Mondesi now has the highest slugging percentage on the team. 3 steals tonight too. Now has 15 SB in 38 games.

Kyle ****ing Isbel

188 ABs
.356 Avg
.994 OPS
6 HR
23 SB

Currently in Lexington, where Melendez (.790 OPS), Pratto (.707 OPS) and Matias (.853 OPS) are.

Mondesi may turn out to be pretty good

Two reasons:

1) Mozeliak didn't build the Lambo, Jeff Luhnow did. See what Houston is doing right now for another example of his acumen. He was second in command and left after 2011, getting the Houston job

2) DeWitt was a huge personal fan of Matheny because of his spiritual beliefs and a dumbass letter he wrote to parents of the Little League team he coached (his only prior coaching experience, FWIW), which later became a book called, I shit you not, The Matheny Manifesto.

Once Luhnow left the farm system began to dry up, and with Matheny's attrition of the bullpen and horrible tactical management, the window they had from 2012-2015 closed after Taveras died and Mozeliak couldn't restock the farm with talent that had elite-level upside. He's too risk averse, which led to the team being stocked with high floor, low ceiling types. With that said, there is still enough talent to compete for a Wild Card spot, and it's pretty obvious that has been the case since shitcanning Matheny, as the Cardinals have gone on a tear. As I mentioned earlier, Matheny also propagated a toxic clubhouse culture and repeatedly overused or misused players. He beat the desk for Greg Holland, which cost the team 14 million dollars, a draft pick, and probably 3-5 games alone. On top of that, his coaches were terrible (John Mabry's firing has completely changed the hitting philosophy of the team for the better, and strikeout numbers have plummeted), but he wouldn't replace them.

At the time of the hire people gave the Cardinals the benefit of the doubt because everything they touched turned to gold. They were a model baseball franchise. But then Pujols left (and if he stayed, he would have declined all the same), Matheny got repeatedly depantsed in the playoffs, and the window shut.

2013: WS appearance
2014: NLCS appearance
2015: NLDS appearance
2016: 2nd place, missed playoffs
2017: 3rd place, missed playoffs
2018: 4th place at time of firing, .500 record.

I'll say this about Ibanez: there was a time when people thought Matheny was a progressive hire because he could related to young players, being in his early 40's and a player of some note. Caveat emptor.

Looks like he has the highest slug pct on the active team right now

Thank God we brought Boyer back on the 25 man roster.

@FlannyMLB: Jorge Lopez will be called up and start tomorrow night.

@FlannyMLB: Ned said a corresponding move to make room for Lopez will be made tomorrow.

I bet I know what that move is after tonites debacle

The Cubs are the "Lambo"

I'm a yankee fan and he only played 1 year here but he is one of my all time favorite players. I think he would be a great manager. Always thought he was one of the most professional classy players I have ever seen let alone how clutch he was. His stats were deceiving with the yankees he was money when it mattered.

At 40 he hit .240 19 hr 62 rbi and finished 24th in mvp voting. The 3rd highest of his career. In 02 sweeney hit 340 24 86 and finished 20th. So some writers also saw what a bad ass he was that year with the yankees.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Per <a href="https://twitter.com/EliasSports?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@EliasSports</a>, only 6 players in MLB history younger than Adalberto Mondesi (23 years, 18 days) recorded 4 hits &amp; 3 steals in a game. 3 are Hall of Famers (Ty Cobb, Luis Aparicio, Tim Raines).</p>&mdash; Dave Holtzman (@DHoltzy) <a href="https://twitter.com/DHoltzy/status/1029592983845384192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 15, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Does his first name change every month?

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">That Alcides Escobar plate appearance triggered another $75,000 bonus. It’s the 13th PA bonus he’s collected this year, totaling $975,000. That’s in addition to his $2.5 million base salary. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Royals?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Royals</a></p>&mdash; Craig Brown (@CraigBrown_BP) <a href="https://twitter.com/CraigBrown_BP/status/1029560522298073088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 15, 2018</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Matt Strahm as a starter: 13.1 IP, 1.35 ERA, 18 Ks. In relief: 30.2 IP, 2.64 ERA, 27 Ks. He is 13 months removed from a surgery that can require 18 months for a full recovery.</p>&mdash; Dennis Lin (@dennistlin) <a href="https://twitter.com/dennistlin/status/1029586691944665089?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 15, 2018</a></blockquote>
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They are now. They started being that in 2014/2015.

In 2012, when Matheny took over the defending World Champs, Theo Epstein was about 3 months into the job and just restarting the rebuild process. The Cubs weren’t good until 2015 and their farm system didn’t reach elite levels until 2014.

Matheny took over a team with an established, elite hitter (Holliday), one of the 2-3 best catchers in baseball (Molina), a legitimate ace starter (Wainwright), several good emerging young players (Allen Craig, David Freese, Lance Lynn, Jaime Garcia, Jon Jay) and a top 5-10 farm system at the outset of 2012 that became the top farm system as the season wore on.

It also was a team that was able to attract Carlos Beltran in free agency.

Matheny won a lot of games early because of what he inherited, but he also burned through several young arms (he’s a great example of bullpen abuse - not just overusing guys in actual games, but also of “getting them hot” multiple times in a game, which is just as damaging), he struggled with young players who were not part of his clique (Wong, Tavares, Shelby Miller, Carlos Martinez have all had difficulties with him), and FA goodwill dried up.

The Cubs surpassed the Cardinals in 2016, but up to that point, the Cardinals were the stronger organization.

Matheny’s ineptness in so many key phases of managing (clubhouse, player development, bullpen) is a key part of the Cardinals’ fall.

Mozeliak owns a big part of their decline, too. But Matheny owns a huge portion of it.