Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1244: Moving on From Matheny

Episode Date: July 17, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Mike Trout and marketing, the surprising Rays and the unsung Jake Bauers, the AL wild card race, Willians Astudillo’s pitching appearance, the results of a 21-question player survey, the Royals’ recent performance, and a tariff on baseball gloves, then (24:24) bring on man-of-many-bylines Will Leitch to discuss the […]

This is the morning after you learn The barrier we cross is somewhere between heaven and hell I thought the world would never change So we must dig inside and crawl outside ourselves I will, I bloody well will. How are you? I am doing all right. Later in this episode, we will be bringing on friend of the show, listener of the show, Will Leach, who will be talking to us about the dismissal of Mike Matheny and what it means for the Cardinals and what it means for Will personally. But first, some banter, and I know you have a bunch.

Will, do you want to get anything out of the way for us? Because Mike can be long. Okay. Well, I will mention this one thing that of the way for us? Because mine could be long. is the ultimate all-star, yet he is not a star. This is an article by Adam Kilgore, obviously a topic we've talked about at length, but the subhead for this article says, fans recognize the greatness of the Dodger center fielder, but that hasn't translated to wider recognition. Hasn't even translated to wider recognition among the Washington Post copy editors. So that is perfectly emblematic of the Mike Trout dilemma. So Adam Kilgore just wrote about Mike Trout being underappreciated. And I know Tom Verducci just wrote about Mike Trout being underappreciated.

I get it. But is he? I don't know. I honestly don't know because our bubble is so skewed. I don't know what the average person thinks about Mike Trout. He's certainly not underrated by his peers. And I don't know how much of a shit we should give about what the average fan thinks about baseball. I don't know. Like the most underrated, most overrated discussions,

and we'll talk about this in further detail in a minute, but I never really know how to answer those questions because I don't know who we're talking about. But I guess Mike Trout isn't a star, but in what sense is Mike Trout not a star? What are we actually saying here? Yeah, I don't know whether we're talking about endorsements or just headlines that he makes with his quotes. I mean, the guy is Rookie of the Year, seven-time All-Star, two-time MVP, sure should be, what, four or five-time MVP, but if you're a baseball fan, you know who Mike Trout is. I mean, you might not realize that he is off to the best start to a career ever. Maybe you underrate him because of

that, but I don't know that there's anyone who follows baseball to any degree who would not say that Mike Trout is the best player in baseball or among the best players in baseball unless you're going to ding him for the Angels performance and playoff performance and all of that, which some people would. But otherwise, I think people know that Mike Trout is good. He's won the awards. He has pretty impressive traditional numbers. I think maybe there's just a disconnect between, yeah, Mike Trout is really good. And wow, Mike Trout is the best player ever, potentially.

Maybe not enough people recognize that, or maybe not enough non-baseball fans recognize that. I know we've talked before about whether Trout is going to become the best player of all time or maybe top five, and maybe people don't really understand that this is what we're watching on a regular basis. We're watching potentially one of the five or ten best players of all time, but I do understand, even if it's sort of subconscious the guys what is it 26

years old maybe 27 now there's a lot of career to go before he actually is one of the five or ten best players of all time so i understand just waiting being like you know we watched i don't know joe mauer have an amazing first half of his career and then kind of drop off or Ken Griffey Jr. or Andrew Jones. So I understand it. I think that when you see an article on the Internet, at least from our perspective, that says Mike Trout, not a star, underappreciated, I think, then you're not paying attention to the Internet. So I don't know who you're talking to because I think the Internet appreciates Mike Trout now. Yes, I think so. So there's a little more.

The internet appreciates Mike right now. Yes, I think so. So there's a little more. I don't know what the odds of this were, but officially, Williams Estadio has not only played center field, but also pitched before he has caught even one pitch in the major leagues. As a center fielder,

I don't know, he was fine. As a pitcher, less fine. No walks, no strikeouts. Five hits, five runs, two home runs. He threw an inning in a bad game for the Twins where they got destroyed by the Rays. But Estadio did pitch. It's been otherwise a quiet period of time for Williams. Estadio, he's in the majors, which is great.

He's earning a paycheck. But he didn't hit in the game where he pitched and was dreadful. He did hit in the game before that against the Rays. He struck out against Blake Snell. So he is up to one Major League strikeout, but he also went 0 did hit in the game before that against the Rays. He struck out against Blake Snell, so he is up to one Major League strikeout, but he also went 0-4 in that game. So he hasn't gotten a hit since July 2nd, which is two weeks ago,

but he's also barely played since then, as discussed recently. I don't know if this makes me happy or sad. I'm glad that he's here. I would like to see him used more often, but I mean, I don't know. The Twins are likely to start shedding. If they tried Brian Dozier, all of a sudden,, but I mean, I don't know. The twins are likely to start shedding. If they tried Brian Dozier, all of a sudden, space is opening up.

I don't know. Did you watch Astadio pitch? I didn't have the heart for it. Yeah, it wasn't particularly impressive. It wasn't a Matt Davidson type outing. I think he threw, what, 84 or something like that, which is, you know, decent, I guess, for a position player pitcher. And we talked when he played centerfield about how

no centerfielder had ever been listed with his dimensions, you know, 5'9", 225. There had never been a centerfielder 5'9", or shorter, who officially weighed that much. Now, as some people pointed out on Astadio's very own team, or, you know, franchise, Kirby Puckett probably played centerfield at those dimensions later in his career, but doesn't show up that way on the play index. Anyway, same is true for him as a pitcher. There has never been a pitcher officially listed at 5'9 or shorter and 225. So he is really just breaking BMI boundaries wherever he goes. Okay, so now unrelated to Astadio, I would like to just point something out as long as

we're talking about players who are underappreciated. We know that rookie Juan Soto, he's played often in the first half. He has a 151 WRC+, which is great. We've heard, we've talked before about impressive rookie Gleyber Torres, who's batted a lot, and he has a WRC+, of 143. What a great rookie campaign for Gleyber Torres, who's batted a lot, and he has a WRC plus of 143. What a great rookie campaign for Gleyber Torres. You know whose name I think we haven't even said once? Jake Bowers has batted 155 times.

He's drawn plenty of walks, hasn't struck out too much, hit for some power. He's got a 140 WRC plus for the raise, and no one cares, I guess. I don't know. His batting line looks normal, sustainable. He was one of those guys who had a swing that was better than his numbers in the minor leagues, if that makes any sense. But scouts have liked him for a while, and he's come up, and he's been good immediately. At this point, he has a slightly better WRC Plus than Brandon Nimmo and Joey Votto.

He's caught up to AJ Pollock and Andrew Benintendi. He's out of 314 players who have batted at least 150 times he's 26th in ws surplus and no one no one seems to pay him any attention no one seems to have noticed that the rays are well they are above 500 and catching up to the mariners by virtue of the mariners catching up to the bottom of the standings the floor is coming out we have a wild card race by the way maybe we'll talk about that later in the week. Yeah. Because I've got long banter to get to. But I don't know. Have you watched Jake Bowers at all?

