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What is your take on these posts by two prominent StL media members?
Since the start of the 2000 season, the Cardinals have had 1 losing season. They've developed a spoiled, entitled fan base. That's not the fans fault. That being said, a dose of reality now and than can be good for the soul. Maybe people will appreciate winning more after this.
— Randy Karraker (@RandyKarraker) June 17, 2023
I think the spoiled fanbase narrative is nonsense. This fanbase is more sophisticated than that, at least most of them are. Having 15 winning seasons in a row or whatever it is is a smokescreen. Many of those teams were built just good enough to have a winning record and sneak into the playoffs but no chance to advance. I think what a lot of fans want is a team that is built capable of winning a world series. That means that ownership and the front office will have to get out of their comfort zone and go all in on occasion. It also means that there could be a down year or two because building a 95 win team is not sustainable every year. But building an 87 win team is sustainable every year with for an organization with the resources of the Cardinals, but everything has to go exactly right to run the table, which isn’t likely. Being good enough to sell a lot of tickets and “be in the hunt” is the philosophy of ownership, not most fans. They think we can’t handle a down year or two but I think we can as long as we know there are plans to build back up.
Look at the 1980’s. We were really good in ’82, ’85, and ’87 but not so good in the other years and I think fans were ok with that.
If the fan base was throwing a tantrum over a few games under .500, the spoiled and entitled argument would have merit. But the last time the team had a full season with a winning percentage this bad was 1905, so it seems like it is not just a reaction to a losing record. It is a reaction to being the worst team in the league. Given the support the team receives year after year, last in the league is good reason for outrage. Randy can crawl back under his rock.
A much better better question would be are the Cardinal bosses spoiled and do they feel entitled to well above 3,000,000 paying fans per season and do they simply take all of these fans for granted? Maybe just a little? What would Billy Jr. and Johnny say to that? I’m sure they’d put forth an honest answer…
This is just Ridiculous, I think this Cardinal Way BS has got into some peoples head too much and they don’t see this team has just been ordinary the past 5-7 years. If that is what Management wants to just make the playoffs, cash the 3 million fans checks and go home after getting blitzed in the first round…. well this is your team.
I think most fans want a decent chance to win the whole thing coming into the year. Not start it with a bunch of question marks in your rotation, Bullpen and Outfield.
You had 2 cornerstone players at 1st and 3rd coming into the season on reasonable contracts for star players and management can’t build a 500 team around that.
It would be hard to argue there has been some poor talent evaluations made by Management on their own players. They have relied on players that can’t consistently stay healthy or produce like Carlson, O’Neil, De Jong and Flaherty. Yet the were sure quick to ship out an OF who has had some success in Tampa, and another OF they cut that has had some success in Texas.
Then you have the Contreras and Matz free agency signing nightmares that handcuff moves b/c they are dead money with no trade value. Hard to believe the Cardinals had no Major league scouts that couldn’t see Contreras defensive deficiencies.
You have an Owner that has the 16th highest payroll in baseball, while drawing 3 million + fans (The Rangers spend $38 million or more than the Cardinals). I think real questions need to be asked about why the payroll is so low after the team drew so well last year and is drawing this year.
I think now fans better hope Walker, Gorman, Winn and a few other rookies become very good players b/c I have no confidence that Dewitt is spending any more than $160 -165 million a year and with that you will have Matz and Contreras eating about $28 million of that the next 2 years.
I think this is a real crappy take. A team that has fan support like the Cardinals deserve better. The fans are smarter than some realize. This ownership hasnt been serious about winning a championship in a while. Fans know this. When you dnt go out and try to fill your needs during the off-season, instead opting for the hope that people perform above expectation, that injuries don’t happen, hoping that somehow the cards catch lightning in a bottle, this is what can happen. Ownership should not get a pass because the cards have overachieved some years.
Hard to believe the Cardinals had no Major league scouts that couldn’t see Contreras defensive deficiencies.
