The Cardinals surprised the baseball world when they parted ways with manager Mike Shildt on Thursday, and speculation has only grown about the situation in the subsequent days. President of baseball operations John Mozeliak cited “philosophical differences” as the reason for the firing, declining to discuss specifics and instead telling reporters (including The Athletic’s Katie Woo) that “where we felt the team was going, we were struggling to get on the same page. We just decided internally that it would just be best to separate now and then take a fresh look as we enter the new season.”
According to Woo, tensions began to grow between Mozeliak and Shildt around midseason, when the Cardinals were still hanging around the NL Central race but struggling to stay above .500. Other factors contributing to the rift may have included the Cardinals’ lack of major moves at the trade deadline, the front office’s desire to incorporate more analytics into the team’s day-to-day operations, and “growing controversy between Shildt and his coaching staff over his leadership tactics and communication.”
Shildt will release his first public statement about his firing tomorrow, though he did send a text message to Woo discussing some of these reported issues. There is “no merit” to the idea of discord with the coaches, Shildt said, though as for the other factors cited, “There is merit (to those factors) but not the entire picture.”
Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch adds another possible factor to the list, perhaps based around how “The Cardinal Way” has long been a backbone of the organization’s practices. “Internally, there had been concern about the absence and ongoing leak of Cardinals-rooted presences,” Goold writes, with some internal dismay over what one source described as “losing tradition” to other clubs.
This stance does seem curious in regards to a managerial change, however, considering that Shildt was himself a longstanding member of the organization. Shildt was first hired by the Cards as a scout in 2004, and he worked his way up the ladder with various minor league managerial and coaching roles before joining the big league coaching staff in 2017, and then becoming interim manager partway through the 2018 season.
As shocking as Thursday’s firing seemed, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney tweeted that rival officials had heard around the middle of August that Shildt’s job could be in jeopardy. St. Louis was still only one game over .500 (69-68) as late as September 7, and though at that point, the Cardinals caught fire. A team-record 17-game winning streak fueled a 21-4 run over the remainder of the regular season, earning the Cards a berth in the NL wild card game. Late-season surges were a common theme in all of Shildt’s three-plus seasons as manager, beginning when the Cardinals went 41-28 after his hiring in 2018.
Coaches and veteran Cardinals players declined comment to Goold about the Shildt firing, though Yadier Molina did speak to reporters in Puerto Rico yesterday, saying the news “took me by surprise…We had very good communication. We went to the playoffs three times in four years. Maybe there was some problem between him and the management. I can’t give you reasons, but from what I know inside the clubhouse, there wasn’t any kind of problem.”
How come no one from analytics has ever been fired?
They get fired all the time. No one cares when a guy in R&D gets fired though, so there is no press release.
Exactly. If the employee is not on the field or isn’t in the public eye like some front office folks, then those hirings and firings aren’t publicized.
I knew a guy years ago on a Red Sox forum who got hired by their analytics department. It didn’t last long and didn’t end well.
Not sure…but I doubt Herzog and LaRussa used analytics; and were competitive. (World Series competitive).
Because of Mozeliak’s poor history in talent assessment, has he failed to adopt or understand analytics?
Would take a baseball mind 100% of the time (ie., Jockety, Herzog, LaRussa, Duncan etc)
Actually, both men made substantial use of analytics as they existed in the day. Herzog had a log, using colored pencils, of every ball hit in every game. No one played match ups more. On several occasions, he had relief pitchers play the OF after pitching so he could bring them back in. Players like Dane Iorg were in the lineup against teams they wore out (Iorg was a known Expos killer). His make over of the Cardinals in 1980-81 was largely data driven.
LaRussa and Duncan (Duncan actually) had volumes of notebooks. LaRussa’s use of the BP in 2011 open the way to how they’re used today.
Tbear, of course you’re 100% correct … but they don’t want to hear about baseball history, they only want to hear about numbers and complex formulas.
They still think Billy Beane was the Founding Father of analytics.
They still think Moneyball was the first time stats such as OBP were valued.
Who is they? Your arguments are vacuous.