Has anyone watched Jake Bowers? Or has he done this in silence? Pretty much. I can't say I really have. And, yeah, the Rays are tied for fifth right now in base runs record with the Dodgers. So they have a better base runs record than the Indians, the Braves, the Brewers, the Athletics, the Nationals, the Cardinals, the Phillies, the Diamondbacks, the Mariners, the Angels. A lot of teams that we've probably spent more time talking about or that certainly most national media has. So they are good. And I guess they're getting unlucky in certain ways. And they're what, six games below

their base runs record right now, which is tied with the White Sox for the biggest difference between actual record and base runs record so based on the underlying performance the Rays are actually a good baseball team and Jake Bowers is a big part of that and officially as of right now the Mariners are 19 games above 500 with a negative run differential they are at negative two the a's are at plus 24 yeah the mariners have really played worse recently because you know when i wrote about their exceeding their run differential and underlying performance they were still a decent team at that point based on run differential based on everything else like they were still pretty good they had just played much better than they should have played. At this point, they're doing the full like 2007 Diamondbacks

thing of just having a negative run differential and still winning lots of games, but fewer games lately, I guess, although probably the difference between them and the A's has more to do with the A's winning every game than the Mariners losing a whole lot of games. Yeah, right. It's funny because you look at the A's and you think, well, this team isn't very good. And you look at the Mariners, you think this team isn't very good. And now it's just starting to even up. So the standings don't look so silly anymore because they're more or less as talented as the other team is. Neither team has super, I mean, we don't need to go down the specifics of each team, but they've played kind of the same. And the A's have been better lately,

of course, but it's been a little bit of clutch hitting and played kind of the same and the a's have been better lately of course but it's been a little bit of clutch hitting and just closing down the games at the end because the starting rotations are not very good anyway i know that we're going to be talking to will soon so let's uh do you have any other banter no go ahead great okay so i am a complete sucker i know you and sam and then you and me have talked about the uh the gm predictions is that what it is for yes free agents so i am a complete sucker for baseball player anonymous questions anonymous answers i should say to q and a's and one just came out from the athletic it's written by the athletic staff that's a coincidental name for the writer i guess he found a good person to work for there are 21 questions here asked to 200 and more than 240 players in baseball all

anonymous now even though they were anonymous not all players answered all questions because some are still afraid of i guess some things off the record going on the record but anyway there are 21 questions and we'll go over this quickly that i will just uh tell you the question and the the answer and then you will offer whatever comment that you might have on it. So that sounds easy enough. Who's the most intimidating pitcher in the game? The winner, Max Scherzer. Any comment?

Nope, that sounds right. He screams lots of curse words while he pitches. Yeah. So who is the most intimidating hitter in the game? Answer, Mike Trout, and by a lot. Huh. Well, I'm actually sort of surprised about that, I guess. Like, usually it's some, I don't know, hulking guy who maybe,

I mean, the thing is that Mike Trout is really gigantically large and also has about the best power in the game at this point. So I don't think of him as necessarily the most intimidating, but it's nice that other players do. I guess they recognize his greatness. Yeah. There's a quote here that says, if he was on the Yankees, said one player, I don't think anybody would talk about anyone else. So it would be a very boring media landscape. But I can tell you that the players who got votes here, Mike Tribe got 38% of the vote. J.D. Martinez was second with 11.5%. Eddie Rosario received multiple votes for most intimidating hitter in the game, which I get, but also what? Most? Anyway, who is the best defender in the game? Answer, Andrew Elton Simmons.

Yep. Who is the, we can't really speak to this one, who is the friendliest person to chat with at first base? Joey Votto. Joey Votto won. Okay, yeah, sure. Makes sense. What's weird about this, according to the little caption, though the question was meant to be limited to first baseman, in retrospect, the phrasing was a bit unclear.

Still, every answer given was indeed a first baseman, except for Mike Trout, who somehow got three votes. Is there nothing he can't do? All right. Question five. Who is the most underrated player in the game? Paul Goldschmidt was the answer, but he only got 10% of the vote. So a lot of the, there was a lot of vote splitting here. here I'll tell you runners up were Eddie Rosario and Anthony Rendon okay yeah

well Eddie Rosario not even an all-star right or Rendon too is he an all-star and I don't know he wasn't on Friday I don't know if he's right someone now it's hard to keep up but yeah yeah those are both good choices Goldschmidt I think was kind of in that camp of perpetually underrated and so mentioned as underrated that he was no longer as underrated. So yeah, I would probably go with Rosario and Rendon at this point over Goldschmidt. Yeah. So we move on to the most overrated player in the game, collecting 48.6% of the vote. Obviously, it's Bryce Harper. collecting 48.6% of the vote. Obviously, it's Bryce Harper. Yes, that was very expected, and I guess it's kind of true. I don't know.

You mentioned in your chat last week that Rendon and Harper have basically been identically good over their careers per 600-play appearance or per whatever play appearance. So if one is very underrated, I guess that means that the flip side of that coin is that the other is very overrated. So I guess it's kind of true because Harper won the one MVP award, but hasn't been really a superstar in any other season. And even in that season, perhaps got a little lucky. And of course, he was touted as the best prospect ever coming up and hasn't been the

best player ever. So I suppose he's sort of overrated, but also still really good. Yeah. In here, it says, even anonymously, just over half of the players we polled declined to answer this question.

One said it's bad karma. What's fun, so the runner up with far less votes, Chris Davis, which might've been true a year ago, but at this point, let's just leave Chris Davis alone, I think.

And the only other player receiving multiple votes, Javier Baez. On Baez, one player said, quote, I'm going to just put out a language warning here. If you're a parent, you're driving a car, there's a little bit of cursing coming up. On Baez, one player said, quote, To a baseball player, a lot of the shit he does is really risky and stupid. When you play against him, you fucking hate watching him.

But as a fan, I would want to watch him every single day i get it end quote yeah well we talked about that exact thing very recently when he stole home yeah so game seven of the world series who do you want starting there is a winner it's max scherzer with 19.6 percent of the vote but i'll point out chris sale got 19 of the vote so they basically co-co-won this sound right yep does great game seven of the world series one run lead who-won this. Sound right? Yep, does. Great. Game seven of the World Series, one run lead. Who do you want closing? Craig Kimbrell, easily.

Okay, sure. Yeah, sounds okay. Madison Bumgarner was the only starter who got any votes for this question. Probably from Royals. Game seven of the World Series, game on the line. Who do you want at the plate? You have a guess who got the most votes? Well, if Mike Trout is the most intimidating, then you'd think it should be Mike Trout.

But since he hasn't been in that situation, I'm guessing it's not. It's Eddie Rosario. It is Mike Trout. Mike Trout, 31.7% of the vote. He beat Joey Votto by more than three times. Joey Votto also has not been in that situation. Yeah. Yeah, that's nice. Because, you know, usually with fans, there's this refusal to recognize that someone who hasn't done something is still capable of doing something. And so if you haven't been in the bottom of the ninth game seven, then you won't be picked to do that unless you've already succeeded in that spot. But really, you still just want the best player.

