Questions and Answers from John Mozeliak

The United Cardinal Bloggers recently had a chance to ask Cardinal GM John Mozeliak questions regarding the team, the off-season, and some general baseball questions. Mozeliak, as always with the group, was pretty candid and shed some light on the front office workings.

Eugene Tierney: Theo Epstein seemed unhappy about the Cardinals gaining a competitive balance pick; what are your thoughts on the system? Should a smaller market team be penalized for being well run?

JM: Of course not. I do think there are some frustrations in our current CBA [collective bargaining agreement], but I will say we are a mid-to-small market club and we do maximize our revenues to allow us to be more competitive on major league payroll. Having said that, you are limited to what you can do in the draft and international signing pools, so any help you can get in that regard is a benefit to our club.

What is the plan with Jaime Garcia?

Our expectations are TBD. He’s currently rehabbing from thoracic outlet surgery and right now we are encouraged on how that’s going. But until we see him on the mound and see him in spring training, we won’t know exactly what we have until he’s cleared to throw.

Will the team wear a patch to memorialize Oscar Taveras in 2015?

We have not determined how we are going to honor Oscar, but hopefully by the time we get to Winter Warm Up we will be able to unroll our plans.

Do you play fantasy football? If so, what is your team name and will you be making the playoffs?

I do not. Some people think I play fantasy baseball…but in all honesty, my focus is strictly on Major League Baseball.

Thanks to John for taking time to answer questions for the non-traditional media. The full transcripts for all the questions will be available next week.