Thoughts and prayers.
“Ah you think analytics is your ally? You merely adopted the analysis. I was born in it, molded by it.” – Fever Pitch Guy
I gave you a thumbs up for T&P.
They is a myriad of people, some of which you can easily find in the comments sections of recent columns about Billy Beane on this very site.
Steve – I gave you a thumbs up for making me laugh with that one. Well done sir!
You let the veil fall.
I could go for a Veal Parmigiana right about now.
Steve that was a great comment 😀 thank you for making my day.
Fever Pitch, stop commenting about things you know nothing about. Leave your strawman arguments at the door,.
markakis – Do you always enter conversations in such a poor manner?
I’ve typed a heck of a lot in this thread to support my points.
Now why don’t you tell me what specifically you view as a “strawman argument”.
I’m sure you didn’t come here just to hurl baseless insults, right?
Ted Williams kept a book on umpires.
Didn’t an analytics guy go from Houston to Cardinals and take data with them, then get fired?
They want to incorporate more analytics, they may try to fill the position from within the organization and hope to announce a new manager by mid-November? I’m curious who this is going to be. Any guesses?
Unfortunately I think it will just be a “Yes man” for Mo. If that is the case and the team fails again he won’t have anyone to hide behind. Outside of Oquendo, I don’t know who would be a good fit. I like the analytics being used but, a veteran baseball mind that can make a gut decision over numbers is sometimes what is needed.
Proven Fact!!!!
Mo and La Russa clashed in 2011 over trade deadline deals. Tony wanted certain players and Mo wanted different players. We will never know if there was a compromise or if Mo said you take what i give you but that’s why the next manager was a guy who had never even managed in little league over hiring Terry Francona. Then we get a guy who never managed at the Major League level.. Now Matheny pretty much bombed out in a 3 year span and the fans were restless. This thing with Schildt just seems to stink but I do agree with you. A third “yes” man is coming as the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Stubby Clapp and Oliver Marmol are probably the top 2 internal candidates. I’d venture to guess that Skip Schumaker is on their radar looking outside of the organization.
Stubby Clapp, jeesh there’s gotta be some kind of meds to clear that up.
Bill was just released from the UCI Medical Center.
Skip won’t take the job if he has to accept coaches leftover. Their basically saying you’re the manager, but you will just do what they say.
I doubt Marmol gets it since he was Shildt’s right hand and I’m sure headbutting would commence again quickly.
The Cardinal Way: better to burn out than fade away.
*this season at least
The Cardinal Way: Corporate Espionage for the win.
And who was the GM when that happened?
Nerds have taken over baseball. That’s not a good thing! We see what happened with ” “oh boy! Spin Rates makes baseballs move! Let’s cheat and make some sticky stuff so it will spin more!
Just let them play baseball!
You think it took nerds to figure out that spinning the ball more made it move? The spitball was a thing a hundred years ago.
The physics of spitballs (and splitters) are that they spin very little. That’s why they sink. The craze for high spin rate fastballs at the top of the zone is brand new (or no more than a few years old). You can tell that because the technology to measure it didn’t exist before the teens.
John Montgomery Ward and Honus Wagner disagree.
Like there wasn’t any cheating before analytics?
There was. But cheating before analytics was done by players and coaches, which is who fans buy tickets to watch. Cheating with analytics is by nerds in the back room with laptops, and they’re very much NOT who fans pay to see decide athletic competitions. The nerds with laptops who have forced their way into sports so they can feel like they belong to something athletic are interesting only to themselves (and their families, presumably).
Are you implying that analytics = cheating?
Imagine thinking analytics and too much of them is why your team is losing. Good lord you people are dense. Analytics works that’s why every god damn team is using them all. Making decisions based on gut is how teams lost for years and people want your team to make them based on gut? Downright stupid.
Iverbure – Nothing personal but I’m gonna side with people like John Henry and Theo Epstein, both of whom have said an over-reliance on analytics is a bad thing.
funny how the teams that rely so much on analytics get destroyed in the playoffs every year
Dodgers won it all last year
They paid for it. Most heavy analytical teams, at least to me, seem to be small market.
