ST. LOUIS — Yadier Molina had just one question for John Mozeliak, St. Louis’ president of baseball operations, when the latter informed him that Albert Pujols would be returning to the Cardinals for the 2022 season.
“What took you so long?”
The Cardinals did not enter the spring thinking they would be bringing back Pujols — a two-time World Series champion, three-time MVP and 10-time All-Star (nine of which came with St. Louis) — for one last go before he retires. While the front office was pursuing more bench depth, Mozeliak was also committed to making sure the organization’s top hitting prospects in Nolan Gorman, Juan Yepez and Brendan Donovan were seeing substantial at-bats. But as time passed, and the 42-year-old Pujols remained unsigned, strategy began to change. And once the organization decided to reach out to their old friend, the decision to re-sign him became a no-brainer.
On March 28, the Cardinals inked Pujols to a one-year, $2.5 million contract, bringing a beloved franchise icon home for what will be the final season of his 22-year career. Pujols, a sure-fire Hall of Famer, knew all along he wanted to come back to St. Louis. But the timing, the situation and the role had to be right. Things had to align perfectly for both sides.
In the end, it took just 48 hours of cross-country communication for the Cardinals to bring Pujols home. Here’s how they pulled it off.
It wasn’t unusual when Molina reached out and FaceTime’d Pujols on March 26 from the Cardinals’ spring training clubhouse in Jupiter, Fla. The two, described by Molina as brothers, have been in constant communication since Pujols left St. Louis for the Los Angeles Angels following the Cardinals’ last World Series win in 2011.
“We stay in touch probably two, three times a week,” Molina explained.
Molina wanted to know what Pujols was up to. Pujols had not been picked up by a team, though there were a few with interest and at least one potential deal on the table. More precisely, though, Molina wanted to know why Pujols wasn’t a Cardinal yet.
“When Yadi reached out and we talked, I thought, ‘Okay, there’s a chance for me to be reunited here,'” Pujols said.
The wheels began to spin.
After his call with Molina, Pujols received a text from Cardinals manager Oli Marmol and they agreed to talk on the phone Saturday. Marmol also reached out to Mozeliak to let him know he’d been in contact with Pujols.
“All I said to (Oli) at that time was, ‘Please just follow up with him,'” Mozeliak said. “Let him know that you and I have spoken and that at some point in the next couple of days I will try to follow up.”
Marmol initially reached out Saturday morning, but Pujols — three hours behind in Los Angeles — wasn’t able to get on the phone until that evening when Marmol was at dinner with his wife, Amber. But when Pujols did ring, Marmol knew it was a call he had to answer.
“We got to talking and I was gauging where he was physically and mentally, and his interest in being back here,” Marmol explained. “It was pretty clear immediately that his desire was not just to sign with any team and play one more year, but it was to finish here. He was telling me he was in shape, he had lost 15 pounds or so, he was taking live at-bats, and he was hoping I would call.”
Marmol knew exactly what his next move would be when he hung up the phone.
“I immediately texted Mo,” Marmol said, referring to Mozeliak. The text was simple. It was only three words, but it didn’t require further explanation:
“Five wants back.”
Things escalated quickly after that. By Sunday morning, Mozeliak was beginning to form a game plan. He checked in with Pujols, telling him he would like to speak directly on the phone at some point that day. Then he met with Marmol in his office ahead of the Cardinals’ exhibition game against the Mets in Port St. Lucie.
“A couple hours later, we were pretty close to a deal,” Marmol said.
That afternoon, Mozeliak called Pujols. The two had a 15-minute conversation that Mozeliak described as “extremely positive.”
“He made it very clear to me that he had options,” Mozeliak said. “But it would mean a lot to him to return to St. Louis. I told him I had to think through some things. There was a financial component to this, there was understanding playing time and expectations, and I just wanted to make sure we were all in agreement.”
Mozeliak reached out to Dan Lozano of MVP Sports Group, Pujols’ agent, to communicate those same stipulations. With the expansion of the universal designated hitter, the Cardinals believed they had a place for Pujols on the roster, but not a spot as an everyday player. They preferred to use Pujols the same way the Dodgers did when they signed him last May — a matchup-based hitter against left-handed pitchers and low-velocity right-handers. Pujols cranked out 13 home runs and owned a .939 OPS against left-handers last season. The Cardinals knew that would play.
Lozano initially missed Mozeliak’s call, as he was driving through an area with poor cell service, but once the two connected it was straight to business. At this point, Pujols backed out of the conversations and let Mozeliak and Lozano hash out the details.
“I stayed away and let him discuss with my agent,” Pujols said. “They explained to me that pretty much the same way the Dodgers used me last year, would be that kind of way again. … But they believed they could use me, and that was something I was happy about.”
Soon after speaking with Lozano, Mozeliak took his daughter, Ally, to dinner. When he returned, it was pretty evident what the path forward would be. In fact, it was so clear, that “when I hung up the phone with him, I went and packed,” Pujols said. “I knew there was something pretty good that was going to happen.”
Word began to spread that Pujols was heading back to the Cardinals, though an official deal was still not in place.
