Reds @ Cardinals 7/15/18 (First Game Post-Matheny) 

I thought he was a terrible manager pretty much from Day One. He was pedantic in all the worst ways, and let other shit go that he shouldn't have. Tactically, he was awful. He bunted way more than was reasonable, he overused his best bullpen arms, he refused to even consider analytics, he stuck with position players that were doing NOTHING way too long (see: Allen Craig) and he refused to take control when situations on the field got out of hand. He also had an obsession with carrying a pitcher on the postseason roster that was only going to be used in case of an emergency, which left him with what was essentially a 24-man playoff roster. Quite a disadvantage. Matheny also made some of the worst tactical moves I have ever seen a manager make in the postseason, chief among them being: 1. Bring Michael Wacha, who had not seen game action in two weeks, into a tied game on the road in an elimination game in the LCS with his closer available. 2. Bringing Seth Maness in to face Johnny Gomes in Game Five of the 2013 World Series. That was a horrible matchup to begin with, but it was especially bad when you look at the circumstances surrounding Maness' usage that October. 3. His (over) usage of Kevin Siegrist in the 2015 NLDS He should have been fired way before he was.

@@cardinalsbaseballclassics crazy thing is around the time I started heavily watching the Cardinals was 2012 the first year Matheny was manager and the last year the navy road caps were worn full time. 8-14 year old me never liked him much either. I agree with you on the Michael Wacha move in Game 5 in the NLCS (still have PTSD whenever we play in San Francisco to this day because of it.) I didn’t like a lot of his bullpen moves, wasn’t great during the playoffs when it mattered the most, and it was just a shit show. Not to mention I think he was a little bit of a softie. Matheny’s replacement Mike Shildt was I thought was just fine. The defense improved a lot which is good, but like Matheny he struggled managing the bullpen, and fumbled in the playoffs a lot. I don’t really have much to say about Marmol since he’s only been with the Cardinals for a couple years now and I didn’t watch much of the 2023 team. But I have somewhat high hopes that Marmol can be a good manager in the future.

@@cardinalsbaseballclassics I think throwing Craig under the bus is a little unfair, OPS+ of 130 or greater from 11-13 and was traded at the deadline in '14, you're putting maybe 20-30 games from the '14 season under the microscope when there's plenty of other stuff to fault Matheney about. Also, it's not like the Cards didn't absolutely win the trade with Boston.

I didn’t think Matheny was a great manager overall, but he had averaged around 94 or 95 wins from 2012 to 2015, but from 2016 to 2018, his average winning percentage dropped down to around 83 or 84 wins per season. However, I think part of that was because at some point during that time, the front office decided it was no longer necessary to compete for actual World Series titles, and that all they needed to do is sneak in as the last wild card team, because it worked for them in 2011, and almost in 2012. I don’t think Matheny suddenly got worse at managing, as it was that he was didn’t have the players he needed to win in 2016 and beyond compared to 2012 to 2015.