Yankees and Dodgers have by far the greatest number of analysts in MLB.
Not even close. The biggest analytics teams are the Yankees, Dodgers, Giants, Astros, Red Sox, and yes, the Rays and A’s.
*Sigh*
seamaholic – I provided my source, can you please provide yours.
And the most money!!
Even if you consider 2020 a “real championship”, which many folks don’t, I think their being virtually tied with the Yankees (just $4M less) for highest payroll in MLB, 25% higher than the next highest team, had a lot more to do with winning last year than analytics.
Most teams that rely heavily on analytics don’t get very far in the postseason for three reasons: Lack of emphasis on defense and baserunning and clutch hitting. Billy Beane is a notorious example of that, and his team has failed more than any other team in the league since 1993.
Analytics do not play in the postseason because of the small sample size. What plays out over 162 game season goes out the window in a 5 or 7 game series. Kike is a perfect example.
It was a real WS.
It was as real as the lakers nba title ! It was like a open or invitational title you rather have then not have ! But it’s not the same ! The nba tittle was a bigger farce though and I’m a lakers fan
Only fools don’t consider it real. The teams in all sports had a lot to overcome. Just nonsense.
tstats – There’s no right or wrong answer on that one, it’s all based on perception.
At least the team with the best 60-game record won it all.
What on Earth are you talking about. Valuing defense is one of the defining characteristis of analytics-driven teams. I realize a lot of baseball fans desperately WANT it to be true that analytics-driven teams don’t do well (which should tell us all what analytics is doing to the popularity of the sport, but that’s a different topic) but the fact is they do, and all the high budget teams do the numbers very, very well.
What is Fever Pitch Guy talking about?! Every time uses analytics. Every team that goes to the playoffs is using analytics. Every team that goes far in the playoffs uses analytics! They all use it! A simple example is that every team uses the shift. What kind of a dinosaur are you that you don’t realize that? Teams with more money can hire even more people to their analytics team, but every team is doing the exact same thing. Your comments show you simply don’t understand analytics, which makes me wonder why you come to a website that is all about analytics.
Amazing how some people are so brainwashed.
And here we all thought this was a website about baseball.
Analytic =/= Small market
Every team in the playoffs right now have massive analytic departments. The Astros, Red Sox, Dodgers, Giants, and Rays have some of the highest focus on analytics. Concurrently, the Royals, Pirates, Rockies, D-backs, and Orioles have some of the lowest. I know you desperately wish analytics departments weren’t effective, but the best teams have the best departments for a reason.
Steve – Have to disagree with you on that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/k8lanw/list_of_mlb_team_by_rdanalytics_department/
Red Sox have only 6 analysts
Giants have only 6 analysts
As you can see, Yankees and Dodgers top the list with 20 analysts. If you can find an updated listing, please let me know as I know it’s from 3 years ago therefore it might have changed slightly..
John Henry himself, who made a fortune using data analysis as a commodities trader, has heavily criticized the overuse of analytics and has also made it very clear that analytics was NOT the driving force in the team’s past success.
“A lot of our advantage was purely financial,” Henry said. “We were never as far toward analytics as people thought we were.”
“We have perhaps overly relied on numbers,” Henry said Wednesday after the first full-team workout of spring training. “Over the years, we have had great success relying upon numbers. That has never been the whole story, as we’ve said over and over again, but perhaps it was a little too much of the story, too much reliance on past performance and trying to project future performance. That obviously hasn’t worked three out of the last four years.”
Based on your metrics, would you say that the A’s are one of the least analytically inclined?
The size of the department does not determine the emphasize the team takes to that information. A team could have 1 R&D guy and still be very analytical. Your info means nothing. Especially since it is now 3 years old. The Red Sox have an entirely new regime in place.
I would say the A’s clearly haven’t invested as much time, effort and money in analytics as many other teams have. Despite the farce that was Moneyball, a bunch of other teams such as the NYY and LAD heard about analytics and how it’s supposed to give teams an edge and they said “Well let’s go out and buy the best darn analytics department in baseball”.
