Quote:
Originally Posted by Prison Bitch
The Cubs are the "Lambo"
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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.