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Mozeliak flattens scouting, promotes Flores to GM, and builds succession infrastructure after three missed Octobers and a farm system slide.
71-91
in 2024
23rd
in Baseball America's midseason organizational rankings
12th
in 2022
2012
(Kolten Wong
The St. Louis Cardinals promoted two internal lieutenants and eliminated a layer of scouting management, a restructure announced Monday by John Mozeliak, the club's President of Baseball Operations. Randy Flores moves to Senior Vice President and General Manager. Matt Slater assumes the Vice President of Baseball Development role. The changes take effect immediately.
The scouting department reorganization collapses the previous regional structure. Area scouts now report directly to scouting director Gary LaRocque, removing the crosschecker tier that previously filtered information upward. The Cardinals employed four full-time crosscheckers as recently as last season. Two accepted reassignments to area roles. One left for an Atlantic Division club. The fourth is expected to surface in an advisory capacity by February, according to a person familiar with the transition.
This marks Mozeliak's first significant structural change since the Cardinals missed the playoffs for a third consecutive year. The club finished 71-91 in 2024, their worst record since 1995. The farm system ranked 23rd in Baseball America's midseason organizational rankings, down from 12th in 2022. St. Louis has not drafted a position player who made an All-Star team since 2012 (Kolten Wong, 2022). The scouting flatten arrives as the club enters a potential roster reset with $167 million committed to six players for 2025, per Cot's Baseball Contracts.
Flores joined the Cardinals front office in 2016 after eight seasons as a reliever. He ran the pro scouting department before overseeing amateur operations. His promotion to GM creates succession architecture; Mozeliak, 55, has discussed stepping back from day-to-day operations within three years, though no timeline has been formalized. Slater's elevation signals a data-first bent—he arrived from the Dodgers' research and development group in 2019 and built the Cardinals' player development analytics infrastructure.
The crosschecker elimination follows a pattern visible in Tampa Bay, Cleveland, and the Dodgers, all of which run leaner scouting pyramids and rely on centralized video review. The Cardinals previously used crosscheckers to verify regional reports and build consensus before the draft. Removing that layer compresses decision cycles but increases risk if area scouts miss on tools or medicals. The club has not yet disclosed whether it will add analysts to compensate, though two baseball operations roles remain posted on the team's careers page as of Monday evening.
The timing also precedes the 2025 Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations. MLB and the Players Association begin formal talks in November 2025, and several owners have signaled interest in altering the international amateur system. If those talks produce a worldwide draft, scouting structures will shift again. The Cardinals' flatten positions them to pivot quickly, but it also means the club is making long-term bets on fewer evaluators.
Mozeliak's last major trade deadline moved three controllable starters—Jordan Montgomery, Jack Flaherty, and Jose Quintana—for a return that included two pitchers now outside the organization and outfielder Dylan Carlson, who was non-tendered in December. The club's inability to convert those moves into sustainable roster talent has drawn scrutiny from ownership. Bill DeWitt Jr., the principal owner, typically grants Mozeliak wide latitude, but the Cardinals have now posted a sub-.500 record in consecutive seasons for the first time since 1958-1960.
Watch for coordinator hires beneath Flores in the next 30 days, particularly in pro scouting and international operations. The Cardinals have interviewed two external candidates for a newly created Vice President of International Scouting role, per a source with knowledge of the process. The club's Dominican academy undergoes its accreditation review in March, and MLB has tightened oversight of training conditions and prospect signings after violations at other complexes.
The Cardinals open Grapefruit League play February 22 in Jupiter. Flores will run his first draft war room in July.
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