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I was firmly in the ‘give Woodford a shot to start’ camp.
If he pitches poorly in this win I will have to pull up stakes and switch camps.
This team needs an enema.
It was still 0-0 when I fell asleep last night, and I saw this morning we are now 0-8 in series openers. Not surprised we lost last night as Cobb was looking great, while Monty was keeping us in the game but wobbled a few times.
Just for the heck of it, I checked the 1964 club’s record at the 23 game mark, as that was a team with high aspirations and were disappointing through about 2/3 of the season. They were a respectable 13-10 at this juncture though, and only 3 1/2 games out. We are 7 games out already.
Still way too early to draw any conclusions. But continued poor play will have consequences. I don’t think we are struggling due to “you get what you pay for” as was mentioned in the game thread from yesterday, or “owner ship cheapness”. It is primarily poor talent evaluation. We have just given away a lot more value than we have received over the last 4-5 years due to a consistent short term goal of staying competitive. We are now getting to the long-term consequences of those decisions.
Still there is talent here – no one can say how things will look in August. But for now, things are rough.
Who saw this headline coming?
April 25th, 2023
Cards lose again. 7.0 games behind the NLC leading Pirates.Weird and wild stuff…. as Johnny Carson would say.
The Cards starters have been weak as a group for years running now. It was obvious nothing homegrown was coming up through the system to help in 2023. It was the #1 weakness imo. So Bill and Mo had a decision in the offseason on how much to spend acquiring help for the deficiencies created by poor evaluation and development. Everybody knew pitching was an issue, so how much did they fork over? To me, that seems as clear a case of getting what you pay for as can be. Nothing.
I think they might have gotten overconfident with the last two years of helpful patchwork they did at the trade deadline — as in we can just fall back to that to bail us out if things go badly again. I think they were lucky to do as well as they did in 21 and 22 with those moves, but credited them for doing well enough to claw out a playoff spot both times. That approach could fail more often than succeed, and if it’s a significant component of your risk management planning, you’re not a serious contender.
As BikeMike will tell you……the 1973 Cardinals started the season 5-20. They were 8.5 games out in early May. They were the comeback team in baseball that year and missed the playoffs on the last day of the year.
Now here we are, 50 years later. Stay tuned…….
r/Esteemed Rat
The Cardinals are 21st in team ERA. The SP’ing has looked somewhat better the last week and I think it’ll continue to improve. The BP’s been satisfactory with the exception of a handful of implosions which were brought on directly as a result of inane decisions made by the field manager in the form of handing the baseball to a pitcher who is struggling to keep his career alive. I still believe this roster contains enough talent to win the NLC. It’s my view that only 3 positon players (Goldschmidt, Arenado and Contreras) on the entire roster have roles that have been clearly defined. The remainder of the roster has been subjected to not only constant shuffling in the batting order, but also an alarming amount of position shuffling in both the IF and OF. And that’s just the beginning of my rant. It’s my view that this team is suffering in 3 important areas.
1. Trust…I don’t think the players trust their field manager to protect both their integrity or their backsides. I also think they’re reasonably concerned that he may well begin to point a finger and mention to someone outside of the confines of the team clubhouse as putting forth a lackluster effort. I don’t think they trust the guy.
2. Confidence…I don’t think these players are confident in their manager’s ability to make in game tactical decisions that are condusive to winning close ballgames.
3. Faith…I don’t think these players have faith in their manager’s ability to make strategic decisions that allow their various skills and talents to thrive by not only clearly defining their roles, but also of consistently placing them in a position to fill those roles.
My conclusion is to get rid of the current Redbird field manager while it’s still early in the day before he’s allowed to burn anymore daylight. He’s way over his head. That may seem harsh, but that’s the way I see it.
That ’73 team lends all the credence in the world to the axiom that says you can’t win anything in April, but you can sure lose a season. They lost the NLE in the first 2 weeks of the season losing 12 of their first 13 games.
They were the comeback team in baseball that year and missed the playoffs on the last day of the year.
I think “missed the playoffs” is the key part of that sentence.
It sure is, ZTR. They also missed it on the last day with a 81-81 W/L record. They had to scratch and claw all season and still came up a bit shy of the mark.
The TBA is former Cardinal John Brebbia, who led the league in appearances last year doing relief and spot starts. Too bad he was doing it for somebody else.