Most players have never played in Game 7 of the World Series. Exactly. Great fans out there. Okay. Question 10. Which manager, aside from your own, would you most want to play for? Answer, Joe Maddon. 27% of the vote.

Yeah. Players like Joe Maddon. Not shocking. Which manager, aside from your own, would you not want to play for? I'll tell you the runner-up was Joe Maddon with 20% of the vote. But the winner, Buck Showalter. 23.3% of the vote. Was Mike Matheny on there? He was.

He was third. Well, tied for third place. Okay. With? Tied with Mike Socia, unsurprising, also receiving multiple votes, Jeff Bannister, Gabe Kepler, and Aaron Boone. All right. Aaron Boone.

Interesting. Yeah. Well, Aaron Boone also got a little bit of support for the previous question, who would you most want to play for? But the real polarizing one here, clearly Joe Maddon. I will point out that Terry Francona got 18.6 percent of the good vote and he does not show up for the bad vote so people only seem to love terry francona yeah question 12 what is the most fun city or ballpark to visit on the road the answer seattle apparently oh all right okay good news for for greg and mandy i

guess yeah 15.3 percent of the vote went to seattle then the Cubs are at 14.1, and both New Yorks got 12.9. So I guess this is really just a city question. What's the worst city ballpark to visit on the road? The answer, it's the one where poop comes out of it. It's Oakland. 36.2% of the vote. Yes. 14. Do you think baseball should add a pitch clock i think you and i both know players wouldn't want it so can you predict the percent of no vote and i'll tell you that the indifferent or don't care share was 1.2 percent well 85 very good guess 86.6 percent of the players said no in a massive landslide very few players want to see this happen, not just among pitchers,

but hitters too. Here's one. Should the MLB schedule be shorter? Predict the vote. I'll tell you that the maybe or not sure answer was 4.9%. I guess I'll stick with my 85 estimate. For yes or no? For yes. No was the answer with 59.3% of the vote. I was surprised. Wow. Yeah, that's really interesting. Huh. I guess because of money? Yes. The little caption here says, this one was much closer, but in the end, players' concerns about lower pay outweighed their desire for a saner schedule. I see.

All right, then. I will ask you to predict another one. Question 16. Should the NL use the designated hitter? The maybe or indifferent vote share was 2.4%. Huh. So this is generally perceived to be a good thing for players because DH roster spots maybe make more money than bench or reliever roster spots. I don't know how true that is, but there's that. There's the fact that certain guys can be DHs and it can help prolong their careers. They might have to retire otherwise. So it's seen, I think, as a pro player measure generally, but I assume there are lots of NL

players who don't like it, just like NL fans don't, and probably a lot of pitchers who like hitting. So I'll say that only 60% say yes. So no actually won with 53.7% of the vote. But as a little caveat, more NL players were interviewed than AL players. And there was a predictable split there. So a little bias. Question 17. Should baseball continue to use the current replay system? I'll just tell you.

Yes was the winner with 88% of the vote. So players would like to see replay go faster, but they like it. Good. And it is going faster somewhat, as Meg Raleigh noted in a recent article for Fangraph. She broke all the numbers down and pointed out that, yeah, it's pretty much working, except for some of the annoying edge cases we've discussed.

So I'll ask you to predict the winner of which city has the best fans. 23.2% of the vote said what city? Well, St. Louis. Yep, the Twitter account. Not just sarcastic. St. Louis Cardinals, best fans according to these players. Anonymously, they won by 4.4 percentage points over Boston.

What's weird to me, I'll tell you. So St. Louis won, then Boston and the Cubs and the Giants were the runners-up. Also receiving multiple votes, Philadelphia, the Dodgers, the Yankees, the White Sox, the Brewers, and the Padres? Huh. Yeah. Well. Who knows?

I mean, I guess that they are still Padres fans is a pretty good endorsement of just how dedicated they are as fans. So maybe that's why. Yeah. Which city has the worst fans we have a tie we don't need to look it's the florida teams that's uh tampa 19.7 not even fair i mean i don't know i guess worst fans but maybe just worst teams or or hardest to see or hardest to watch hardest to attend i don't know that it's the fans maybe it's the fans but it's got to be largely the

franchises as well yeah it's everything new york was the runner-up with 13.1 people just don't like new york question 20 we can't say anything about this but who is the best dressed or most stylish player in baseball it's andrew mccutcheon the runner-up was matt camp mccutcheon got just 8.5 of the vote so uh i'll just say as long as we're here also receiving multiple votes bryce harper eduardo escobar joey vato tommy fam yon herba salarte katel marte francisco lindor aroldis chapman dallas keitel francisco liriano lance mccullers and manny machado interesting and this i believe is the final question aside from from Shohei Otani, which pitcher could make it as a full-time hitter? Can you guess who won? I'm guessing

Michael Lorenzen doesn't have the name awareness to win this thing, although it probably should be him. I don't know. I'll guess people said Zach Greinke. Well, the answer was actually Michael Lorenzen. Michael Lorenzen got 45% of the vote. And as an update,

Lorenzen is up to 70 career plate appearances with a WR surplus of 110. He is good. Yeah. That's impressive. I'm glad people know that. Yeah. That's everything. Madison Bumgarner is at Granke with the runners-up.

Mike Leak and Jake Arrieta also received multiple votes. That is the anonymous quiz from The Athletic by way of 240-plus anonymous baseball players. And these are always fun. I will talk about an anonymous poll every single time that i see one yes me too well we've got a few more minutes anything else you have on your list i saw some trivia about how the brewers just got swept in a five game series and it's like that's the first time they were swept in a fight it's like well there's never five game series so why is this a, exactly. I don't know if you saw this,

and I don't know how many of our listeners saw this, but there is a story last week that the Trump administration is preparing another round of tariffs on Chinese goods worth $200 billion, and there was a list of items that would be affected by this 10% tariff. It includes seafood, fruit and vegetables, yarn, wool, rain jackets, and baseball gloves. Baseball gloves about to be taxed at a 10% rate with these tariffs, this trade war that seems to be going on here. I am disappointed that none of our listeners has emailed in to propose some strange hypothetical based on the increasing costs of baseball gloves but yeah baseball gloves about to become more expensive so maybe yet another argument in favor of expanding the dh fewer gloves that will save costs for everyone and i will point out that we

talked about the royals not too long ago and how the royals couldn't score they went like several weeks without scoring more than five runs or something. And the Royals have been on an offensive tear over the last nine games. They've averaged nearly five runs scored per game. They've had multiple breakouts. However, they've also been outscored by 26 and they've gone two and seven. So the Royals have started to hit and they have remained absolutely dreadful. We'll do probably maybe a sum up the state of the races sort of discussion later in the week. We're at the all-star break. We're about to start the quote-unquote second half. Of course, we are roughly 60% of the way through the

schedule. So there's some stuff we can talk about setting up the second half and some interesting awards races and pennant races but we can get to that later in the week so we'll just take a quick break right now and we'll be back to dissect the demise of mike metheny with will leach you've been locked in his arms Ever since Heaven knows when Won't you change Partners and then You may never want to change

Partners again All right, so we are joined now by longtime listener while jogging, Will Leach, who you know as the national correspondent at MLB.com and the contributing editor at New York Mag and the host of SI's The Will Leach Show and half of the movie discussion duo, Grierson and Leach, and many other places. Will, welcome back. Thank you very much. Just so you know, I will be doing two other podcasts while talking to you guys.