Its not hard at all. They all have their face stuck in a radar gun display drooling over the velo on his throws to second. The nuances of catcher defense can’t be quantified, so they don’t know and don’t care. It couldn’t be reduced to numbers and input so it wouldn’t be useful to the organization anyway. Throw it in the waste bin with the intangibles.
bling, that is an insult to a group of hard-working professional scouts, a number of whom I know personally. They take their responsibilities very seriously. Your hatred of analytics is over the top.
Well, how do these professional scouts view the performance of the Big League team and how that performance could possibly reflect an image that illustrates how well they’ve sufficiently satisfied their responsibilities? Do they feel as though they’re entitled to retain their jobs simply because they work hard, or are they of the mindset that if all that hard work doesn’t produce the desired results that they’ve failed to satisfy their responsibilities?
No, the fan base isn’t spoiled in the sense of say, Alabama football or Duke basketball.
The team has only been a cut above average for almost a decade now yet the fans keep showing up in droves.
Sure, the collapse this season is a system shock and there has been a lot of criticism but fans are still watching and attending the games as far as I can tell.
#1 rule in any business is: “Don’t blame the customer” and those takes are off base and tone deaf.
But hey, anything for a click, right?
I suffered through the entire 1950s and the first part of the 1960s, throughout my youth-playing days, my hero-worshiping days, cheering on some pretty wonderful players who nonetheless won nothing until that glorious 1964 season. I certainly didn’t feel spoiled or entitled. I felt deprived, having only my dad and grandad’s tales of the great 30s and 40s Cardinals who won a lot of baseball games and titles. Of course in those days there were only two things to win – the pennant and the World Series.
I guess it is human nature to take winning for granted after the success our club has had over the last 20 years. Three pennants and two rings is certainly impressive, but now that we are getting a dozen years out from the last World Series fans get a little cynical.
Speaking for myself as one fan, I never take winning for granted. I still have vivid memories of bad trades and the decade of the 1970s where we just were not good. Things got better in the ‘80s, but even then we seemed to either go to the World Series, or did not compete at all. Kind of a feast or famine era.
Fans get upset that we don’t “build a team to get to the World Series”, but it is a lot tougher today. Most of the time the teams in the World Series are not those with the best regular season record. Relatively small occurrences that tend to even out in a regular season, like the clutch hit here, bad decision there, a pitch left up in the zone at the wrong time, is magnified in the post season.
In summation, yeah we are a bit spoiled. I see what Rockies fans go through and even with the frustrations we feel, they would take it in a Denver minute compared to the misfortunes they have felt. Cub fans had that for about a century before finally getting a winner. We are really hurting this year, but us lifelong Cardinal fans really cannot complain too much.
Yeah, winning a league pennant was a really big deal prior to ’69 and many times there were 3 or 4 teams battling for a month or more in what was genuinely an extended race to qualify for a WS appearance. Once divisional play was instituted, it all came down to a best of 5 LCS until ’85 when the LCS was properly and thankfully extended to a best of 7. At any rate, the concept of a pennant race has long been vanquished and in my view, what has transpired is exactly what many envisioned 50 years ago. The days are long gone when the best and most deserving two Big League teams appear in what used to be a genuine fall classic.
Yeah, Bikemike, this season is an unpleasant reminder of those bygone days of which you simply resigned yourself to the fact that the season was a scratch by the end of June. I remember looking around at the rest of the old NLE and NLW in those days and seeing guys like Schmidt, Parker, Stargell, Rose, Bench, and many others and thinking, “Why can’t we get any guys like that?”…Haha! We were simply outgunned and outmanned. It may be the primary reason that Pujols simply blew me away. We finally had that one guy who was undoubtedly the most feared baseball player in the game and we were once again the team that simply bullied the rest of the league.
They knew what they were getting in Contreras on defense. They also knew that at some point he would no longer be a full-time catcher and have to play some dh DH or first. They needed his bat more than anything else.
I’m entitled and so are some of the fans. Dewitt built this when he got Larussa and now it appears it’s getting tougher to remain consistent and keep the same business model now that we’ve got to play everyone and not fatten up on our division and can’t do other things like shift around and take our time between pitches. There are other changes and things that have turned this into what it’s become now but I think changes have to be made to remain competitive now and in the future. It’s not just a money thing either.
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