They don’t want a lefty to take a turn vs. the Cardinals. Probably a smart decision by Kapler. He’s going for 4 W’s in a row tonight and trying to get his team back in the hunt in NLW.
I think you are on to something 1TD, in your assessment of Marmol. I think the riff with O’Neill did not play at all well in the clubhouse, and there is a mistrust between management and players.
If we get to late May and are double digits out, I would not be surprised to see Ollie relieved of his duties. I guess they would have to then go with McEwing on an interim basis, who again is a guy with no MLB managerial experience. But who knows, maybe he would work out.
Might be time to give Stubby the reigns.
Euro Dandy wrote:
The Cards starters have been weak as a group for years running now. It was obvious nothing homegrown was coming up through the system to help in 2023. It was the #1 weakness imo. So Bill and Mo had a decision in the offseason on how much to spend acquiring help for the deficiencies created by poor evaluation and development. Everybody knew pitching was an issue, so how much did they fork over? To me, that seems as clear a case of getting what you pay for as can be. Nothing.
I think they might have gotten overconfident with the last two years of helpful patchwork they did at the trade deadline — as in we can just fall back to that to bail us out if things go badly again. I think they were lucky to do as well as they did in 21 and 22 with those moves, but credited them for doing well enough to claw out a playoff spot both times. That approach could fail more often than succeed, and if it’s a significant component of your risk management planning, you’re not a serious contender.
Spot on Euro. Spot on.
It’s not exclusively confined to what he did to O’Neill, Bikemike. These players got a taste last season of the sort of fare he serves up when he singled out Bader. I don’t think they take him seriously at all. I noticed an incident in the dugout last season during a televised game in which Marmol approached Wainwright in an attempt to say something to him after he’d went and got him late in a game. Wainwright seemed to laugh at him and tell him to move on. He did. He picks his spots and I think these players, especially the young ones, may be playing in an atmosphere in which they’re wondering about the next spot he’ll pick. Moreover, I think the more serious issue is the one that I mentioned about clearly defined roles among the position players. Those definitions don’t exist after the mention of Goldy, Nado and Contreras. Furthermore, you can be dead certain that the Redbird manager doesn’t possess enough testicular fortitude to point a finger at any one of those three players.
The Cardinals are 21st in team ERA. The SP’ing has looked somewhat better the last week and I think it’ll continue to improve. The BP’s been satisfactory with the exception of a handful of implosions which were brought on directly as a result of inane decisions made by the field manager in the form of handing the baseball to a pitcher who is struggling to keep his career alive. I still believe this roster contains enough talent to win the NLC. It’s my view that only 3 positon players (Goldschmidt, Arenado and Contreras) on the entire roster have roles that have been clearly defined. The remainder of the roster has been subjected to not only constant shuffling in the batting order, but also an alarming amount of position shuffling in both the IF and OF. And that’s just the beginning of my rant. It’s my view that this team is suffering in 3 important areas.
1. Trust…I don’t think the players trust their field manager to protect both their integrity or their backsides. I also think they’re reasonably concerned that he may well begin to point a finger and mention to someone outside of the confines of the team clubhouse as putting forth a lackluster effort. I don’t think they trust the guy.
2. Confidence…I don’t think these players are confident in their manager’s ability to make in game tactical decisions that are condusive to winning close ballgames.
3. Faith…I don’t think these players have faith in their manager’s ability to make strategic decisions that allow their various skills and talents to thrive by not only clearly defining their roles, but also of consistently placing them in a position to fill those roles.
My conclusion is to get rid of the current Redbird field manager while it’s still early in the day before he’s allowed to burn anymore daylight. He’s way over his head. That may seem harsh, but that’s the way I see it.
Their is probably some truth to what you are saying 1TD but it would be difficult for us to really know what the players think of Marmol. I honestly don’t know about that but I do feel confident in saying that the manager is not the only reason we are sitting at 9-14. Here are my three points:
1. Like the manager the players also have a professional obligation to perform and most of them aren’t, even though most of them make a lot more money than he does. They shouldn’t get a free pass.
2. The front office did a very poor job in constructing this starting rotation. Most of us harped on this all winter and it has come true. This part of the team has not been a shocker at all. The front office shouldn’t get a free pass.
