Grading Mozeliak, Girsch and the St. Louis Cardinals front office at the season’s midway point

Overall

What’s gone wrong with the St. Louis Cardinals? Pretty much everything, and it has started with the front office. For once in their tenure, the Mozelika-Girsch free agent strategy bombed, the trade strategy was non-existent, and the farm system has produced a crate of stale goods.

Here’s the first-half report card on the Cardinals front office. Note that grades for players departing the organization are based on the reverse of those players’ WAAs with their new teams.

Mode                    WAA               Grade

Acquired                 0.0                   C

Traded                  -0.2                   C

Signed                  -1.7                   D

FA Lost                 -1.0                   B

Rookies                -2.7                   D

Overall                  -3.2                   F

The striking thing about the Cardinals’ front office activity is that there’s been so little of it. Mozeliak and Girsch have only made 15 personnel decisions affecting the big league roster since the end of the 2022 postseason; that’s less than two per month.

And contrary to their usual pattern, almost none of those personnel decisions have redounded to the benefit of the Cardinals. Here’s a stat that will ring loudly with Cardinal fans: Not one of the 12 players added or returned to the St. Louis roster by Mozeliak and Girsch has produced a positive return to the team.

That includes their big catch, Contreras, who’s at -0.2.