Mozeliak pulled was the Jim Edmonds for David Freese deal. I would say that worked out for the Cardinals pretty nicely.
Mozeliak then started to draft quality college players that had good track records for success, the results have turned out Lance Lynn, Jon Jay, and Matt Adams to name a few.
In 2011, the team had a perfect mix of LaRussa's veterans and Mozeliak's farm grown talent. The in-season trade for Rafael Furcal and the Colby Rasmus deal solidified an already potent team. The rest is history as the Cardinals took home the franchise's 11th World Series Championship.
Soon following came the retirement of La Russa and the Cardinals turned into Mozeliak’s team. Mozeliak made his stamp by not giving into the contract demands of Albert Pujols. Mozeliak handled the situation perfectly.
John Mozeliak has now brought the Cardinals' farm system back from the dead, which had previously hit rock bottom due to moves made by LaRussa and Walt Jocketty, now the GM for the Cincinnati Reds. The 2013 Cardinals now have the number one farm system in basseball, according to Baseball America and Keith Law.
The organization's farm system has a plethora of young arms and it has position players that can stick it. Guys like Oscar Taveras, Kolten Wong, Shelby Miller and Trevor Rosenthal could make a huge impacts in some capacity in 2013 and for years to come.
The Cardinals now have an organization, from top to bottom, that is one of the best in baseball. Maybe three years wasn’t enough for John Mozeliak.
In John Mozeliak, we as St. Louis Cardinals fans trust.
Anthony Wiber is a columnist for StlSportsMinute.com and is a main contributor on The Cruddy Show (@CruddyShow), a St. Louis sports talk show that airs on Tuesdays and Fridays at 9:30 pm CT. You can follow Wiber on Twitter as well (@AWibes).
