“I don’t know if you’d call it a stretch anymore. It’s just bad baseball,” Arenado said, via Bally Sports Midwest. “We have been playing bad baseball for awhile now. Do I think we can play better baseball with the players we have in here? Sure. But that remains to be seen.”
I really don’t know if this team can be saved at this point. They need to clear out FO and coaching staff.
The players themselves have come out saying they don’t believe it’s on management. Of course, that doesn’t mean much because a team this good on paper really shouldn’t be playing so terribly… I do think the turnaround on literally every coach on the team in the offseason wasn’t a good sign, but not sure if that’s due to dysfunction within the organization or really just coincidence.
I really don’t know if I blame Oli so much, but–the fact that they’re near the top of the league in runs scored off the long ball feels like a pretty big shift in hitting philosophy for the club. Basically, if this team can’t hit homers then they can’t score runs, and with the new hitting coach hire something is clearly off between what he’s preaching and what the players are practicing. The question is, how much input does Oli have in these hires? Is he the one pushing for this philosophical change that apparently got Schildt canned? Or is this Mozeliak?
I think the fact that the Cardinals suck is a bummer but it is what is at this point. The real oddity about the whole situation is that this team is basically the same as if not better than last year’s team. To go from 90+ wins to this is just hard to understand how. Others who despise the Cardinals would point to regression and the team finally showing its true colors, but 20 years of sustained success isn’t one long lucky streak. And hate him as much as you want, but Mozeliak built a team that did contend for the past decade even if their postseason performance has been shitty. So either this year really is somehow the worst of bad luck, which is as ridiculous as saying the past 20 years were good luck, or the coaching turnover this offseason really hasn’t worked out. Or, Yadi really was the key to all this. Which, I’m sure was true to some extent but one man can’t lead a team to success year in and year out, can he?
I’d be surprised if this happened. I think the major restriction is ownership not wanting to spend money.
Yeah, that’s been the problem for the last several years. DeWit wants to get by with what we have and not open up the wallet. Every year it’s the same story. We’re not a coastal team, we can’t spend that much. We have a ton of talent ready to come up this year and make a difference. It seems like the casual fan is finally coming around to seeing it wasn’t a problem with Matheny, Schildt, or Marmol (not to say all 3 didn’t have their own issues too) and more a problem with the ownership.
I’m honestly a little shocked that Marmol hasn’t been canned yet. I don’t have cable TV so really only know what I read in headlines and the final score alerts from ESPN, but at least twice he’s put the players on blast. Maybe I’m wrong but it feels like those kinds of comments will only further divide a team.
He hasn’t been fired because Mo doesn’t want to fire this many managers in such a short time. Pure ego.