On Nov. 13, the St. Louis Cardinals announced that
their former catcher Mike Matheny, who played with the ballclub from 2000
through 2004 and won three Gold Glove awards with them, had been hired as their
new manager.
Thus in the span of three weeks the Cardinals went from
having the manager with the most experience in the entire league and likely one
of the best greatest managers in baseball history to boot in Tony La Russa to
having the manager with the least amount of experience in coaching. In fact,
Matheny has zero managerial or coaching experience at any level in baseball,
majors or minors.
To say the least, the St. Louis Cardinals are taking a
gigantic risk with Matheny. It’s a risk that could work, it’s seemingly worked
well for Joe Girardi with the New York Yankees and the Florida Marlins before
that. But, I’d say the odds are against it. Matheny is beloved by Cardinals
nation and many Cardinals fans seem to be happy or at least OK with the hiring
for that reason, but hiring Mike Matheny over such candidates as two-time World
Series champion with the Boston Red Sox Terry Francona and Cardinals third base
coach Jose Oquendo doesn’t seem to make a whole heckuva lot of sense to me. I
think that Francona would have given the Cardinals the best opportunity to win
and keep a championship-caliber team at that level. I think that Oquendo
would’ve given the Cardinals the best shot at re-singing free agent and
franchise player Albert Pujols.
The Cardinals are likely enjoying their championship right
now, but in my opinion they’re going to be starting off their next season with
a big question mark.
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