Ben Frederickson Ben Frederickson is a sports columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. You can follow him on Twitter (Ben_Fred), Instagram (benfredpd) and Facebook (BenFredPD). Follow Ben Frederickson Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

Of the countless words Cardinals decision-makers have shared about their ongoing mission to fortify a scrambled bullpen, one from president of baseball operations John Mozeliak jumps out.

Not sign, not trade, not add, not save.

“Filter.”

Because while one or two significant addition(s) to the relief corps is a must, that is only the first step in fixing a unit that walked too many and didn’t strike out nearly enough last season.

The Cardinals don’t need to build a bullpen as much as they need to successfully pluck reliability from a vat of volatility that is the relief market, then make sure they blend their new additions in smoothly with the ingredients from a stocked yet rather chaotic cupboard.

If it sounds messy, it is.

No matter whom the Cardinals sign or acquire via trade, the hard work is yet to come.

Don’t make the mistake of grading the decisions on the spend.

Evidence of botched bullpen attempts are easy to find, and the freshness of the failures are at least a small part of the reason the relief market, whether viewed by trades or free-agent signings, seems to have paused once more.