3. Most importantly, in my opinion, I don’t think the front office wants the kind of manager you are looking for. Long gone is the cigar chewing, independent minded, old school manager who runs the team with an iron fist, with his eyes, and with his scouts. Nowadays the manager reads over the spreadsheets from the front office and closely follows their “suggestions”. We won’t be seeing another Herzog or LaRussa anytime soon. It is no coincidence we have had three rookie managers in a row. If Marmol is axed tomorrow you can bet we will have another inexperienced guy who knows his place.
I am not trying to overly defend Marmol. We won 93 games with him last year but I have no special affinity for him really, however, I do think our problems run deeper than him.
I don’t think he’s the only reason either, gscottar. However, with or without the cigar, I’d take Mickey Mouse at the moment. I saw him play Motter way too much while they were losing. Then I see DeJong at SS for 2 games as soon as he returns and Edman moved over to 2B. Donovan at 1B and 3B. No one knows where to man up in the OF. The lineup structure confounds simple reason on almost a daily basis. The NL MVP who was slotted at 3 all of last season is now juggled around in the 2 slot. It gets too wearisome to even think about at times. He seems to always be attempting to outsmart himself and I’m not too sure he’s all that smart to begin with. He may be a nice enough guy, but in my view, the players don’t respect him and he’s got to go.
1. Lars Nootbaar (L) RF
2. Paul Goldschmidt (R) 1B
3. Nolan Gorman (L) DH
4. Nolan Arenado (R) 3B
5. Willson Contreras (R) C
6. Alec Burleson (L) LF
7. Dylan Carlson (S) CF
8. Brendan Donovan (L) 2B
9. Tommy Edman (S) SSDefinitely upper management takes a big part of the blame in the current state of the Cardinals. Poor personnel decisions have gotten us to this point. For one thing, they gave away too much young pitching a few years ago, and have not been able to replace it.
But I also think Marmol is weak as a manager. This sounds kind of lame and is the line from the old REO Speedwagon song that starts, “Heard from friend who, heard from friend who, heard from another…”. I have a buddy who played some minor league ball years ago (1980s), and is connected to some folks who are reasonably well plugged in to what goes on inside the clubhouse. He told me the O’Neill situation created some coolness between Ollie and the players, for whatever that is worth.
But gscottar is correct in that you don’t go 9-14 after a great Spring and high expectations, without the problems being multi-faceted.
Then again, we may look back on this in a couple of months and sort of laugh about it. Baseball is funny that way, and fortunes can change on a dime.
Hey 1td and gscott, it’s 3 point Tuesday! So here are mine.
1. Here’s the thing with Oli. We don’t know how much the O’Neill situation hurt his standing with the players, but we know it didn’t help. We also know Mo likes a fall guy when things aren’t going well, because it’s certainly not his fault. Fall guys can be the manager or subordinate coaches, and they can fall mid-season or post-season. So, Oli might be ripe for the picking.
2. Regardless, Mo & Bill are in a hard spot. How many “hire a guy, fire the guy” cycles does Mo get? Would the StL press ever get a little more NYC-style confrontation in them and press Mo on what he keeps missing in selecting managerial talent. At some point with rampant staff turnover, Mo has to be considered the larger problem. Mo & Bill seem to operate more like politicians / bizmen than baseball men, so they are keenly aware of this.
3. If something like all the above ever causes Bill to decide the front office is overweight regarding control of field decisions and he wants more balance, what does he do? He might decide they need a more traditional manager and fewer “wonks / polo shirt guys.” [1] Is Mo the kind of guy who can pull that off now? I doubt it. What manager with the kind of clout I am referring to would come work for Mo after what has happened post-TLR? So, Bill would have to fire Mo to make it happen. And we know that won’t happen because Bill and Mo are joined at the hip.
Conclusion: Oli is safe this year.
References:
[1] blingboy, regular TCN poster, date: too many to list.Of course it did and it should have. Moreover, I’d guess that it went beyond what could be termed coolness. I’m reasonably certain it was genuine case of not only a diminished amount of respect, but also of, who’s next in line for the same treatment? Furthermore, you can be assured that these players discussed the incident among themselves outside of the parameters of the clubhouse and dugout. And it’d also be my guess that genuine game and personnel decisions have been discussed among these same players as well.
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