Yeah, and you just finished recording one. That's the only way this works. Yes, I do a Cardinals podcast with Bernie Miklas as well. So you've already honed your Mike Matheny takes elsewhere. So now you are practiced and you can deliver exactly what you want to say about Matheny. So I know that now that you are a 40-something human being with two kids and you've got to get up early in the morning to crank out columns, you are an early to bed, early to rise type of guy.

And so as I understand it, you went to bed before the Cardinals fired Mike Matheny on Saturday. And so you woke up to the news that the Cardinals had a new manager or at least didn't have the old manager. What was it like? How did you find out? And what was your initial reaction? Well, it's funny because on Thursday, I wrote a column for MLB.com talking about how I was taking my son, my six-year-old son, William, to his first game at Busch Stadium on Saturday. On Saturday was actually going to be his first game. We flew out. It was very exciting. Fred Bird hid his hat.

Fred Bird, by the way, is not a monster. Fred Bird is great. Fred Bird is totally nice. Leave Fred Bird. Keep your Cardinals takes all you want, but leave Fred Bird alone. He's just a big, nice red bird. Anyway,

so it was, we basically, the reason we went to bed early because that was a 3 p.m. local start, which is why we had chosen that

for it to be my son's first game at Bush Stadium because he vowed he was going to stay to the end no matter what. Turned out to have

two hour and a half plus long rain delays. We got out of the park at 9.15. We basically took three laps around the same during all the rain delays. My son can tell you every single factoid about the 1998 home run chase because every video played

on that board during that rain delay. So by the time that we got back, we were, he needed to get to bed and we had an early flight. So I assumed Friday's game had been just as terrible, if not worse. So I did not think it have any reason, particularly considering the Cardinals history of late, there was any reason to think now would be the time that finally pushed them over the edge on Matheny.

So I went to bed with the same level of frustration that we've kind of had all season. So then I woke up and my phone was like actually on fire and spitting at me and screaming at me. My colleague, Bernie Miklas, who I do the podcast with, had actually, of course, already filed something at four o'clock in the morning, proving once again, I'm not even good at the thing that I do. So but it was really something quite to wake up for. The number of people that have gone have come to me and said, so your son's first game ever at Bush Stadium got Mike Matheny fired. Can we get him a White House tour, for example, or something along those lines? So yeah, so it was certainly quite a thing to wake up to. It makes a lot of sense in retrospect, but it's worth remembering that firing Mike Matheny

has made a ton of sense for several years now. And I don't mean a lot of sense in that, like, wow, he's a bad manager. That should happen. But like the number of things I've got all kind of, not only the, as I wrote in the piece for MLB.com, not only the stuff that we knew he wasn't good at, which is say like basic baseball strategy,

but also he was supposedly good with young players and supposedly good in the clubhouse. And all of that was starting to collapse as well. It was weird. Again, I apologize for using the political parallel, but there has been a certain – we've noticed toward the end. We knew we were in late-stage Matheny or at least late-stage capitalism that we had reached the point where all of a sudden we had turned to, you know what? The reason Matheny can't do his job is because of all the criticism that he's getting. That's how you know when it comes all around.

There are defenders that come in that court. So I was actually surprised that they really went through with it. Not because it wasn't the right thing to do, but it felt like if they hadn't done it by now, they must have been so definitively dug in that they wouldn't at least until the year's over. But clearly, two wipeouts at home to the Reds was finally the last straw. The Reds are a juggernaut these days. They are, I know. Oh, they have noticed.

Oh, yeah, the whole, believe you me, interim manager, whoever that was, became very popular in St. Louis when they saw what was happening in Cincinnati. Actually, in the same way that you're doing three podcasts, can Jim Riggleman manage three teams at the same time? He's got a history with the Cardinals. They love him there.

Him and Mike Schiltz are good friends. So perhaps if we could, listen, I don't know who the next manager is going to be, but perhaps two interim managers working together perhaps could be the best future manager for the Cardinals. I think that what would be best for you, best for the fan base, best for the podcast is if they go through the entire hiring process

and they interview a number of minority candidates and they interview some women they really go outside the box and at the end they settle on mike mcthieney to hire the the manager the cardinal 2019 i'm sorry i've got a bad connection i have to get off the show i'm sorry as watching a team mike mcthieney run team for for so many years how has that if at all changed or adjusted your opinion of of the manager's role in team guidance and leadership and sort of the impact of clubhouse chemistry? Like, if you look at the Cardinals right now, maybe you hold Mike Matheny in part responsible for Marcelo Zuna underperforming. I don't know. It could be a lot more complicated than that. But how has Matheny changed your view on the role of a manager since you've watched him for seven or eight years?

your view on the role of a manager since you've watched him for seven or eight years yeah it's alternatively made me think that managers should have less power and also mike bethany himself could cause here's the best way to put that the it's made me look and see that like managers aren't that big of a deal you should just be able to get a basic average one and also realize the power that a really bad one can have it's probably the best the best way to put it to get a basic average win and also realize the power that a really bad one can have is probably the best way to put it. To me, a lot of the frustrations last year was like, again, look at what the Yankees and Nationals did. Teams that got much farther than the Cardinals did last year, showing how kind of frustrated they were and kind of moving on. But not just moving on, but moving on with a different kind of manager entirely with, I think, alternate success. But to me, what the Cardinals wanted out of Matheny

turned out to be the opposite of what he was. But what they wanted was not a bad thing. What they wanted him to be, remember, after watching Tony La Russa basically scowl at everyone for 15 years, the idea of a young guy that had recently played with a lot of these guys, had the respect of the clubhouse,

and looked like the manager, had the steel jaw and so on and actually like not steel job but actually was hit in the face with the pitch as a player and like shook it off and ran to first which is obnoxious actually uh but you know he was he looked the part and felt you thought he was going to be good with the media you thought it'd be a good public face and none of this stuff really worked out and so what you saw toward the end was he was a manager that actually got worse with power. There's a lot of people noticed that after 2013, when the Cardinals made the World Series, that Matheny actually changed a little bit. He seemed more open up until 2013. Remember, when he was hired by the Cardinals, the only thing he had managed was a little bit. He seemed more open up until 2013. Remember, when he was hired by the

Cardinals, the only thing he had managed was a little league team. He had very little experience in baseball. He'd actually had some recent financial trouble that the Cardinals had actually bailed him out of. He seemed very grateful to have the job and very eager to learn. And so while there was frustration with Matheny for the first couple of years, there was a sense that he's open to this. He's learning. He's going to get there. This is the new breed of manager.

