- This topic has 43 replies, 18 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 4 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
You are Bill DeWitt. If this keeps up, whom do you fire and in what order?
Mozeliak
Girsch (easy scapegoat)
Shildt
Albert (worthy scapegoat)‘Competitive’ actually means vis-à-vis other entertainment venues. We can gauge that during this next homestand. Are the stands packed with paying customers? Are large and lively crowds hanging around Ballpark Village and the stadium area? If the answers are ‘Yes’, then all is well.
Fans will turn out. Cardinal fans are good fans. When the team is up, they cheer for them to keep it going. When the team is down, they cheer for them to get it turned around.
The last 1/2 of 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and until mid August of 2019 the Cardinals were the very definition of average. That was 4 straight years.
They got hot late in 2019 and made an unexpected Cinderella run to the NLCS where they got handled. Last year they were, for the most part, a .500 team that ended up being the cream of the crap in a horrid division.
None of what we are seeing today is new. Let’s face it, the Cardinals are not a good team and have not been since the first half of 2015 – 6 years ago.
The ‘If they could stay healthy’ argument / observation is moot because the past 2-3 years have shown that isn’t going to happen.
Even when healthy, the team is deeply flawed but at least you could squint your eyes at it and say, ‘we just need a couple of pieces’….now, the list has grown or will grow to half the roster.
When evaluating a team I always look at the ‘Ifs’.
If this player can stay healthy; if that player can return to form; If this prospect pans out…
In my experience, if you get past three ‘ifs’ then you are generally in trouble.
I doubt if there are any dismissals during the season but if things don’t turn around I suspect Maddux and Albert will be on the hot seat. Shildt is probably safe and I doubt if we see any front office changes. The Cardinals like continuity.
The Cardinals like continuity.
The key word is continuity. The question becomes continuity of what?
1. Mozeliak
2. Girsch, Shildt and even Albert are one and the same. They are all hand puppets for #1.If we finish way down compared to all MLB teams in pitching and/or hitting, I expect those coaches will be sent packing.
My guess is Shildt is safe this year, but a bad start next year and he will be canned as well.
Mo is likely at a point where he will have to resign before his job is in jeopardy. As long as the Cardinals are in the hunt, or have excuses why they are not in the mix around mid-September, Mo is a lock. It would take a couple of horrible deals and a team well under .500 for him to be at risk.
To more directly answer the question, if I was DeWitt and we were a mediocre team at the end of the season, I would have discussions with my GM, manager and other key personnel on their thoughts about Maddux and Albert. And along with that, if they are leaning towards a change, who do they have in mind as replacements. Then spend a couple of days mulling over my decision before handing a recommendation to Mo.
I think they both are doing what they can with what they have to work with. But if pressure builds to make a show, either or both could go.
Shildt’s contract goes through 2022. So, he can be dismissed at the end of the year.
Seems like Albert and Maddux are on year-to-year deals.
Shildt has not been as embracing of analytics as promised. It seems like Albert impacts hitters in a negative way.
I think they either need to draft pitchers that fit the max spin movement or they need to go back to more of a command-control type of pitching.
It’s funny you mention get a new owner bccran, because I think a lot of what people are frustrated with Mozeliak about (risk averse strategy, not doing enough to be a World Series contender) are probably criticisms that should be directed at Dewitt. Dewitt sets the organization’s strategy and financial constraints and Mo executes that vision. I think you could easily argue Mo has done a bad job of that the last half decade. Outside of the Arenado deal, it appears basically every major trade Mo has made we would have been better off doing nothing and keeping the prospects. The Ozuna deal lost us Galen and Alcantra, the Goldy deal lost us Kelly who would be our best hitter right now, the Arozarena trade looks terrible in hindsight, etc. But I think a lot of those moves were driven by Dewitt likely being eager to get back to the playoffs and being worried about the Cubs. If Dewitt had told Mo to be patient, then we are much better today.
the Arozarena trade looks terrible in hindsight, etc.
The Arozarena for Liberatore trade only looks terrible if the other outfield Tampa was considering was Lane Thomas. If it was Tyler O’Neill, I don’t know too many people who would have chosen to give him up instead. For one, he was already in the majors, and two, if you look at his slugging percentage this year, this is what everyone was hoping for.
If Dewitt had told Mo to be patient, then we are much better today.
Throughout their tenure, they have played the long game. They infamously always came in second for big free agents. The Ozuna trade came after we had missed the playoffs. Fans were clamoring for SOMETHING from the front office, and we had gone several years without a middle-of-the-order bat.
