Name names.

I'm fairly confident Kolten Wong was in that group and was often in the starting lineup when he was just straight garbage. Specifically in 2016 when he had an OPS+ of 84 and Greg Garcia is sitting on the bench with a 108.

But you'd have to ask a Cardinals fan that's read the book. However, thats not good enough for you so w/e.

Just some light reading:


Mike Matheny lost the clubhouse and now he has lost his job


Long Known As a Bad Tactician, Mike Matheny Was Fired for Being a Bad Boss

Mike Matheny’s clubhouse sounds like a nightmare


Controversies catch up with Cardinals manager Mike Matheny

If Mike Matheny Loses Yadier Molina’s Loyalty, the Manager Is In Danger of Losing the Clubhouse

Hicks harassment was last straw for over-matched Matheny and his underachieving Cardinals

Cardinals Seek Culture Change With Removal Of Manager Matheny

Quick Hits: BenFred on STL sports
Aug 21, 2018

Rounding up the hot topics from columnist Ben Frederickson's weekly chat with fans of St. Louis sports.


COMMENTS: I got a sense that Mike Matheny started buying into this whole "leader of men" thing and viewing himself as that instead of just focusing on doing what a big league manager should do: Play the best players. ... He always went out of his way to say he's a Christian. If that's what he believes, fine, but leave it at home. Don't let it intrude on your decisions in the clubhouse. ... Several things are contributing to the Cardinals playing better. The managerial change is one. Matheny would have fought all these call-ups from Memphis, in my opinion. Plus, he lost Yadier Molina, who is the team leader.

BENFRED: If you are going to make the statement that Matheny made decisions based off of his religious views, then you and others in this chat need a lot more than a "sense" of it. That's how this works. Your "sense" of something doesn't make it so. And that's a heavy claim to pin on someone without any real evidence.

This is a bad argument. Managers get fired and come back better managers. They learn from there experiences. See Milwaukee Brewers, Ned Yost, 2008 with two weeks left in the season. I believe the Brewers were 83 - 67 at the time of Ned's firing.

So he can't confirm?

Why is the Royals thread about the Cardinals? :hmmm:

Jon Jay, Randy Choate, Pete Kozma come to mind. Also, Descalso and Mark Ellis, who was arguably the worst 2B in team history but kept getting trotted out there for months.

Hiring a person who had notoriously and very publicly lost his locker room (a fact backed up by multiple sources). Tends to do that - especially when you're in the process of rebuilding with young players.

Still waiting for that Cardinal fan to speak his praises! I know a lot of people compare him to Yost, but no one ever said Yost was bad with the players - they just said he was a horrific bullpen manager (and yeah, there was something to that).

You owe me a retraction for this ^

Sure. Apologize for calling me a "dumb***", "dumb****" and personally attacking me for months after I predicted James Shields was going to have a Guthrie like regression and you have a deal.

No. It was in response to you lying about me, unprovoked.


Sure. Post the link, and if I made an incorrect analysis of course I'll own it. Who wouldn't?

It wasn’t unprovoked. You said my fan stupidity hit an all time low.

If I have the time i’ll dig up the 2016 Repo and happily post examples. But will it matter if I do? In the last page of this thread, you’ve ignored the dozens of articles that spoke to how Matheny lost the locker room and ignored the analysis of people who closely followed him for over five years.

I do apologize if what I said was upsetting. I do hold your analysis in high esteem. You’ve been dead on about a lot of your takes from the time you registered here. However, if me retracting is so important to you - all you have to do is apologize for attacking me personally in 2016. It’s that easy.

The "stupidity" comment wasn't leveled at you at all. But, I hold yiuband Duncan to a higher standard here. That's why I'm still on this, I wouldn't if it was say Lewdog or just the BFIBs acting stupidly. I'm genuinely surprised you and Duncan didn't see this for what it was: anti-religious bigotry masquerading as "analysis".



Make no mistake tho: the Cards beat writer absolutely saw it.

Ben Frederickson is not a beat writer (columnist) and was not in St. Louis for the first five years or so of Matheny’s time as manager.

I wouldn’t expect him to have the insight into why Allen Craig and Pete Kozma and etc. were getting playing time their performance didn’t warrant, at the expense of young players or better alternatives.

Joe Strauss, Bernie Miklasz, Derrick Goold... They were there. Believe the thought the Bible study group membership was influencing playing time decisions originated from comments from them. I never saw one of those directly because I don’t follow the Cardinals that closely, but people who did saw them.

Regardless, the fact remains that in addition to his worst-in-MLB bullpen management, Matheny had trouble with young player development, he had trouble connecting with all of his clubhouse, he lost big parts of his clubhouse, and he consistently played underperforming veterans for far too long.

He’s a terrible option for a rebuilding club that is planning to go young, young, young...

Remember the days of Ross Gload getting tons of PT over younger options? That’s the type of stuff Matheny is infamous for. No thank you.