This was the time of Robin Ventura being hired. The new breed of manager is this kind of guy that played recently, that has a respect to the clubhouse and will listen to the front office. And even though he wasn't a great manager the first couple of years, you sense that he was still open to someday being a good manager. But after 2013, you saw a clear shift in the way that he managed the team. Not so much strategy, but as much as he would be dug in on major, major issues that were obviously the opposite of what the front office had in mind. I always joke, even in that season, even in 2013, famously when the Cardinals made the trade where they traded Alan Craig until the 14 when he was clearly hurt.

They traded him to the Red Sox for John Lackey. And I joked at the time, because Mattini kept putting Craig out there over after over Oscar Tavares over and over and over when Craig clearly was not the same player and never became the same player. And I joked at the Craig trade, don't think of it as a trade as so much as John Moselec putting a cone around his dog's neck so that he does not bite himself. And there were a lot of moves like that you saw. Well, clearly, not only was Matheny making bad decisions, they were clearly in defiance of what the front of the roster, the front office was giving him.

So it's made me appreciate how much trouble a manager can cause. Not so much because he was making bad decisions, though he was, as much as it was clear it was an organization that was not on the same page. There was an ongoing joke of imagining what Moseley would do, and Moseley made mistakes on his own, but the things that he would do in the privacy of his president's box when he would see Matheny double switch out the four hitter for a pitcher that would throw a third of an inning. Like it happened constantly.

And there's no way, like was that a smart guy? Because I have tons of smart people in the front office. It was obvious that they didn't want that. But Matheny felt like emboldened after 2013. And I think that was really the damage that he caused. What do you think was the last straw? Because as you mentioned, it has seemed to make sense for years and they finally did it now. Was it the results on the field or was it the recent reports about Dexter Fowler and Jordan Hicks and Bud Norris and all of that?

I mean, all of the above, probably. But if there was one thing, do you have a theory? one thing do you have a theory yeah my again my colleague bernie mcless has talked a lot about specifically how the ownership and mosaic were taken aback not so much the the fact that jordan hicks and bud norris were having their scuffle which they you know some people both hicks has gone out of his way to say that everything is fine with norris and the clubhouse has kind of circled the ranks a little bit but the way Matheny handled that story he first off he threw flames on that fire he was the one that basically just kind of shrugged at the idea of Norris doing this he's just like yeah hey what are you gonna do you know back in my day he

wouldn't have been able to handle it but now I don't know he probably doesn't like it yeah and there was just something about that that seemed not only like kind of gross but a fundamental misunderstanding of how you even handle that. If you read that story and take Matheny's quote out of it, it's still a little weird and makes you not think that Bud Norris is like this great dude,

but it doesn't feel like it has the endorsement of the management and front office. And the way he kind of shrugged that, remember this was a guy that was supposedly great with young players. The idea that this was a guy that was supposedly great with young players. The idea that we went from guy that was hired great with young players to at the end of his tenure, the young players are soft,

like kind of shows kind of the, the, the evolution of his, him as a manager. It seemed to have a fundamental lack of understanding, particularly the idea that what happened with Jason Hayward leaving and then having that transfer to Dexter Fowler, the Cubs have always kind of what they've done have kind of hung large over idea that what happened with Jason Hayward leaving and then having that transfer to Dexter Fowler,

the Cubs have always kind of, what they've done, have kind of hung large over, loomed large over what the Cardinals struggles of the last few years. But, you know, a large part of Hayward's, one of the reasons that Fowler wanted that fifth year from the Cardinals was a clear discomfort with Matheny. And Hayward had kind of told him that. It wasn't that Hayward said, Matheny's a jerk, you'll hate him. But it was more, you know what, this place isn't very fun. This place is not very fun. And it's not a place where you want to make sure to outlast Matheny. It's probably the best way to do that. And I think that was, it was the idea that not just was up on the Cardinals, the Norris Hicks story, then Matheny blasted the reporter. He blasted the reporter and said, no, that was wrong, which again, just showed how little control he kind of had over things were going. Combining that with the continued, not just struggles on the field, but a very sloppy team, very inconsistent team. And then it was funny in that last game on Saturday, double switching out Marcelo Zuna for Jordan Hicks, who literally threw a third of an inning. In a game that went from the Cardinals up 2-0 to 6-2 like that.

It really felt like almost he's playing the hits on his last night out. It did kind of feel that way. And so, yeah, I think it was hard. The reports are that Moselec actually had decided to do it after the Cardinals got wiped out on Friday and actually had planned on doing it after the game on Saturday, as my six-year-old son can attest, that lasted a lot longer on Saturday than what he thought. So maybe if the game would have done the normal time, I would have actually been awake for it to happen. It's like that Joe DiMaggio line

about always wanting to be at his best because there might be someone in the stands seeing him for the first time that day. Your son was seeing Matheny. Yeah, I appreciate Matheny being like, you know what? I want this kid to know

what I'm all about. And boy, did he. So if you click around on Twitter and you see any sort of, certainly of the previous weeks or months, you'd read anything, comments would be, well, the Cardinals need to get rid of Matheny and they need to get rid of Moe. They need to get rid of Mzelek. And how high do you think that, this is too strong of a term,

but how high do you think the rot goes? Do you think that the problem was isolated to Matheny and maybe John Mabry, some of the coaching staff, or are you looking for, even though the team is in a decent position and still above 500, are you looking for more of an overhaul where this is the first step? One of the major indictments of the people above Matheny, frankly, was that they were still keeping Matheny around. And I don't mean that to say that like Matheny was the whole problem, but it felt like there were obvious things that were getting worse. Across the board, clubhouse, on the field, bullpen management,

and media management, and just Matheny had become this incredibly polarizing figure that was dividing the fan base and turning and also externally making the team that generally has been thought of as one of the smarter teams in baseball look like they don't know what they're doing. So a lot of the, this whole thing needs an overhaul. A large, one of the reasons they were, people were so frustrated with Mzelek was that nothing was being done on this front.

And you would hear a lot of that. It's funny because one of the big frustrations, too, is that they've not gone out and made a big move. Now, it's funny because people were upset they didn't sign Jason Hayward, which turned out Hayward's having a little better year, but obviously has not turned out. I don't think he's opting out. I remember the conversation we've had about this. I don't think he's opting out. So that didn't turn out well. They really wanted David Price and there was frustration. The Cardinals didn't get David Price. That move has turned out, it turns out pretty well. A lot

of frustration that they didn't get Giancarlo Stanton, but they, you know, to me, Stanton was never coming to the Cardinals, which is frankly something that also might reflect a little bit on Matheny and kind of the culture there as well. So a lot of the big moves that fans have wanted Moseley Locke to make and have been frustrated they didn't make turned out to be wise decisions for him not to make but it also led to this kind of general frustration with inaction for you know I know I get it I know there are people listening I totally understand being like I can't believe these Cardinal fans are complaining so much they have had a winning record every year this is still a team that's in the hunt. What is the problem?

And I get it. Listen, who cries for the St. Louis Cardinals fan? Literally no one. Literally no one. And nor should they. But I will say that when you look at, like, you know, if you're a fan of a team, the Cardinals in 2013 went to the World Series and lost. 2014 went to the NLCS and lost. 2015 went to the NLDS and lost.

