“Give him anything he wants.”
Those were the words of wisdom John Mozeliak remembers Steve Turco offering to him more than 20 years ago about an 18-year-old Yadier Molina. At the time, Mozeliak was the Cardinals’ scouting director, and his department had just selected the catcher in the fourth round of the 2000 Draft out of Ladislao Martinez HS in Vega Alta, Puerto Rico.
The signing deadline was approaching, the allotted time to solidify an agreement with the younger brother of two big league catchers was running out, and Turco couldn’t fathom what was taking so long.
“I remember having Steve Turco, our area scout in Florida at the time, see Yadi play in an American Legion tournament, and he called me after and said, ‘So, Mo, what’s the issue here?” said Mozeliak, now St. Louis’s president of baseball operations. “I told him he wanted more than slot, and I was trying to determine what dollars to put on him.”