I think it’s very fair to see a correlation between the size of an analytics department and that team’s emphasis on analytics utilization. No team is gonna have a 20-person analytics department and yet refrain from using analytics very often. And it’s quite ironic that even with the massive investment in analytics, along with the historically massive payrolls, the NYY have just one championship in 21 years to show for it … and that was back in 2009.
@fever pitch guy You are using a 4 year old article to tell you how many analytics guys the Giants have? Have you been asleep for the past 4 years. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about. You really don’t know how teams use analytics.
Giants74, maybe you’re in the midst of another California power outage and therefore couldn’t use any electronic device to calculate the number of years from October 2018 to today. I’ll help, it’s a 3-year old article.
And I already said if Steve (or anyone for that matter) can provide a more recent summary of each team’s analytics department, please do share.
And it’s funny you apparently don’t know my background and analytical knowledge related to the Red Sox, Bill James, John Henry, Dan Duquette, Theo, Mike Gimbel, etc.
Feel free to Google Mike Gimbel and some of the other names.
This is indeed very old. The Giants, for one, have massively upgraded their department. But the number of analysts isn’t a good metric for how effective the R&D department is. What matters is how they’re integrated into baseball operations and strategy. There are teams who employ lots of people but the team doesn’t reflect their conclusions.
seamaholic – I know position counts aren’t an ideal way to gauge a team’s reliance on analytics, but it’s the best way out there that I could find.
Is it possible managers aren’t utilizing all the data that the analysts are providing? Yes.
Is there any way to know how much of each team’s analyst data is being utilized? No.
@fever Ummm…I know you guys back East don’t pay to the West coast. The article was probably written in September of 2018, 3 complete calendar years ago. What comes after 3, uh 4. Oh, that is also the same month they fired Bobby Evans. So, they have a new FO. They rely heavily on analytics. But in much different ways than you believe. You really believe they have de-emphasized defense and clutch hitting. That is laughable… California doesn’t get blackouts.
Giants74 – What part of “As of October 2018” do you not understand?
Even if it said “As of September 2018” nobody in their right mind would say it’s a 4-year-old article. Especially since teams don’t typically create or eliminate office positions mid-season.
Yes, for instance I’ve posted several articles indicating how Billy Beane doesn’t value defense … and his Moneyball teams have proven it.
Pete Palmer, Bill James and many others in the SABR community have insisted there’s no such thing as clutch.
http://research.sabr.org/journals/the-statistical-mirage-of-clutch-hitting
And you’re talking to a previous PG&E shareholder, so I’m familiar with their history of blackouts.
@Fever PG&E shareholder. So, you are a convicted felon. First off, the baseball season ends in September. That is not mid-season. Brian Sabean, no analytics guy, was running the FO in 2018. Everyone knew there would be a change. So, any article about the Giants analytics department was easily 6 months out of date. Billy Beane has never been apart of the Giants organization. The Giants use analytics completely different from how you think teams use analytics. They definitely do emphasize defense and clutch hitting.
Giants – How did you know I’m George Steinbrenner?
Anything between Opening Day and the last game of the World Series is mid-season, regardless of what you left coasters think.
I said plenty of times it’s a 3-year-old article, provide an updated one if you can’t. Apparently you can’t.
I understand your relief in never having Beane in the Giants organization. He came close to joining my team’s front office, we were all terrified.
That’s great, it sounds like the Giants use a blend of analytics and scouting. Defense and clutch hitting is the best way to go, we have common ground.
The Red Sox probably have 6 MIT nerds who can out analytic other teams with 4 times as many on their staff.
@Fever Huh? What does Stienbrenner have to do with this? The beginning of the baseball season is not the middle of the baseball season. That is really weird. Analytics doesn’t preclude scouting. I don’t know where you get that idea. Defense and hitting are apart of coaching. I guess you guys don’t know much about that.
I prefer the teams that rely on brute force. If they lose the series, they just “bash some nerd faces” to advance.
Analytics have been used for decades in many different ways. The applications have just changed.
“Analytics have been used for decades in many different ways.”