16 missed the playoffs and won 86 games. 17 missed the playoffs and won 83 games and are now at 500 this year. Now, obviously, those are still better results than what's been happening, what's going to happen to the Orioles for the next 80 years. Like, I get it. But clearly, what fan base around would be acceptable with a worse, literally a worse result than the year before for five consecutive years and no actual changes. So I think that is really the issue with Mo.

I think that there is a sense now, you know, Mike Schilt is the interim manager. He was clearly brought in within the last couple of years to be the, hey, if Mo ever decides he can't stand this anymore, that's the guy that's going to be the interim manager. He's kind of a handpicked guy. He's an organizational guy. Clearly, the hope is that kind of fight between the manager and the front office is going to end now. Now, if the Cardinals fall apart in the second half, I don't think Moseley is in trouble,

but I think that's when you'll have to see some major action. but I think you'll see that's when you'll have to see some major action I'll put it this way until everyone really turned on Matheny the narrative was very much I mean like in a serious way in the last year the narrative was very much when is Mosaic going to do something about Matheny

it's only been really in the last year when the team has just gotten progressively worse and particularly this year which has been particularly frustrating and when Mosaic started the offseason saying we're going to make big big moves this is unacceptable and then there were no major moves i think that's when it started to turn back on on mosaic the fact that he's fired matheny and finally made this move i think it's i think it's taking the heat off him a little bit and i frankly i would argue justifiably so

i remember when when they hired mike schultz and then they just he just stood at the end of the I think it's taken the heat off him a little bit. And frankly, I would argue justifiably so. I remember when they hired Mike Schultz and then he just stood at the end of the dugout staring at Mike Matheny. And he didn't actually have a job responsibility. He just stood there and he stared at Matheny. And Matheny was like, what are you doing? He was just like, I'm waiting. I think that made it a little more difficult

for Matheny to do his job. Nothing, nothing, why? Nothing, why, why, why? Why do you keep asking me that? For the record, Mike Schulte definitely will not be able to be the new manager until he gets rid of his number. He's wearing number 83 in the dugout right now.

It's absolutely bizarre. He's both the manager and apparently the fifth string outfielder at the end of spring camp. You always wear the number of the number of games you won in the previous season. It's just canon. Oh, no. All right.

He has a higher number than the bullpen catcher, who is only 76. So what do you think about that whole wave of managerial hirings around that time? The idea was we'll hire these young, inexperienced guys. They maybe haven't managed, maybe haven't even coached, but they're recently out of the game, and they'll be able to connect with young players. And the front office will just tell them what to do, which is great because that'll be more optimal anyway. And they'll just learn on the job and they'll get better at in-game stuff.

And the returns are mixed to, say, the best you could say, I guess. Who else is in this camp? Like Brad Ausmus and Robin Ventura and maybe Walt Weiss. And I guess there are still some people getting hired who are in this mold like Aaron Boone. But of that initial crop, the results weren't great. I mean, Matheny won a World Series and Ausmus got to the playoffs a bunch of times.

So in that sense, it wasn't disqualifying. But none of those guys ever developed a reputation as a good tactical manager. So can we conclude that you can't really learn on the job, that you kind of have to be good when you come in or else you're not going to get better? I wonder if I think there's partly that, though I still kind of like the Boone hiring and I still feel like that makes a certain amount of sense but the difference between Boone being recently out of the game and like a Matheny or an Ausmus or a Ventura being recently out of the game is Boone was

A. a little farther out of the game and B. one of the things with Matheny is he retired fairly recently and kind of, if you'll forgive the term, still kind of thought he was hot shit if you don't mind me bleeping that out a little bit. But I think there's something to the idea that the problems with Ausmus and Ventura

and Matheny were not so much that they're strategic issues, though, that were obviously there, it's that they never improved on them. Like that was the problem with Matheny, is he got kind of dug in to the fact that he was right. To me, you look at Aaron Boone, Aaron Boone seems to be the perfect manager of the Yankees because he's good on camera. He's able to explain things to, we'll say the, we'll put it nicely and say the pack of rabid wolves that cover the Yankees. And he's able to explain things and get along well with them and be able to kind of be in

front of things and also do what the 85 million people that work in the analytic department for the Yankees tell him to do. And Matheny was not able to do that because I would argue he played too recently. And I think a lot of these guys had maybe played a little – they had not gotten enough of the – like to me, a great example of this is Clint Hurdle, right? example of this is Clint Hurdle, right? Clint Hurdle is a guy who was this kind of old school manager with half a pound of chaw in his face at some point. And basically the Pirates said to him,

hey, you want this job? You're going to change that or you're not going to have this job. And I think part of the problem and I think the advantage that he had is he'd been in the game long enough to where he had no illusions about this anymore. And the idea like, hey, if I want to manage this team, this is what I'm going to do. And the problem with Matheny

and I think a lot of those guys is they were these young Turks, right? They were these young Turks and they're like hiring them in these... Don Mattingly I think was a little bit like this as well, though I think he's maybe a little different now is they felt like oh, I'm here because I'm the superstar.

I still have this idea of what a manager is supposed to be. They were almost the transitional candidates. They were the Sputniks in this kind of grand exploration. You send them out and realize, okay, no, now they're the 1.0 version of this. To me, a boon is an evolution off of that, is the idea that like, okay, you can come in and do this stuff, connect with the players in that way if you're going to be able to do that but the more important thing is to do what we tell you to do and and and i think that's the issue with those managers was not so much like they obviously weren't doing what they were told to do because they were terrible strategic managers based on

non-evidence and non-analytical things that That was really the issue. To me, like, listen, Mike Schilt is not that much older than Mike Matheny. Like, he's still relatively, he looks older because he doesn't have that dreamy jaw that Mike Matheny has. But he's not that much older than him. He's not a former player. But like, it's not like there's a massive age difference. But the thing is, is he's a guy that takes direction. He's a guy that's come up within the system, has been working alongside these guys.

Whereas, you know, Matheny still had the idea of this is what a manager is and this is what a general manager is. And that clearly was a conflict from the beginning. But the mistake the Cardinals made, I think was not so much getting a young guy as much as it was getting this specific young guy who was not going to get along with the

program so i don't know if if schilt is going to be the guy who sticks around or if they're going to do something make something more permanent in a few months or during the off season but given that right now with the cardinals mathene is gone that's a massive pr boost but people are going to be focusing a lot on on the next person who steps in to manage the team for a number of years what is your gut feeling of how the Cardinals will respond to what just happened and what they're going to look for in their next guy, whether that's Schilt or somebody else? And if I can piggyback on that, as you mentioned in your article, well, one of the candidates for that job when Matheny was hired was Jose Oquendo. And Jose Oquendo, still around, still very

respected when he had some health issues last year and had to become a special assistant to the GM for a while, there was that whole flare-up about Yadier Molina's Instagram post about him that seemed to be slighting Matheny. So Oquendo is now the third base coach. Why is he not the guy? First off, I actually thought Oquendo would have made some sense as a particularly interim guy as well just because he is so beloved uh there's there was a great uh there's a great interview with matt carper at the beginning of this year and they asked him about mike before the season started and asked about mike bethenny he's like he's a good manager we support him we're on his side uh and they asked about jose having jose okendo back and he like talked for like 20

minutes about how much he loved jose okendo. Jose Oquendo is clearly a beloved guy. He's actually said he doesn't want to manage now, I suspect. He said he's moved on with that part of his life. We'll see. It's hard to imagine him being like, nope, sorry, I'd rather be over here at third base with my helmet. It's possible. It seems unlikely.

