Mozeliak: We have faith in current roster; Aren't trying to 'Win the offseason'

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ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - If you can believe it, we've got only a little more than six weeks before pitchers and catchers report to spring training for the St. Louis Cardinals in Jupiter, Fla. Which still leaves plenty of time for things to happen and John Mozeliak and company to add to the returning NL Central Champs, but signing "headliners" and "win the offseason" wasn't what they set out to do this winter.

The president of baseball operations joined KMOX's Tom Ackerman on Sports on a Sunday Morning to talk about the execution of his team's plan for the offseason thus far, the addition of Korean League pitcher Kwang-Hyun Kim and more. 

Here are just a few of things he told us: 

Need a repeat from Fowler, more production from everyone:

This time last year, outfielder Dexter Fowler was being called a bust by many in Cardinals nation, coming off one of the historically bad seasons in baseball history. Then in 2019 he hit a career-high in home runs (19) and returned his batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage to near or above his career averages. 

"I think the one thing that stands out is that he felt confident in his game and knew he could contribute. In terms of what you hope to see this coming year is just build on that consistency. When you look at our overall club last year, not just saying this is on Dex, but overall from an offensive standpoint, more contribution from all positions is something that we would welcome and for us to truly be successful that's ultimately what you're going to need to see happen."

This wasn't about "win the offseason" 

Mozeliak and the Cardinals knew they weren't in need of replacing large parts of the roster that brought them to the NLCS. 

"We went into this offseason knowing that it was going to be one of those that was not going to be headliners or win the offseason or whatever phrase you want to use because we had a strong belief in our club. We feel like we have a lot of talent, we feel like we have a lot of young talent that needs to emerge and be given that opportunity and if that happens it should be an exciting year for us."

Signing KK was a "low-risk" move

Thus far, the only move of note from St. Louis is the signing of 31-year-old pitcher Gwang-hyun Kim, who has pitched in the Korea Baseball Organization since he was 18. He was voted as the 2019 Best Pitcher after finishing in the top-three for quality starts, wins strikeouts, ERA and innings pitched.

"As we look at what KK did over there we feel pretty confident that he'll be able to fit in nicely to what we're trying to do. And when we were looking at the market we felt like this was a pretty low-risk shot for us to try and given the success we have had with players coming back over here, we thought it made a lot of sense for us to go down that path."

Take a listen to our full discussion with Mozeliak, here:

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