Some good thoughts to be sure. But a lot of Marmol's frustrations are of his own making. his constantly shifting line up and batting order. throwing players under the bus I will be surprised if he is still the manager at the end of the year.
I honestly can't imagine the Cardinals, who had four full-time managers between 1980-2011, will swap out their third manager in five years. I still remember when TLR had 120+ different lineups in a season and people complained about it then, but the team won. Maybe players are different these days but it's not been that long ago.
There's no doubt Oli's a blunt kind of guy and I do think there are a few things he could keep in house. However, he's basically an extension of the front office, so it really seems unlikely he's going anywhere without some big blowup or an off-the-field issue.
Maybe, but paying $87 million dollars to a catcher who is now all of a sudden not comfortable calling a game and has to be put in the DH slot. Someone's head is going to role. The reason I say Ollie is because he is nothing more than Mo's puppet. Now they could dump Dusty Blake first, but ia think unless there is a MASSIVE turnaround and they start winning Ollie's seat is starting to get hot.
Today may have hit it. Maybe last night was the back breaker to the season. I don't know either, Daniel. Your suggestion is as good as anyone else can come up with. Bernie recently wrote about the '72 team falling apart early, and it wasn't a bad roster either. They never made up the ground. I wonder it Red had a meeting like you suggest Oli might do.
If it gets worse than today, I'm not sure I want to see it. This is as ugly as I can ever imagine Cardinal baseball being. I would like to say that means things will be different this weekend but I can't. I can easily see them just rolling into the weekend with the only change Waino instead of Woodford.
Alex and I talked on Musial this week about whether the loss of veterans like Molina (though, to be fair, he was gone half of last year anyway), Pujols, and Wainwright removed a buffer or exposed some weaknesses of Marmol. Then again, the club seems to like him from what we can publicly see so who knows.
Indeed. I thought that was a great suggestion which I’ve now internalized and passed-on 😆👍
And not sure if I took this from the Bens, elsewhere, or came up with it, but I wonder if Marmol’s personality had anything to do with losing Albert, Maddox, and Holiday. I’m too new the Cards (two years in from MN) to have a sense of the team, and it seems like the Albert and Maddox departures are seen as likely net gains, nonetheless...
I never want to assume someone has listened to me blather on!
I disagree with the Bens on their take on Marmol and the staff turnover. Perhaps Marmol played a role, but I think Albert was pretty clear that the fact he was held up as the scapegoat of everything offensive was what pushed him out, ideally to let those processes go on without his name marring it in the public. Maddux I think really was going to retire until the Rangers talked to him, whereby he realized he could do basically what he'd been doing and be at home half the season. Holliday was good friends with Marmol before he took the job and I was surprised at the time he took it because of his family ties.
In other words, there might be an underlying thread but I think every situation has a reasonable explanation on its own.
As ever, a great read, and a very measured reaction to the hole that the Cards have dug themselves into. I guess I'm on the side of "keep on keeping on" and thus take the view that this is actually a winning team which is playing badly. Besides anything else, it's a bit late this year for the major reconstructive surgery required if this really is a 60 win team.
All fair. Yeah, this doesn't seem like a 60 win team but I do wonder if there's not something that they could do to jolt things, a bit like when they traded Craig and Kelly for Lackey.
Some good thoughts to be sure. But a lot of Marmol's frustrations are of his own making. his constantly shifting line up and batting order. throwing players under the bus I will be surprised if he is still the manager at the end of the year.
I honestly can't imagine the Cardinals, who had four full-time managers between 1980-2011, will swap out their third manager in five years. I still remember when TLR had 120+ different lineups in a season and people complained about it then, but the team won. Maybe players are different these days but it's not been that long ago.
There's no doubt Oli's a blunt kind of guy and I do think there are a few things he could keep in house. However, he's basically an extension of the front office, so it really seems unlikely he's going anywhere without some big blowup or an off-the-field issue.
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Maybe, but paying $87 million dollars to a catcher who is now all of a sudden not comfortable calling a game and has to be put in the DH slot. Someone's head is going to role. The reason I say Ollie is because he is nothing more than Mo's puppet. Now they could dump Dusty Blake first, but ia think unless there is a MASSIVE turnaround and they start winning Ollie's seat is starting to get hot.
Today may have hit it. Maybe last night was the back breaker to the season. I don't know either, Daniel. Your suggestion is as good as anyone else can come up with. Bernie recently wrote about the '72 team falling apart early, and it wasn't a bad roster either. They never made up the ground. I wonder it Red had a meeting like you suggest Oli might do.
If it gets worse than today, I'm not sure I want to see it. This is as ugly as I can ever imagine Cardinal baseball being. I would like to say that means things will be different this weekend but I can't. I can easily see them just rolling into the weekend with the only change Waino instead of Woodford.
I first read that as “the second act of Salò”, a different image of the early season to be sure 😆
And yes, I’m blaming Marmol for poisoning the clubhouse. There’s plenty to go around, but he actually feels like a villain.
Alex and I talked on Musial this week about whether the loss of veterans like Molina (though, to be fair, he was gone half of last year anyway), Pujols, and Wainwright removed a buffer or exposed some weaknesses of Marmol. Then again, the club seems to like him from what we can publicly see so who knows.
Indeed. I thought that was a great suggestion which I’ve now internalized and passed-on 😆👍
And not sure if I took this from the Bens, elsewhere, or came up with it, but I wonder if Marmol’s personality had anything to do with losing Albert, Maddox, and Holiday. I’m too new the Cards (two years in from MN) to have a sense of the team, and it seems like the Albert and Maddox departures are seen as likely net gains, nonetheless...
I never want to assume someone has listened to me blather on!
I disagree with the Bens on their take on Marmol and the staff turnover. Perhaps Marmol played a role, but I think Albert was pretty clear that the fact he was held up as the scapegoat of everything offensive was what pushed him out, ideally to let those processes go on without his name marring it in the public. Maddux I think really was going to retire until the Rangers talked to him, whereby he realized he could do basically what he'd been doing and be at home half the season. Holliday was good friends with Marmol before he took the job and I was surprised at the time he took it because of his family ties.
In other words, there might be an underlying thread but I think every situation has a reasonable explanation on its own.
As ever, a great read, and a very measured reaction to the hole that the Cards have dug themselves into. I guess I'm on the side of "keep on keeping on" and thus take the view that this is actually a winning team which is playing badly. Besides anything else, it's a bit late this year for the major reconstructive surgery required if this really is a 60 win team.
All fair. Yeah, this doesn't seem like a 60 win team but I do wonder if there's not something that they could do to jolt things, a bit like when they traded Craig and Kelly for Lackey.