“Yadi and (Adam) Wainwright were calling me asking me if I was on the plane yet,” Pujols laughed.
“I was anxious,” Molina said. “I started calling him and asking him the same questions, and he would just say, ‘Be patient, it’s going to happen.'”
“We needed him as a player,” Yadier Molina said of Albert Pujols. (Jeff Roberson / Associated Press)
Meanwhile, Lozano and Mozeliak were busy discussing the logistics of the deal.
“There were two or three teams that I was having ongoing discussions with regarding Albert, what the opportunity looked like, were they going to be able to meet Albert’s needs as far as playing time,” Lozano said. “And all along, I felt like St. Louis was tugging on Albert’s heart. We were waiting. We were sitting back and waiting, hoping that St. Louis would eventually realize that they wanted to bring him back.”
Pujols was never concerned about the money, but he did have questions he wanted clarified regarding his role.
“I wanted to have a one-on-one conversation with Albert before we made a decision, making sure Albert truly understood what the landscape looked like,” Lozano said. “I walked Albert through it, and he was OK with Mo’s interpretation of different scenarios.”
After getting the green light from his client, Lozano called Mozeliak one more time for a brief conversation about contract terms. By late Sunday night, the only thing holding up the deal was putting pen to paper. Pujols was boarding a flight out of Los Angeles, due to depart at 10 p.m. local time. He was heading into Palm Beach International Airport — though he did wind up missing his connecting flight in Atlanta — and arrived at the Cardinals’ spring training complex Monday morning, with the No. 5 freshly pressed back onto his jersey.
Done deal.
“The whole thing lasted 24 hours,” Pujols remarked. “I believe everything was nice and smooth. The conversation, the negotiation, it wasn’t even anything about the money or anything like that, like I had more money offered to me from other places. But this was the right place for me to be and finish.
“For a moment, I didn’t think it was going to happen, whether I was going to come back and play here. I had a couple of other teams interested, they were waiting actually on my decision. … I told Oli I need to make a decision because spring training was going to be done in 12 days, and I wanted to go to spring training and get reunited. If you guys are proceeding, I want you to be honest, and let me know if you guys are into it. Because if not, I was going to have to go with one of these teams that were waiting for me.”
Pujols had already mentally committed to playing one more season, but he was always adamant in conversations that, regardless of playing time or dollars, coming back to St. Louis was his top priority.
“I don’t think you have the conversation with Albert unless you have some intentions of being able to get it done,” Marmol said. “There’s a lot of respect and the last thing you want to do is put something on the table that you’re going to take back. There was definitely interest on my part, on Mo’s part, and after coming together and talking through it, we knew it was our best move.”
“We needed him as a player,” Molina said. “We know that he can bring good things to the table for our team and help us go to the World Series, and I think that’s why Mo signed him.”
It also helped that neither Gorman nor Yepez turned in the spring campaigns they were hoping for. The bench role was theirs for the taking, but the front office ultimately decided both young bats would be better served with consistent playing time and further development in Triple A. That swung the door open for Pujols.
“When you look at the amount of at-bats we were giving the young guys, we really wanted to take a look to see if this was our best option,” Marmol said. “Do we think highly of Gorman and Yepez? The answer is absolutely. Did we think our best chance right this second was to sign Albert? Yes.”
“We went into camp wanting to give some players that chance,” Mozeliak added. “We also went into camp after the labor agreement knowing that we wanted to try to find a left-handed batter and then, subsequently, would we have to do something with a more veteran presence on the bench should the camp not uphold. What makes me feel so good about the Albert signing was that we gave Plan A a chance, and understand that we were fortunate enough that (Pujols) was still available. Because ultimately, if he didn’t want to be here, he would be somewhere else.”
But what Mozeliak and Marmol were both equally adamant about was the fact that resigning Pujols had little to do with nostalgia. Did it make for a great story? Of course. But that was far from the primary reason they considered the deal.
“This is more than just a story of Albert coming back to St. Louis,” Marmol said. “We made the move because we thought Albert was our best play to win.”
“I love the nostalgia part of the story, it’s great,” Mozeliak said. “But he didn’t sign here and we didn’t sign him to say, ‘You should finish your career as a Cardinal.’ We want him to be impactful and we want him to be contributing, and he can do that in more than just getting hits and home runs.”
In his first five games, Pujols is 7-for-18 with two walks and two home runs, including a towering shot at Busch Stadium last week that marked his first homer in a Cardinal uniform in 3,855 days.
“At the end of the day, it’s great to be back and reunite,” Pujols said. “But it’s more than that. There’s a ballclub here that has a pretty good chance to win. That’s what I believe. As great as it sounds to finish my career here where it all started, you have to block all of that out.”
It’s rare that a single day can define the trajectory of a 162-game season. Baseball is a complex game comprised of seven months of small moments. But Pujols taking the field for St. Louis on a warm, spring afternoon, 48 hours after not knowing if he would have a job, perhaps sets the tone for what the Cardinals hope will be a storybook season.
And when all was said and done that day, Molina had just one more thing for Mozeliak:
“Thank you for making this happen.”