Nope. That’s just not true. At all. Go back just 20 years and most teams didn’t just ignore analytics-driven strategiies that conflicted with time-worn baseball wisdom, they were openly hostile to it.
What do you think stats are?
The Red Sox have won four World Series titles since embracing analytics. The Dodgers are a huge analytics team.
Your point again?
Oh geez … lordd99, you really need to read the direct quotes from John Henry.
And look at how big the Red Sox analytics department is compared to other teams like the Yankees and Dodgers.
It matters greatly that, just to take the Red Sox example, the general manager is essentially a part of the analytics department. In fact the whole senior decision-making group is. How many people are employed in the R&D department is irrelevant.
A lot of bluster on here. Good players win titles. Analytics may help here or there, but you either play good baseball or you don’t. Pitch, hit, field, throw, run…
Your statement is literally “bluster”. Analytics find those that “play good baseball” it’s a cooperative thing with scouting.
There’s been so many lies about analytics “finding” quality players.
Take Ortiz for instance. I’ve read BS articles where Theo was credited with using analytics to find Ortiz.
Truth is, Pedro was good friends with Ortiz and got on the phone with Theo and kept harping on him to sign Ortiz. Otherwise it never would have happened, as Theo already had Hillenbrand/Millar/Giambi to cover 1B.
Does analytics enhance the scouting reports? Certainly.
Should analytics alone be credited with “finding” players? Not that often.
“Take Ortiz for instance”
Let me cherry pick my perfect example and use it as the baseline. Then you make an argument that no one has made, “should analytics alone be credited”.
You came into this article with an axe to grind.
You assume that’s my only or best example? You know what they say about assumptions …. or maybe you don’t, as I won’t assume.
Check the timeline and the number of posts/people who brought up analytics. I wasn’t even close to being the first to discuss it.
Timeline? Do you think I can do a search on you specifically? You act like I assume that’s “your best example” but provide nothing on top of that.
How would one “check the timeline and number of posts/people”? Maybe I don’t understand the “internet” but I don’t think you understand it either.
Geez. David Ortiz was “found” in 2003. Think one or two things might have changed since then? Give us some modern era examples.
Thank you for defining the word “bluster.” And no, we won’t get off your lawn!
I may be wrong, but i truly believe that a big part of his dismissal had to do with his foul mouth. Every time he came out of the dugout to question an umpire you could read his lips and all the F Bombs coming out of his mouth.
I think that rubbed several players the wrong way like Goldschmidt, Arenado, etc. Goldy has been the speaker at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes as has Rick Horton. I believe Shild’s constant colorful choice of words began to create a lot of tension among the players. Just my opinion
Kind of a pedantic deity, then?
Yeah that’s definitely not the reason he was fired because he uses bad words.
Not much to this article. Vague
They may want to “analyze” all the players that the GM gave away that turned into good players. The list is long.
I have no objection to analytics or advanced metrics in general. But I would be very curious as to how they could have been used by Shildt to get better results out of this team. After all the injuries the Major League roster was just very thin. They didn’t have a bench or bullpen full of talented players that could be used to exploit specific matchups. I guess the pattern of bullpen usage could be questioned at times, but basically it was always going to come down to Cabrera, Gallegos, and Reyes plus a bunch of waiver pick ups. Maybe Mo got his feelings hurt because Shildt didn’t utilize the waiver pick ups in way that glamourized Mo’s genius? This article is still pretty vague. I hope Shildt’s statement adds some clarity, but I believe Jeff Albert and Matt Carpenter are at the crux of this break. Mo’s still a d-bag, so whatever.
The Cards did not have an unusually bad injury year. Yes, what they had was concentrated in the pitching rotation, and that’s not good, but everyone has injuries and the Cards also managed to get 32 all-star level starts out of a near-40 year old, and a bunch of solid starts out of a couple mid-30’s scrap heap dudes they picked up at teh deadline. Arenado, Goldy, and Yadi stayed healthy all year too, and are all 30 somethings.
