ST. LOUIS -- St. Louis Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak estimates he missed fewer than 10 pitches of the World Series. Like a lot of the country, he simply found it to be gripping drama, like a good heavyweight fight as he put it.

Unlike for most of the people plopped on their couches, the outcome added a layer of complexity to Mozeliak’s job. The world champion Chicago Cubs aren’t just in his division, they’re the new standard his team’s fan base will judge Mozeliak’s efforts by. Good luck with that. After winning 103 games in the regular season, the Cubs showed postseason toughness and resiliency, once the Cardinals’ calling card.

“If they’re the rabbit, we’ve got to find a way to catch it,” Mozeliak said.

He also noted his front office needs to be realistic this winter after the team finished with 17 fewer wins than the Cubs and missed the playoffs by one game.

The Cardinals will push this offseason to get better up the middle on defense. Charles LeClaire/USA TODAY Sports

“We’re going to need a lot of things to go right. We’re going to have to hit on our acquisitions this offseason,” he said. “Obviously, we plan on competing. Nowhere in our minds are we thinking rebuild, but we see an opportunity to improve our club and we certainly know what we have to go chase.”

The Cardinals think they have to go chase speedy, athletic targets. The Cubs’ biggest edge on the Cardinals wasn’t embodied by the brawn of Anthony Rizzo or even the steeliness of Jon Lester. The Cardinals were nearly as explosive as the Cubs offensively and they feel their rotation and, probably, their bullpen will be major assets next season. Mozeliak thinks the team has two strong waves of young pitching on the horizon in the minor leagues.

The biggest gap was displayed by the diving stops of Addison Russell and the creativity of Javier Baez with a glove. To gain ground on the Cubs, the Cardinals are inclined to get more athletic and maybe even younger, which means just throwing another $50 million at the problem isn’t going to fix what ails them, not in this weak free-agent market.

The Cardinals have only one imperative this winter: Fix their defense. By UZR, the Cubs were the best-fielding team in the majors last season, the Cardinals were 24th. By DRS, the Cubs were first and the Cardinals were 13th. The Cardinals played last season with a rookie shortstop, Aledmys Diaz, who is probably better suited to second base because of limited first-step quickness. They played with a center fielder, Randal Grichuk, who takes dubious routes and figures to benefit from a move to left field.

Third base and second base weren’t particularly strong either, but could get better now that Matt Carpenter will stay at first. Kolten Wong could go a long way to fixing the problem if he can hit well enough to stay on the field.

The basic outline of Mozeliak’s winter will be to pursue a center fielder, or left fielder if he can’t find the former, and be open to adding a shortstop. The plan is to fix a lack of fluidity on the field with a lot of it in hot-stove conversations.

“If you’re looking for one phrase to encapsulate it, we have to be open-minded this offseason,” Mozeliak said.

Mozeliak’s pursuit of diamond-level defenders figures to start at the top and work its way down, which means that, if he hasn’t already, he figures to get in touch with Los Angeles Angels general manager Billy Eppler and Tampa Bay Rays general manager Matthew Silverman. The Angels have the best player in the game, center fielder Mike Trout, and perhaps the best shortstop in the game, Andrelton Simmons. The Rays have defensive wunderkind Kevin Kiermiaer in center field and a possible trade chip Evan Longoria, a two-time Gold Glove winner at third.

Both of those conversations might end in laughter if the Angels and Rays consider themselves contenders for 2017, but checking in will at least allow the Cardinals to calibrate their pursuit this winter. Major fixes figure to be more readily available via trade than free agency.

Most of the free agents available, including the top center fielder on the market, Dexter Fowler, are average fielders at best. Fowler, 30, also would cost the Cardinals a draft pick since the Cubs extended him a qualifying offer.

When Mozeliak was preparing to travel to Arizona for this week’s general managers’ meetings, the only agents he planned to meet with represented relievers. He acknowledged his team had scant interest in closers on the market, led by Aroldis Chapman and Kenley Jansen.

The Cardinals spent aggressively on the international market in the last signing period, and they concentrated on drafting college pitchers in June. Behind their latest homegrown pitchers, Alex Reyes and Luke Weaver, they expect young pitchers Jack Flaherty, Austin Gomber, Dakota Hudson and Daniel Poncedeleon to be possible contributors in 2017.

So fans expecting the Cubs’ parade to spur an arms race, with the Cardinals reacting as the Boston Red Sox once did to the rise of the New York Yankees, could be disappointed. The Cardinals have rarely operated that way and, after all, they do have 11 World Series titles to the Cubs’ two.