In retrospect, the Ozuna deal looks like the worst of the bunch. He was injured when we acquired him, and did not perform to his levels in Miami. Alcantara and Gallen are now both established pitchers that would do wonders in our current rotation.
The Goldy deal looks bad, just because Goldy entered such a precipitous decline upon being traded to St. Louis (and that was a lot to give up for one year of him).
As barren as the system is now, I don’t see them doing trades for awhile.
We are also assuming that those players we traded away would be performing just as well in St. Louis had they stayed. There is no guarantee of that. Sometimes players play better or worse in a different environment for various reasons.
So true gscottar. If I was firing, the hitting coach would probably go. I would keep the pitching coach. Schildt is on the ropes. Not quite ready to fire but being I was never big on him, it won’t take a lot. Though he does stick up for his guys, so he’s a great leader in that regard.
Yeah, the Ozuna trade looks to be the worst of the bunch, but a friend of mine said the uptick in stuff Gallen got to step up to the next level was something no one really saw coming. Alcantara would be very nice to have, but as several others have mentioned, there was a lot of pressure to get a bat that offseason. We ended up losing the trade.
Goldy’s decline is disappointing, but what would we be doing with Carson Kelly? Would we really have moved him to first? Also, last time I checked Tyler O’Neill has far better numbers than Kelly, so I don’t know if you can say he’d be our best hitter. The ball flies in Arizona as well.
Trades will always look different over time. Hopefully, Liberatore becomes an ace or a high-end 2. Right now, we seem to need pitching more than hitting, so it is nice to have Liberatore in Triple-A. Without him, there would really be no hope for the future of the rotation right now.
Our front office does seem to need a shake-up, but keeping around the people responsible for drafting Jordan Walker and Nolan Gorman types would be nice.
All during the 2006 and 2011 seasons –
Fire the GM! Fire the manager!
Get a new owner!1964 was the epitome of that. The front office did fire the GM, and planned on firing the manager, Johnny Kevne at the end of the season. Leo Durocher was targeted as the 1965 manager.
So you never know. But expectations for this club were good, so it is natural to harp about management when the team hits a snag. Unfortunately this club cannot even “hit a snag”, much less a curve ball or a fast ball on the outside corner.
I don’t really think the problem is individual bad trades, or trades at all really, even though some of them have not worked out. The system’s teams are getting beat at every level. There is nothing there to move up. It seems clear there has been an issue with assessing and identifying talent for several years.
No AAA or AA players are performing well at any position of need?
Sure, the teams as a whole are bad but usually bad teams have a few good players…..
If you look at the Memphis roster there is no players except Liberatore and Thompson (who is not faring well this season) that appear to have a high enough of a ceiling for the majors. This hasn’t been the case for some years. As far as all the teams not winning…. when they were Mozeliak would say that he like the fact that the prospects were getting used to playing on winners…. what happened to that?
The worst move was the Fowler contract where $$ could have been used elsewhere and it stymied the progress of the system’s OFers. The Ozuna fiasco is a close second. No wait the Carpenter extension. Oh yeah, the Goldschmidt trade…. or was it the endless list of pitchers that fell apart while playing at Busch.
I don’t like hindsight but I mean the moves are so consistently poor and the contacts we paid turned out to cost us enough money that could have been spent more wisely. There is a boatload of the players that were dealt away that would be very welcomed here. So what do you expect?…. the Cardinals of today aren’t that good. ps…. the CIN sweep at home was a killer.I think its fair to say that there is plenty of room for improvement in the FO and in the dugout (manager & coaches). The entire organization needs a shake up and with that some time to recover.
In addition to all that 14 mentioned above, the Mikolas and Miller FA signings have been busts. Costing $30 million is salary this season.
Ztr, we have Gorman and Burleson at double a doing well, Nootbar at Memphis might be ready to be a useful bench piece.
That being said, part of the reason it seems like we have no prospects at Memphis ready to fill needs on the big league team is probably due to the draft penalty in 2017 really hurting us, the fact that under Flores we have spent more high picks on high schoolers who take longer to develop, and also the fact that there was no minor league season last year which seems to have really hurt a lot of guys, particularly pitchers.
That said, our last few drafts seem to have some real hits but the highest level they’ve reached is Gorman and Burleson in double a, most of them are in the low minors. I suspect in a year or two we will have a highly ranked system, probably top ten.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.