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The STL Cardinals Thread - Is It The Offseason Yet?


CWood21

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I'm not sure there is one collective person to blame, contrary to what some want to think.

The blame has to be on the players more than any. They have not performed to career norms, or expectations at all. IMO, the manager is irrelevant in today's game. I mean look at a guy like Dave Roberts. He was almost ousted a few years back because he couldn't get it down with loaded roster in playoffs. Then, coincidentally, his team started performing toe expectations and took that next step and now he's the pinnacle of managers. 

Our FO has made some blunders, but they've also made the impact moves we've all craved the last two offseason to improve this team on paper drastically.

The problem continues to be a vast group of the players underperforming and injuries. I know it's not a popular sentiment, but it's the truth.

Edited by kgarrett12486
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6 minutes ago, kgarrett12486 said:

I'm not sure there is one collective person to blame, contrary to what some want to think.

The blame has to be on the players more than any. They have not performed to career norms, or expectations at all. IMO, the manager is irrelevant in today's game. I mean look at a guy like Dave Roberts. He was almost ousted a few years back because he couldn't get it down with loaded roster in playoffs. Then, coincidentally, his team started performing toe expectations and took that next step and now he's the pinnacle of managers. 

Our FO has made some blunders, but they've also made the impact moves we've all craved the last two offseason to improve this team on paper drastically.

The problem continues to be the players not performing. I know it's not a popular sentiment, but it's the truth.

If ALL of the players are not performing, that's on the coach. Not to mention he is the one not utilizing his bullpen correctly and making terrible lineup adjustments (not to mention all of the small stuff like being active on the bases when a back up catcher is in). I'm more in agreement with the FO and am not saying they are a championship team with a better coach, but it would make a huge difference if we had someone who actually knew how to call a game. 

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1 minute ago, JonStark said:

If ALL of the players are not performing, that's on the coach. Not to mention he is the one not utilizing his bullpen correctly and making terrible lineup adjustments (not to mention all of the small stuff like being active on the bases when a back up catcher is in). I'm more in agreement with the FO and am not saying they are a championship team with a better coach, but it would make a huge difference if we had someone who actually knew how to call a game. 

While I agree  with your overall thoughts, I just don't see it having a significant impact. Schildt isn't the best and he definitely has his flaws (which you've pointed out). However, he's not the worst either. He's probably a middle of the pack manager. 

If you plugged in a considered top 5 manager in the game right now instead what impact does it have? Maybe we win 2-4 more games? I think we'd still be having majority of these conversations on ineptness.

Until we find that group of support players that can actually contribute consistently, it's not going to matter. 

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11 minutes ago, kgarrett12486 said:

While I agree  with your overall thoughts, I just don't see it having a significant impact. Schildt isn't the best and he definitely has his flaws (which you've pointed out). However, he's not the worst either. He's probably a middle of the pack manager. 

If you plugged in a considered top 5 manager in the game right now instead what impact does it have? Maybe we win 2-4 more games? I think we'd still be having majority of these conversations on ineptness.

Until we find that group of support players that can actually contribute consistently, it's not going to matter. 

Honestly, I personally believe he has cost us at least 5-10 games this year, and that might even be generous. He's honestly the worst manager I can remember one of my favorite teams having in a long time. We don't have a bad team and he just makes moves that kill any momentum they may have. 

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56 minutes ago, kgarrett12486 said:

IMO, the manager is irrelevant in today's game.

Its definitely not irrelevant. Is it hard to make a major positive impact as a manager these days? Sure, but they can drastically impact a team negatively, and we have seen it this year. Not making adjustments, and just rolling the lineup out there is lazy and uninspired, and that rubs off on the team. Destroying your bullpen in the early/middle of the season ha major repercussions now. Unexplainable in-game moves that dont give us a positive bump, while somehow ar the same time the complete lack of urgency to fix problems happening in the moment and "just seeing how it plays out". The only thing he hasnt done so far, is lose the locker room. Which is probably why he hasnt been fired already. 

