JUPITER, Fla. — Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak admits he “wasn’t a huge fan” of how catcher Willson Contreras conducted himself when he was playing for the Cubs.
“He was just, like, so competitive,” Mozeliak said, “and always wearing his emotions on his sleeves. Sometimes, it was just … ”
Insert a Mozeliak eye roll here.
But when the Cardinals met with Contreras before signing him to a five-year, $87.5 million free-agent contract, they were swayed by his explanation of his approach to the game. Mozeliak and manager Oliver Marmol walked away with the same impression: that Contreras wants opponents to dislike him — that it’s strategic — and that the “vanilla” Cardinals, to use Mozeliak’s word, would be better off with some of that flavor.
“As far as culture goes,” Marmol said, “I think we absolutely nailed it [in] getting the right guy.”
Contreras’ initial days at spring training were “kind of weird,” he told the Sun-Times, but having to be separated by an umpire from Mets batter Dom Smith after a hit-by-pitch in the fourth game of spring helped him feel more settled in and connected to his new teammates. The Cardinals didn’t mind it a bit.
“I don’t play the game for other people to like me,” Contreras said. “I play to win the game. I play for my team. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect my team and win the game. If somebody doesn’t like it, I don’t care.”
That certainly goes for the Cubs.
“Now, they are rivals,” Contreras said. “I’m looking forward to winning games against them, and if I have to do something extra, I will for sure.”
Contreras was disturbed by the public revelation of criticism from within the Cubs organization of his catching in a recent story by The Athletic. According to the story, manager David Ross was “frustrated” at times by Contreras’ preparation and execution of game plans, which Ross has since denied.
“It caught me by surprise because I thought that I did a really good job with the organization and that, by the time I left the team, everybody was happy with me,” he said. “There’s a lot of different history, I guess. Who knows who’s telling the truth?
“But from me, from Willson Contreras, I always will respect the Cubs organization. I’ll always be thankful for them, and I have great memories. I love the fans and the city, and I think I left everything on the table. The fans should know that I did my best to stay there, and it took me a while to turn the page. But now I have turned the page.”
Not without first making an observation that might not go over swimmingly in Chicago.
“The Cardinals operate different,” he said. “Here, we’re always looking to improve every day, to do something to help each other, and the whole team is working in the same [direction]. Every time I come here, every single day, they’re always trying to improve everybody, and that’s something I really like and I think it’s great.”
Mozeliak calls Contreras’ defense “above average.” Contreras knows it will take that — and a lot of flavor — to fill the shoes of predecessor Yadier Molina.
“The best thing I can do is just be myself, don’t change anything,” he said. “That’s why they like me, because of what I’ve done. So, for me, it’s different team, same goal: to get back to the World Series. It might not happen this year. It might happen next year. To do that as a Cardinal would make me very happy.”