But he said he doesn't want to. I think you would make a lot of sense. If you were to put Vegas odds on who the manager for the card, I guess now earth America odds, I can't, we have to stop saying Vegas odds, I guess. But if you were to put odds on who's going to be a manager of the Cardinals in 2019, right now, I'd say it's Mike Schilt to be entirely honest. I think if I think this is who they want to be the manager of this team because

they want their guy. They've clearly struggled not being able to control a guy for the last few years. That's why Joe Girardi, whose name comes up a bunch, I don't think makes a lot of sense. I called him Smarter Matheny on Twitter, and I think that actually sounds about right. They're very similar kind of guys.

I think Girardi is a little bit more open, but only a little bit. It is still like, clearly the Yankees are one of the more advanced and like organizations out there. And they didn't want this guy. The Cardinals are similar in that regard.

The last thing the Cardinals want are someone else like Matheny, who's not going to get with the program. So I think if Schilt is halfway decent this year, if he makes the playoffs, there's no, even if it's just the wildcard game, there's no, even if it's just the wildcard game, there's no question he'll have the job in 2019. He's the guy that they want. But I do think that's what you're looking at. You know, you're looking at someone like that.

Derek Gould from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had a list of potential managers and Okendo was on there and Schilt was on there. Mark McGuire was on there, which I've had enough hot takes over the Cardinals over the last five years. I think Mark Maguire would be a perfectly fine, good manager. As Craig Calcaterra pointed out, it would require the Cardinals to bring out the statue they had made for Mark Maguire that they've been hiding for the last 15 years,

make them deal with that little issue. But certainly I can see it, and that's the kind of manager that they're looking for. But like they're not going to do another Matheny move. Like hiring Skip Shoemaker

would be the equivalent of hiring the Matheny move now. I don't see them doing that. But they want someone. It's funny, this temptation now that people tend to have is like, oh, they need to go get someone

from outside. I think there's some frustration with that. But I think, frankly, even though Matheny has obviously been with the team for more than six years, he still, when it comes to the front office, has always seemed a little bit of a lone wolf and a little bit of an outsider. That's why they like Schilt. And I think that's why they like Okendo. Okendo and Matheny, between the two of them, had flare-ups during that time. I think that the organizational guy is what they want. If they go outside, it'll be someone who can get with the program, is probably the best way to put it. And listen, if that doesn't work, there will be a new program.

But I think there's a clear sense among the front office that they've been—I think this is probably going to feel freeing for them. One of the reasons Matheny stuck around so long is Bill DeWitt, the owner of the Cardinals, has long been a big fan of Matheny's personally. They share similar views about faith and leadership and politics. And so, and Matheny lives in St. Louis. He lived in St. Louis before he was hired. DeWitt likes that kind of stuff. The general consensus thought has always been that DeWitt was perhaps standing in the way of Moseley making the move that he kind of wanted to make. And by the way, Michael Gersh is the actual general manager of the Cardinals right now. I keep talking like John Moseley is the only guy making this decision. He is the team president generally thought to be in charge, but Michael

Gersh has kind of emerged a little bit this year as well, though it's worth noting he's not the one that called Mike Matheny and fired him. So I think there's a little bit of, they want, this front office feels a little bit like they've had someone standing in the way of what they want to do for the last four or five years. And now they can get someone that won't do that. Now, maybe that'll work and maybe it won't. And then we'll be able to kind of they feel like then they will be able to be fairly judged. But I do really do think that they feel that Matheny has been kind of standing in the way of them for a while.

Matheny's only 47 years old. in the way of them for a while. Matheny's only 47 years old. Do you think maybe you wait a few years and kind of some of the reputation tarnishing stuff fades away and you just remember, oh, he's a World Series manager and he's this square-jawed guy

and maybe some team that has had a fun, happy-go-lucky manager will then switch to the hardliner who will instill discipline in everyone. Do you think Matheny gets another managerial job? Maybe he's got a chance to be the Larry Boa of this generation, the guy who gets, like, come in to be the red ass. I think a little bit of that. I do feel Kansas City, frankly, in a couple of years makes a little bit of sense, to be honest.

I think he clearly wants to. He gave an interview with Tom Ackerman and St. Louis Television. And it's fine because it was a reminder but Feeney actually looked like a little happier and relieved. He was like, oh wow, I actually found that for the first time in five years, I had a brief moment where I found this person

likable to look at. Because he handled himself in the graceful way that you'd like to. And a reminder of what people liked about him in the first place. I always remember after Oscar Tavares died, he actually kind of had the right public words and like he is, when challenged,

he always kind of was able to rise to moments of extreme duress in a way that I think will appeal to people. That said, I think it's going to have to be a few years because, you know, I, I, he wants to get back. I remember he'd never been on a major league bench, anything other than a player until he got this job. So I can see him maybe wanting to be a bench coach for a team that, uh,

uh, you wonder if there's a team that has the equivalent, imagine the Kepler thing that started at the beginning of this year had kept going. Like maybe he's a guy that you bring in to help out that guy or so on, to give him a little bit of a baseball dude in there. You see maybe that happen in first, maybe a bench coach somewhere. But yeah, he clearly wants to come back.

And frankly, what else is he going to do? I mean, the only other thing he's really done in his career other than be manager of the Cardinals was he started a big real estate thing in St. Louis that left him bankrupt. And before the Cardinals happened, and listen, whatever, I don't think that means it's, I don't think it makes Mike Pantini a bad or a stupid person. That happened to lots of people in 2008. But certainly, it's not like, it was very weird, by the way, you could tell how much the Cardinals cleaned up his reputation, because he was doing radio ads for like a real estate dude on the radio this year.

I'm like, OK, clearly no one remembers what happened with you when you came with the team. So I think that, yeah, time changes a lot of things and time turns a lot of things around. But as a managerial job in the next couple of years, it's hard to say that there's a better situation for a lot of managers than the Cardinals. It's a stable organization. There's a willingness, if not to spend at the Yankees levels or the Cubs levels, there's a willingness to spend, a willingness to go out and get

talent. There's clearly a smart front office. They're the second team in baseball that's gone over 2 million fans this year. There's clearly, for better or worse, a local obsession with the team. It's a desirable job to have it not only not work there with him, but to at the end, have it really just devolve into chaos that it's, I think it's going to take a few years for people to forget that. Mm-hmm. I wonder whether this has been a good thing or a bad thing for sales of the Matheny Manifesto. Yeah, yes, the book. I will say

the actual manifesto that was based on, they got an editor, because there's a lot fewer spelling errors in that book. That's mostly a faith, but it's funny, though, because if you actually read the book, it sounds like it's, because that was just the title he'd used for his Little League manual, it really is actually just mostly a faith manual. It's actually

very, not that much about baseball, it's mostly about Christianity, which frankly helped him a lot with a segment of the Cardinals fan base. I think that, that I've certainly seen, I wrote my piece for MLB.com, which I thought was, I hoped anyway, was fair and generally accurate to his tenure with the Cardinals.