And then he goes and says things like after yesterdays game That we played "almost the best baseball we could" this series, except for 2 innings? Are you serious? He jut doesnt get it, and he has never once owned his mistakes.

Dont get me wrong, I understand we have had major injury issues to our Starting Rotation, and that our best hitters have underperformed. But we can point to SPECIFIC instances that he as a Manager has cost us games that we should win. Thats not a vague "oh Nolan should be playing better" its very specific issues Shildt has as a manager, and they have only gotten worse over the past 3 years.

32 minutes ago, JonStark said:

He's honestly the worst manager I can remember one of my favorite teams having in a long time

We gotta watch it here, He is still better than Matheny as a Baseball Manager, but not by much. And that was such a low bar to jump, it got him a bogus manager of the year.

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38 minutes ago, StLunatic88 said:

We gotta watch it here, He is still better than Matheny as a Baseball Manager, but not by much. And that was such a low bar to jump, it got him a bogus manager of the year.

It's probably recency bias, but I genuinely think Shildt is worse. They are pretty similar, but he almost does the opposite of what he should be doing. Matheny wouldn't do anything the majority of the time and was a bad coach, but at least he understood the game. I'm having a hard time seeing that in Shildt. 

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1 hour ago, StLunatic88 said:

Its definitely not irrelevant. Is it hard to make a major positive impact as a manager these days? Sure, but they can drastically impact a team negatively, and we have seen it this year. Not making adjustments, and just rolling the lineup out there is lazy and uninspired, and that rubs off on the team. Destroying your bullpen in the early/middle of the season ha major repercussions now. Unexplainable in-game moves that dont give us a positive bump, while somehow ar the same time the complete lack of urgency to fix problems happening in the moment and "just seeing how it plays out". The only thing he hasnt done so far, is lose the locker room. Which is probably why he hasnt been fired already. 

And then he goes and says things like after yesterdays game That we played "almost the best baseball we could" this series, except for 2 innings? Are you serious? He jut doesnt get it, and he has never once owned his mistakes.

Dont get me wrong, I understand we have had major injury issues to our Starting Rotation, and that our best hitters have underperformed. But we can point to SPECIFIC instances that he as a Manager has cost us games that we should win. Thats not a vague "oh Nolan should be playing better" its very specific issues Shildt has as a manager, and they have only gotten worse over the past 3 years.

.

IDK, maybe irrelevant was the wrong word, but it's certainly not as impactful as it's been even over the recent past. I don't want it to come across like I'm advocating for Schildt or anything, because I'm certainly not. I'd be perfectly content if he wasn't back because as you eluded to, he has significant flaws.

However, I don't think his ineptness is the root or most significant cause of this teams struggles. I think if you drop any manager on this team and you're not looking at more than a handful of game improvement.

Every manager (even the considered best ones) cost their team some games throughout the season based on decisions made. 

Just my opinion though. I can see the argument from both sides. 

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2 hours ago, JonStark said:

Honestly, I personally believe he has cost us at least 5-10 games this year, and that might even be generous. He's honestly the worst manager I can remember one of my favorite teams having in a long time. We don't have a bad team and he just makes moves that kill any momentum they may have. 

IDK, I think that's debatable. 

And while we don't have a bad team, this team has shown a pretty consistent track record over the last 1-2 seasons now that they're mediocre at best and really struggle with quality opponents. 

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1 minute ago, kgarrett12486 said:

However, I don't think his ineptness is the root or most significant cause of this teams struggles. I think if you drop any manager on this team and you're not looking at more than a handful of game improvement.

I dont think anyone is asking for a Miracle worker, and while TLR is held as the Gold Standard by the BFIBs, in reality he probably cost just as many games as he won with all his moves (or its alot closer than most would admit).

But its 2 things; its not that he made a move and it didnt work out, its the fact that he constantly refuses to make a move and lets the whole thing burn down around him. He is the "Everything is fine" dog GIF come to life. And then on top of that, he has never once taken accountability for him being the direct reason we lost a game. Not one single time.

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4 hours ago, kgarrett12486 said:

LMAO, I think you just proved your own view of yourself here.

