I believe Randy’s one great post-season (while Liberatore was still in the minors) set in stone how many Cardinals fans view the trade – then, now and probably, forever. Any time he has a good game, a segment of Cardinals Twitter go nuts trying to figure out new ways to say, “I told you so.”.
Let’s put some numbers into the outfield comparison.
Arozarena came up to the majors ahead of Carlson but over the last two seasons (full ones for both), Randy leads in fWAR, 6.5 to 5.0, but also had 150 more plate appearances than Carlson. In 2022, the difference between the two was just 2.7 to 2.4, with all 150 more plate appearances for Randy having come last season. Yet Carlson and his 2.4 fWAR seems on the verge of losing his job. That gap between the two is almost certainly much closer than many seem to think.
I highly doubt Shildt was reprimanded for making a fire and brimstone speech to his team behind closed doors. If every coach who did that took a hit, there would he thousands of open jobs across the country at every level and in every sport. Randy was clearly in the wrong for recording it and doubled down on dumbness by posting it on social media. I hope his judgement has improved since.
Over time, I have asked several Cards people in the know about the trade circumstances. All I could unearth about the video was this: “It certainly didn’t help.” That’s very reasonable to me…