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Ok. I didn't just like him, I loved him. He would have done anything for the Cardinals franchise, was liked by his players, striving to improve, and I even loved his quirky post-game thing with his water bottle. I could have grown old and died with him as manager. Sue me.KenBoyer14 wrote: ↑October 1 25, 12:19 pmYeah, Manager of the Year in 2019. He's terrible. Glad you know more than baseball writers. You know, the guys that watch the game every day.
I never said he was perfect, but to say he is terrible is a bit much.
They got both those players because it cost them nothing. Great if you can get it, terrible way to expect business to be conducted. Also the half-assed measures at acquiring pitchers in free agency gets right to the heart of what I posted.Lesson wrote: ↑September 30 25, 3:41 pmGoldschmidt and Arenado were better hitters than anyone on that 2015 team.MrCrowesGarden wrote: ↑September 30 25, 10:50 amIt really does feel like that offseason after the 2015 season was a turning point. They were scorned by Heyward and Price, and even though they were spared from both, they didn’t get better players while becoming increasingly conservative as an organization that was already conservative to start.jagtrader wrote: ↑September 30 25, 9:51 amThey’ve won the division twice since 2015 while maintaining a competitive advantage over all but one of the Central teams. They’re entering Year 4 of a rebuild that is just getting started. Most of Mozeliak’s achievements are ancient history and he stayed way too long. Any good he did is overshadowed by what could be a very long playoff drought he created.
I’d argue the decline was more due to failed attempts at developing pitchers and half-assed measures at acquiring pitchers in free agency.
I remember posters here regularly questioning Shildt's bullpen management and in-game decisions. I do think that the team's defense improved considerably in his first full year as manager, and the players seemed to work well with him, so he was respected in the clubhouse.CardsofSTL wrote: ↑September 30 25, 8:03 pmShildt was ok. His teams have all won 90+ games. Can't argue with success.
That said I was surprised when he was fired but not necessarily broken up about it. He always seemed like a transitional guy.
Transitioning to Marmol was kind of odd though.
I was surprised they gave him the job fulltime after they fired Matheny tbh. I think they thought he would be a company yes man and then he wasn't and that ultimately led to him being on the outs. But that is all just conjecture.sighyoung wrote: ↑October 2 25, 10:33 amI remember posters here regularly questioning Shildt's bullpen management and in-game decisions. I do think that the team's defense improved considerably in his first full year as manager, and the players seemed to work well with him, so he was respected in the clubhouse.CardsofSTL wrote: ↑September 30 25, 8:03 pmShildt was ok. His teams have all won 90+ games. Can't argue with success.
That said I was surprised when he was fired but not necessarily broken up about it. He always seemed like a transitional guy.
Transitioning to Marmol was kind of odd though.
I did think he was on his way to being fired prior to the 17-game winning streak in September 2021--the team was treading water most of the year--but after that, he seemed to bought himself an extension. The firing was all the more surprising because Shildt was their baby: a manager developed in their own minor-league system, that they were now expelling out of the organization. I wondered if management saw him as an interim manager all along, and were flummoxed when the team suddenly made the playoffs.
Whatever people thought about him as an in-game decision-maker, he was a respected baseball man in general, and to lose that from your organization, especially the way it happened, looked bad.
The thing I really started noticing over the past few years was the language of ownership/management. They used to talk in terms of absolutes: The goal is winning the World Series. Anything less was unacceptable. That gradually became a goal of making the playoffs and seeing what happens, which of course is colored by the expansion of the playoffs. Then the goal became fielding a "competitive team," which means anything and therefore nothing.MrCrowesGarden wrote: ↑October 3 25, 1:26 amI know it's because we've moved on from BDW2 to BDW3, but in ten years we went from (by all accounts from Goold and the like) the Cardinals believing they would sign Price and Heyward for a combined $350 million plus to having to be strong-armed by the players union to sign Phil Maton after NFL teams signed free agents in the span of a decade.