Mozeliak: Cardinals not courting free-agent A.J. Burnett
LAS VEGAS — While pitching remains his main target as the Baseball Winter Meetings opened today at the Bellagio, St. Louis Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak shot down the idea that he was going big-game hunting, and that included any pursuit of A.J. Burnett, reported or otherwise.
“I don’t know where that started,” Mozeliak said. “We never engaged in him.”
Mozeliak met with a small group of local media this evening at the Cardinals’ suite at the Bellagio, giving us a rundown of his first day of business at the annual swapmeet and trade show. Mozeliak said he met with a “handful of agents” and a “handful of teams” and was “equally active” with both. He described the first day as a continuation of the past weeks, distilled into a few hours of talks that could lead in the coming days to deals.
He covets pitching. But with specific parameters.
The chief reason the Cardinals have not “engaged” in the derby for Burnett, as was reported in this morning’s Post-Dispatch, is the length of the contract such a pitcher would command. The Cardinals had a similar reservation when exploring a deal with San Diego for ace Jake Peavy. The Cardinals have three pitchers signed to long-term deals — Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright and Kyle Lohse. Mozeliak said the way the team is currently built prohibits him from adding another long-term deal to the rotation without painting the payroll into a difficult corner in the third and fourth year of that contract.
“Adding a fourth,” he said, “I don’t think that makes sense.”
The Cardinals would prefer to get a starter on a short-term, possibly two-year deal.
Mozeliak did not rule out the possibility of moving one of his outfielders because it where “we have depth.” He also said the Cardinals have virtually exhausted all avenues for dealing Adam Kennedy and that the presence of Kennedy on the roster may make it difficult to resign Felipe Lopez.
Mozeliak said the pitcher he’s after could be a starter or, if the opportunity is there, a closer.
“A lot of this is timing,” Mozeliak said of how his rotation is structured with three pitchers signed through 2011, and potentially (with options) beyond. “It’s hard to engage in us landing that type of pitcher (top-end starter). That’s not the most popular thing to hear. The way we put our club together we’re not going to be able to have four starting pitchers with long-term contracts.”
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Derrick Goold said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball in between. 
Derrick - thanks keeping us up to date. Can you give us a gauge of other teams’ interest in Cardinal major & minor league players, such as who’s being being targeted and by whom?