Years after being unreasonably fired, Mike Shildt ascends while Cardinals sink

St. Louis made a clear mistake.

When Mike Shildt was named interim manager in 2018, the St. Louis Cardinals were drifting backing into average waters and playing bad baseball. Along with a problem hitting, they couldn’t field or grasp the fundamentals. They got it together a year later, though, as Shildt led the team to the NLCS, winning their only playoff series since 2014. He was named manager of the year, and the roster was suddenly bursting with gold glove talent and a promising future. Times were good, because the Cards had an actual manager and not just a yes man.

But then suddenly after the 2021 season, a solid season that ended prematurely against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Shildt was suddenly fired due to philosophical differences, aka he wanted the team to make changes that they didn’t want and so ways were parted. He got on the San Diego Padres as a third base coach, and the Cardinals hired Oli “I took Quintana out too early and left Helsley in too long” Marmol. He’s not a bad manager, but he’s definitely not as good as Shildt.

Fast forward to today, and Shildt and St. Louis live on two different islands. One is contending while the other has been merely pretending. He’s managing the Padres, who just won a playoff series and will move on to the divisional round, while the Cardinals prepare to cut payroll and reorganize their entire talent evaluation system. A tale of two cities didn’t have to be this way, especially if the team listened to Shildt’s demands instead of casting him out as someone who wasn’t respecting the Cardinal Way. That doesn’t even make sense when you consider he was a lifelong Cardinal who nurtured and helped grow talent in the minor league ranks. Bill DeWitt Jr. and John Mozeliak put themselves and the team on an island of narrow-mindedness in letting him walk.

It didn’t take a baseball savant to predict he would find success after leaving here, and find it relatively fast. The doubters were there, the Cardinals Nation members who swear by everything the team does and says no matter how much lunacy is involved. They’re the same ones who can’t spell his name correctly six years later. When he took over for the Padres, pundits said that team couldn’t be rehabbed in Shildt’s first season; he pulled it off anyway.

If I had a chance to ask the St. Louis brass one question, I’d ask what made Marmol a better fit for their dugout than Shildt, who was beloved in the clubhouse. Their answer would be half-baked and lead its way right back to philosophy and what’s best for the team. The truth is they wouldn’t have a real answer, the same way their team and Marmol had no answer for two unacceptable seasons. It was Shildt who dug them out of the hole Matheny put them in, a place they found not too long after he was dismissed.

Just like the players who leave here and find success, Shildt did so in San Diego, and the recipe for winning didn’t take long. Fernando Tatis Jr and Manny Machado sure do help, but you don’t have to look too hard to understand that a good manager goes a long way. Someone who can mix old school leadership with new school sabermetrics, and embrace the new analytical ways to access a baseball team. Would St. Louis be a clear playoff contender with Shildt? Maybe, or maybe not. They would be a better team. That’s because Shildt is a better manager than Marmol, proving it by finding playoff success with two teams inside six years.

It’s one of the many mistakes made by St. Louis in the past decade, a list that grows with each month and press conference. Days after saying all their coaches would be retained, hitting coach Turner Ward will not be returning next year. Since the team couldn’t hit a lick with runners in scoring position and their output was average at best, this is good news. But it just goes to show any attention-paying fan that the entire Cardinal Way is in disarray, and has been that way for a long time.

Fun fact: Shildt has more playoff series victories as a manager than the Cardinals have in the last ten years. There’s an argument to be made that the team would have been wiser to hire him in 2012 instead of Matheny. Would the team be better today? I think so, but ask San Diego just to make sure.

Shildt’s record as a manager is 252-199, including three 90-win seasons. Once again, his touch wouldn’t turn water to wine in St. Louis, but it would be better and more stable. That’s not a direct shot at Marmol, more of a clear shot at the crumbling front office, which began construction this week.

Shildt’s Padres will begin a playoff round this weekend. Good for him. Win the whole frigging thing, Mike.