I never said they had an unusual amount of injuries. I’m just saying that after the injuries they had, the roster was very thin. In truth it was very thin any way. My larger point being that I don’t see where a greater reliance on analytics would have produced better results for this team. I think based on the available talent, they were lucky to win 90 games.
VP/GM aren’t gong to fire themselves, Shildt is in the last year of his deal entering 2022 and the options at hand were lame duck, extension or part ways and the front office thought the latter was the best course. It’s one thing to hire someone, it’s another to extend them and it just doesn’t seem like he was their guy. I do think the success that’s happened in MIL is a driving factor here as well.
September saved Shildt’s job, an alternative Sept and maybe he doesn’t survive the season. Same result, just different timing.
I’m more confused after reading this than I was when he got fired.
Me too. Seems like there’s a lot going on here, and it may not originate with the front office (may be the players). I’ll just mention that Nolan Arenado got himself out of Colorado under pretty much the same (reported) allegation of “not agreeing with the front office about the state of the organization.” And he was egged on by Goldschmidt, who is his close friend. Just sayin.
It’s ok Curly, we still respect the majority of your posts
OK, looks like they wiped out our insanity, but I feel better venting.
Spot on Fever. what we really need is all the ball players bitching back & forth on social media against each other . Ughhhh. Bowling, darts, cornhole & crossword puzzles are looking pretty good right now.
WarkMohlers – Ironically the demographic that is pushing against modern baseball is … the younger folks!!
Average age of a baseball viewer is 57, which is 5 years older than what it was 11 years prior.
Baseball has by far the oldest following of the four major team sports.
Just 7% of baseball viewers are below the age of 18.
So OBVIOUSLY something has changed to turn younger folks off of baseball, because back in the day kids LOVED watching baseball more than any other sport. Certainly all the mid-inning pitching changes that are now happening because of analytics-driven data hasn’t helped keep younger folks engaged in the game.
And why do you think that is? Hmmmmm …. perhaps the countless number of people who have been saying for years that the stats-obsessed crowd has taken the fun out of baseball?
Did you ever see The Simpsons episode where Bill James said “I’m the guy that made baseball less fun than doing your taxes”.
I’ve been to some games where launch angle and exit velocity were heavily promoted on the big scoreboards. The overwhelming response from the people around us was “Who the hell cares”.
Is it any coincidence that the sport which is declining the most in the under-30 demographic also happens to be the ONLY major team sport where analytics is so prevalent?
Young people aren’t avoiding baseball because of analytics. They aren’t watching baseball because baseball has horrible marketing strategies towards a younger demographic. In fact, your argument tells me that baseball isn’t changing fast enough.
When is the last time there was a twitter beef between Mike Trout and Cody Bellinger? You want to target a younger crowd, you have to give baseball players more room to build a social media brand and create drama to keep up with the NFL and NBA.
MLB needs to be WWE on Twitter…?
Try…TTO is boring. It’s really boring. Takes longer and has less action than ever.
I’d look there first.
Steve – The vast majority of those under 30 who don’t follow baseball all say the same thing, they find it boring. They talk about basketball and football all the time, and hockey to a lesser extent. Almost NEVER does advanced statistics enter the conversation with those sports.
And baseball games dragging on is another issue. It’s gotten better with the 3-batter-minimum rule and some other changes, but still to many it’s boring watching 7 relievers enter a ballgame from a 9-man bullpen and throw their hardest for 12 pitches or less before leaving the game.
The running joke is that baseball is now for just autists and old people. Nobody was saying that prior to the 2000’s, I wonder why?
I don’t know anyone under 30 that cares about football (maybe if I lived in Alabama, I dunno). That’s about as pure a middle-age-and-up sport as it gets. Little league baseball is booming, and I see plenty of young ones at games. The problem baseball is facing is on TV, not live. Young people don’t watch much on live TV anyway, but they especially don’t watch 3.5 hour shows announced by fossils. Analytics is another big part of it. No one wants to watch a game decided by nerds in back rooms … they want to watch the athletes. And going 15 minutes of “game” time without a single ball in play is just catatonic.
The great thing about baseball has always been the combination of action and tension. Modern baseball is basically all tension and no action.