Oh but I’m the only one of that opinion? We’re one of the worst offensive teams in baseball but let’s keep Jeff Albert right? We’ve underperformed, bullpen management is a joke, but let’s keep Shildt too right? Or what about the guy who has continuously given out terrible contracts, keeps bums like Shildt and Albert employed , etc? We should keep him too right? You want to blame the players but when the two best players we have come from other teams as perennial all-stars and then become just solid to good players here, there’s something to that. 

Edited by ttitansfan4life
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19 minutes ago, ttitansfan4life said:

Oh but I’m the only one of that opinion? We’re one of the worst offensive teams in baseball but let’s keep Jeff Albert right? We’ve underperformed, bullpen management is a joke, but let’s keep Shildt too right? Or what about the guy who has continuously given out terrible contracts, keeps bums like Shildt and Albert employed , etc? We should keep him too right? You want to blame the players but when the two best players we have come from other teams as perennial all-stars and then become just solid to good players here, there’s something to that. 

Who said anything about keeping Jeff Albert? I've never advocated for him to remain, in fact look back into some of my past posts and you'll see I said he should've been the 1st change.

I'd be fine with us moving on from Schildt, but like I've said in the above posts, I don't think it has a massive impact on where this team ends up. 

I don't get and never will understand the absolute hate for Mo. The narrative that he hands out bad contract after bad contract is just false and utterly misinformed. He's actually been one of the better GM/President's in not giving out long-term deals that handcuff their franchise. He's had some dud deals, but everyone does. His damage on these has been limited and I for one appreciate that aspect. I'm pretty sure he played a significant role in bringing in said all-star hitters you're referencing. With that said, he's not above being a part of the problem though too, as I think our internal player evals have been extremely flawed).

Like I said in my prior posts, everyone wants to make person/coach/player X the scapegoat here, but it's deeper than that. It's not as simple as that. It's a combination of things (poor management/coaching from the manager/staff, significant injuries, players continually underperforming, poor internal talent evaluation from FO). Still, at the end of the day it's about performance and the players are the ones who impact the outcome the most. So, I'm pointing the finger at them first/foremost because they're not getting it done and most had this roster pegged as pretty talented coming into this year. 

So yah, the 'fire/cut that bum' mentality you seem to possess on every other post doesn't really resonate with me. If we approached it like that, we wouldn't even field a team... 

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Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said Monday that a second opinion confirmed Jack Flaherty's strained shoulder diagnosis and that “fingers still crossed he’ll be able to help us at some point this year.” However, Mozeliak also added that “ultimately making sure we have Jack for all of 2022 is most important.” 

I really hope we don't pitch him again this season. Juts let him get a full off-season to recuperate. 

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15 minutes ago, kgarrett12486 said:

Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said Monday that a second opinion confirmed Jack Flaherty's strained shoulder diagnosis and that “fingers still crossed he’ll be able to help us at some point this year.” However, Mozeliak also added that “ultimately making sure we have Jack for all of 2022 is most important.” 

I really hope we don't pitch him again this season. Juts let him get a full off-season to recuperate. 

There's legitimately no reason for the Cardinals to even consider running him back out there this year.  None.

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Obviously didnt happen in here, but did you see all the people complaining that we lost game 3 yesterday? We took 2/3 from the team ahead of us in the WC, not sure how you can be upset about that. But somehow they did. I dont think most of this fanbase really even knows what they want right now

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2 hours ago, StLunatic88 said:

Obviously didnt happen in here, but did you see all the people complaining that we lost game 3 yesterday? We took 2/3 from the team ahead of us in the WC, not sure how you can be upset about that. But somehow they did. I dont think most of this fanbase really even knows what they want right now

At this point, every game counts.  And majority of the fanbase probably isn't realistic enough to understand the Cardinals are all but officially eliminated from the playoffs.  The playoff teams will be Atlanta/Philadelphia, Milwaukee, LA Dodgers, and San Francisco.  WC2 probably comes down to Cincinnati and San Diego.

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