THE REDBIRD REVIEW
I don’t think Cardinals manager Oli Marmol wants to get fired, or is trying to get sacked. But in a word, this plan he’s worked up for Jordan Walker is co*ckamamie.
On Aug. 12, when the second-year right fielder was recalled after a long stay in the minors at Triple A Memphis, Marmol immediately relegated the right-handed swinging Cardinal into a platoon role, starting only against left-handed pitching.
How’s that working out? Ridiculously bad. Yeah, it’s early and all that. But in his pro career, Walker does well against right-handed pitchers, and not so well against lefties. (More in that later.) To this point after being invited back to the majors, Walker is 0 for 8 against lefties and 1 for 3 vs. righties. So turn him loose against right-handed pitchers, OK? That’s what Walker does best — minor league, National League, any league.
Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak didn’t sound happy about the situation when our friend Tom Ackerman (KMOX) asked about Walker’s situation.
“He was definitely swinging the bat well,” Mozeliak said of Jordan’s resurgence at Memphis. “And in terms of my philosophy – in terms of how you think of young players – they really do need to be playing. So ultimately, we have to look at what the schedule looks like, who we’re facing, and map out a plan.
“And if we’re not going to find every day at-bats for him, we may have to rethink that.”
Oh, boy.
Yes, the head of baseball operations controls the roster and sets it. The manager controls the lineup card and sets it. That protocol has been in place for a long time. But it isn’t that simple. There’s usually some give and take on both sides, until the manager and the baseball boss find the common ground.
Mozeliak’s feelings on this subject are clear: he expects Walker to play. And in my view, Mozeliak is absolutely right in feeling as he does. If Mozeliak knew that Walker would come back to St. Louis and sit in the dugout with Brandon Crawford, he wouldn’t have made this move. I’m not sure how this situation will evolve, but it’s a very interesting development.
We must remember (as we do) that this is Mozeliak’s manager. “Mo” fired Mike Shildt before the 2022 season, and elevated Marmol, who was the bench coach, to replace Shildt in the big chair.
Not only that, but after the embarrassingly awful terribly 71-91 season in 2023, Mozeliak originally said no when asked about extending Marmol’s contract before this season. The POBO set it up as a make or break year for the young manager. And then, out of nowhere, came an unexpected pivot: Mozeliak changed his mind during spring training and gave Marmol a two-year contract extension.
I suppose that contract extension can be converted into severance pay, but I digress …
What a bizarre and unsettling time for St. Louis Cardinals baseball. I can’t imagine why chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. would want to put up with this. He doesn’t have to. He owns the franchise
The Cardinals used to be the envy of most other major-league franchises. And now they’re the object of laughter and “what the hell happened to that juggernaut?” inquiries.
Well, it happens in sports. The Cardinals turned stale and outdated and were among the last to know it. And it wasn’t easy to sustain the success without a Hall of Fame manager who established a winning mindset, very high standards and an exemplary team culture. Look at the Green Bay Packers after Vince Lombardi retired. Substitute the name “Tony La Russa” for Lombardi and you’ll understand the intended reference.
This STL organization’s litany of problems go beyond the usual Sturm and Drang of a manager’s performance. I usually try to defend Marmol over unfair criticism, and I try to keep in mind that he can only work with the roster he’s been handed. And this roster is flawed.
That said, don’t you think the Cardinals – even with their shortcomings – should be better than a team that’s lugging around the second-worst record in the majors (13-21) since July 10? Should this team really be spiraling in a disastrous freefall? Shouldn’t the Cardinals be better than a drifting team that’s in obvious danger of heading to a second consecutive losing season? I mean, we did see them run off a 33-18 record from May 12 through July 8. Where did that team go?
Even if we think the talent level is insufficient for high-level success, shouldn’t the Cardinals be playing a lot harder, displaying more urgency, putting up more competitive at-bats and flinging themselves into a tenacious, save-the-season rescue? I don’t see that. Not much. Not yet. And maybe we won’t see it as the time clicks away on the 2024 campaign.