And I've been accused by a few people of going after him because he's a Christian. So like, there's a little bit of that going along too. So I think that that, I think that also spoke not his Christianity, but the fact that the people that were left defending him were using things that were very non-baseball related, I think spoke to kind of how polarizing he was at the end. Does either of you think there is a new consensus worst manager? Is there a new person we use for our punchlines? This has been an issue that we run into with front offices and GMs in recent years,

where you could always kind of joke about the one GM who was terrible and would say strange things, Dave Stewart or whoever it was. And now there really isn't anyone in that role anymore because every front office is kind of smart and says the same stuff, at least relative to 10, 20 years ago. And Matheny was just kind of the easy, you want to reach for a punchline about a manager, just make a joke about Mike Matheny. Is there that guy now? I mean, Ned Yost was that guy once, but he is maybe another example of someone who improved as a manager, kind of curbed his worst tendencies in some ways. So I don't know that he works anymore.

And you've got Mike Socha, who's old school, but not quite in the same way that Matheny was. And then, you know, people love to hate Joe Maddon, and sometimes he deserves it, but clearly not a terrible manager. So I don't know. Where do we go with those jokes? Do we just retire them? I mean, I think it would be Ron Goddenhier if he weren't managing the Tigers, but nobody cares in the same way that I had.

I know nothing about Rick Renteria as a manager, but I could imagine that. I know people have been criticizing Mickey Calloway, but he manages the Mets. And so anyone who manages the Mets is going to be a lightning rod. So the answer is Gib Kapler. Yeah, I guess.

He's been too successful, though. So I don't know where we go with these things. Maybe a new Matheny replacement will emerge. Well, don't forget, Matheny made the playoffs a bunch. Yes. Can I just say, like, again, nobody cries for Cardinals fans. But my God, like, to not have that guy be your manager anymore is just a huge relief. Like, it really is. not for nothing, but wait,

obviously I was surprised and shocked that they'd done it, but it really is like, just to not have like, isn't Mike Schulte has managed one game in major league baseball. Like it's possible. He's, he's terrible as well, but to not have your manager,

particularly when there's so many other smart things being done with the Cardinals and so many other things to not have your manager be the one that's the default. Oh, well, he's no Mike Matheny. It just feels a lot better. I have to say it feels so much better. Yeah. When you wake up in a cold sweat in 10 years because you just had a nightmare about Mike Matheny still being the manager of the Cardinals, what will the move be that you were dreaming about? Will it be the Michael Wacca in game five of 2014 NLCS, or is there anything else that can contend with that? I do think Wacca is the specific move. There's no question. I mean, that is, that was, it's honestly the single most inexplicable thing I've ever seen on a baseball

field. And I've seen squirrels run across the infield during the World Series. And someone hit a bird with a pitch ball. It is absolutely insane. It still makes no sense. He hadn't pitched in a month. His explanations afterward were, I'd do it again. That, to me, was the definitive moment. You're like, wait, what?

Obviously you wouldn't, right? So for me, that was the frustrating thing. And it was also the explanations about it. Not for nothing, but like Mike Schilt got a win in his first game, but more to the point after it was over, he explained why he made the moves that he made. And it felt like, right, like this is how a watch work. There are gears and there are windings. Things actually come together.

I'm actually watching this happen. To hear the number of times, there are certain phrases that Matheny will always be remembered for among Cardinal fans. Gotta get him right is probably the best one. Greg Holland was the unfortunate guy this year. Gotta get him right.

Remember, Greg Holland was brought in this year. Cardinals did not want to bring him in. The front office did not want him. But Matheny was like, you can't expect me, Mike Matheny, to come into the season without an established closer. And so when Holland inevitably struggled, he kept being put out in that position. And every single time, Matheny was like, got to get him right. Got to get him right.

And when Alan Craig was struggling, why did you put Craig out there? Ozuna has actually had a lot of it this year. Why did you put him back out there? Gotta get him right. He's my guy. Gotta get him right. Gotta get him right. That's, that will be, I don't know if it will be Mike Matheny's tombstone, but it might be mine because I have, I've heard that phrase so many times.

I think that, that kind of thing, but yeah, the 2014 move is the, it's, I still cannot believe it happened. And I frankly cannot believe it was a fire on the spot offense, if there ever was one. I think going back to the beginning of your answer, I think a squirrel on the field is very explicable.

I think that one explains itself. Michael Walker, that was absolutely bizarre. Still, there were a few moments from recent playoffs, even from last year's playoffs, where they were a big deal at the time. And there were a few that I actually recall today. That one's vivid. That one will never fade away. Yeah. I think that was as incredulous as I've ever been on this podcast, as I recall. It was, let's see, episode 558, I think we were talking about that move. I'm going to go listen. I'm going to go listen to it now. It's funny now. I'm not even mad anymore.

It's funny now because he's gone. So I would love to listen to that. Right. Because I think he used the, was it the closer on the road justification thing? He couldn't bring him in because of that. And it was just like hearing that yet again. I mean, just,

I was just dumbfounded that someone was still citing that. And he didn't cite it as a justification. He said it as like, well, this is one of the commandments. Right. Like I can't make water fly upward. So therefore, I can't make it rain from the ground.

So therefore, I can't use my closer in that position. That was the frustrating part to say the least. Well, congratulations to you and the rest of the Cardinals fan base for not having this millstone around your team's neck anymore. You can go listen to the aforementioned Cardinals podcast that Will does with Bernie. Seeing Red. Yes, and you can follow all of Will's work in all of its many

homes. I guess the most efficient way to do that is to subscribe to his newsletter as I do, tinyletter.com slash William F. Leach. It will come to your inbox every Saturday and he'll tell you all the stuff he did in the preceding week, which is always a lot. So Will, thanks for adding something else to your schedule. An honor as always, gentlemen. So that will do it for today. You can support this podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com

slash effectively wild, signing up and pledging some small monthly amount. The following five listeners have recently done so. Maria Edwina, Darren Fessel, Josh Bayer, Craig Minami, and Lisa Lozo. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild approaching 8,200 members in there now.

And you can rate and review and subscribe to effectively wild on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews are always appreciated, provided they're positive. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. And please keep your questions and comments coming for me and Jeff via podcast at fangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. So enjoy the All-Star festivities. We will be back with our next episode probably after the home run derby and the all-star game we can talk a bit about those talk to you then I feel so bad because the Michael Waka game,

that just overshadowed the fact that in that game, not only did Tony Cruz start, he hit a home run. And it's like nobody... A home run. Yeah, and everyone... Tony Cruz just tells everyone he sees to this day, like, did you know I hit a playoff home... No, you didn't.

No, you didn't. No, that was a Michael Waka game. It was a bomb, too. Yeah, I remember it.