“I don’t know anyone under 30 that cares about football.”
That’s a joke right? Do you ever go outside?
seamaholic – Top Two sports leagues for Gen Z are NBA and NFL.
Hockey is obviously more a Canadian thing.
https://www.ypulse.com/article/2021/07/22/these-are-gen-z-millennials-top-15-sports-leagues/
The Voice of Reason is back! Thanks Steve.
Steve Nebraska- You’re a serial poster and you’re asking others if they ever go outside? You strike me as someone who always thinks they’re the smartest guy in the room. Don’t take yourself so seriously. And you don’t always have to have the last word. It’s a sign of insecurity. Last word coming in 3…2…1…
You read an article telling you this and decided to make it your opinion. Your comments are like talking to my 80 year uncle.
Analytics are prevalent in everything you’ve ever done in this millennia. In fact market analysts can predict your behavior quite easily (that’s me). Everything you think about most things has been dictated to you without you even realizing it
Wark – Now you’re straying waaay offtopic.
Do I really need to spell out Sabermetrics so as to help you realize we are talking about advanced baseball metrics?
I will engage you in legitimate discourse when you stop instantly liking your own comments.
And I’ve never been off topic, ever.
That’s not me liking my posts.
I do have a hype man though, Fever Feve.
Yeah, good idea, if we can’t get Mariah Carey & Beyonce, maybe Trout & Bellinger can exchange vows & create that drama baseball needs.
From a business perspective; DeWitt has to take accountability for Mozeliak’s failures….
5 years of poor contracts
Inconsistent starters
No bench strength in 5 years
Failure to get deep into the playoffs and
Terminating managers that he previously hired.
Bottom line, this is simply…terrible management
finally someone getting to the “REAL” Issue. Mozeliak’s incompetence.
He is the one that needs to be fired.
You forgot the spring training espionage, certainly hurt the organization.
Could just be me. But I think there was a difference between the two parties of where the cardinals actually were.
I think FO thought they are good enough to win and compete for division this year. While Shildt wanted some more pieces and realistic. Then when they cardinals put their strong run together at the end of seasons, FO is said where’s this been all year? You’re out!
@fan i agree with you advanced metrics needs to be used as a tool not the end all be all. i’ll admit i’m not very hip on the advanced numbers but i’m not going to discredit them because i’m not hip to them, not to mention some of them are flawed and the kinks haven’t been ironed out yet. tbh as a whole we need to embrace both the advanced metrics and the traditional stat line. both stats paint a better picture of a player then just solely using one or the other, also there is a 3rd category that you can’t put into numbers and that’s the “it” factor.
The thing with analytics is that smart players will either adjust to beat them or use opponents’ analytics against them.
As a Mets fan, I think that’s exactly what teams did against us. Think about it. Every team should essentially have the same data. They all know what players are pull hitters, who can’t hit a slider or pitch above the belt. They all know what pitchers throw and in what count. SMART players beat their own trends just by switching it up. I mean, who can’t figure out Stanton can’t hit the pitch after an up and in fastball. Or where Gallo’s holes are. Or that McNeil is going to pull every pitch to the second baseman. SMART players adjust. Players who won’t or can’t will get chewed up as soon as other teams get enough data on them.
Jim – That’s an excellent point! Element of surprise is always beneficial.
In order to watch baseball you need a bigger attention span, and you need to understand a few rules, that is why there aren’t many younger people following the game. Furthermore, most have their heads stuck in social media or some other things where you don’t need an attention span longer than a minute.
“These kids today don’t wanna take the horse and buggy anymore. They all want to ride in automobiles, dagnabbit…”
Entertainment isn’t supposed to be a slog.
Interesting with the Cardinals how it’s always the manager’s fault… never a roster problem, or a GM issue
Never the less——- differences of Opinions is no reason to fire a proven MLB winning manager who stuck up for his players!!
There’s got to be more!!! If not—— then why wasn’t the right guy (John Mozeliak) Fired??
IMO, Mike Schildt doesn’t manage a pitching staff very well.