All of this – including the Walker debacle – leads to more intense scrutiny of Marmol. And no, I’m certainly not leaving Mozeliak out of this. He’s been blasted by fans and non-dutiful media for a long time, but in this specific case, this in-progress Jordan fiasco is more about the manager.
The dysfunctional franchise had no business calling up Walker if the plan was to sit him (as a starter) against right-handed pitching. So where was the breakdown in communication? How can there be such a disconnect?
Mozeliak has always been steadfast in his belief that young players must play regularly – or there’s simply no reason to add them to the big club. Remember Mozeliak sending a young Kolten Wong to the minors whenever manager Mike Matheny wanted to play some broken-down veteran at second base? Eventually, Matheny got the message … I think.
You just don’t bring Walker back to St. Louis to be a platoon bat; that’s loony-tunes stuff. Walker needs as many reps as he can get. Surely Marmol is aware of Mozeliak’s preference here, right? And if Marmol is going to go against management’s wishes … hey, best of luck with that. Ask Matheny and Mike Shildt how that played out.
As for the baseball-only aspect, this much is clear: in Walker’s brief major-league career he’s been far more productive against right-handed pitching. The same splits apply to Walker’s in the minor leagues, but I’ll use Walker’s big-league stats to show the difference.
In the majors, Walker has 151 career plate appearances vs. LH pitching 393 plate appearances vs. RH pitching.
- Batting avg: .195 vs LH … .281 vs. RH
- Onbase pct: .285 vs. LH … .341 vs. RH
- Slugging pct: .331 vs. LH … .447 vs. RH
- OPS: .616 vs. LH … .788 vs. RH
Big difference, eh?
There’s confirmation in the wRC+ metric (aka park and league adjusted runs created.) In his brief major-league career, Walker is 29 percent below league average vs. lefties and 15 percent above league average vs. the righties. So what the heck is up with this?
The Cardinals are taking an odd, nearly incomprehensible, approach with a young hitter that has the talent and potential to be special. Goodness, we saw that last season when Walker the rookie slugged ..445 and had an OPS+ that was 15 percent above league average offensively. And he was only 21 years old.
The Cardinals probably brought Walker to the majors too soon, and then they’ve turned been impatient when the young man encountered trouble at the plate, and now the guy that holds the lineup card wants to make Walker a part-timer. Hell, Marmol was perhaps the leader of the cheer squad that wanted Walker to break camp with the Cardinals in 2023. Side note: new batting coaches at the major-league level, maybe? Or will the good-old-boy network roll on, undisturbed?
Sadly, this has become the place where potential fades. This is the place where the Cardinals have failed in getting a sequence of young outfielders through the inevitable downturns as new-t-the-show hitters.
It’s almost as if the manager gets mad at young hitters that aren’t good, all the time, from the day they arrive in St. Louis. Making it worse, we’ve seen a number of these out-of-favor young hitters reclaim their potential with a new team and deliver with their talent and deliver on it. Is it happening again?
May I please make a suggestion.
It requires only two words:
Sanity, anyone?
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has provided informed opinions and perspective on St. Louis sports through his columns, radio shows and podcasts since 1985.
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Stats used in my baseball columns are sourced from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, Statcast, StatHead, Baseball Savant, Baseball Prospectus, Brooks Baseball Net, and Sports Info Solutions unless otherwise noted.
Bernie Miklasz
For the last 36 years Bernie Miklasz has entertained, enlightened, and connected with generations of St. Louis sports fans.
While best known for his voice as the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch for 26 years, Bernie has also written for The Athletic, Dallas Morning News and Baltimore News American. A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has hosted radio shows in St. Louis, Dallas, Baltimore and Washington D.C.
Bernie, his wife Kirsten and their cats reside in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood of St. Louis.
