Cardinals extend contracts of Mike Shildt, John Mozeliak, Mike Girsch

ST. LOUIS—Cardinals manager Mike Shildt has a new three-year contract through the 2022 season.

Shildt was hired in 2018 and his initial deal ran through 2020.

At its end-of-season news conference Tuesday, the team announced president of baseball operations John Mozeliak received a three-year extension through 2023. The Cardinals exercised a 2020 option on general manager Mike Girsch and gave him a two-year extension through 2022.

“What Mo and his group have accomplished since he took over in 2008 as the head of our baseball ops is pretty impressive,” Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. said. “We’ve been in the playoffs seven times. We’ve had 12 consecutive winning seasons, two pennants, a world championship. ... We continue to have a robust farm system, which is not easy to do. When you have winning seasons, you don’t draft high. But we’ve got a very strong scouting and player development group.”

Well, at least we know who can get their contracts rapidly renewed in the off-season…..

Q&A with John Mozeliak

In early August, you all collectively made the decision to fire popular assistant hitting coach Mark Budaska. At the time, everyone said it was related to philosophical differences with hitting coach Jeff Albert. How much do you think the mixed messaging for the first few months may have contributed to the offense underperforming?

Mozeliak: I think, simply put, you’re always looking for consistent messaging. You can have diverse opinions, but you have to have ways of solving problems, because ultimately you don’t want to confuse the players or your team. I think we needed to find some clarity on that. It forced us to make a change and now I feel like the messaging the players here is much more consistent, and I feel that’s been a very positive development for us over the last month or so.