The Education of Mike Matheny

(Paul Nordmann/Getty Images)

--This column was originally written for the September issue of our e-magazine. The October issue of Big Leagues Monthly | Magazine launched recently so be sure to check that also.

By Daniel Shoptaw | @C70

For years, the St. Louis Cardinals and their fans knew what they had in the dugout. With Tony La Russa, a Hall of Famer just waiting for the official call, there was a comfortable familiarity that was similar to wearing an old sweater. Sure, it could itch you and drive you crazy, but it fit well, you knew where it was going to be itchy and it made you look good in public.

Cardinal fans knew all the drawbacks with La Russa and had the memes to fall back on. Tony hated young players. Tony would always stick with the veteran. Tony would use five pitchers to get four outs whether he needed to or not. You knew the arguments, you knew the counterarguments, and you knew that Tony was always going to do something that would likely drive you crazy but he had the gravitas to get away with it.

Winning two World Series in the last five years of his career softened a lot of the criticism and second-guessing that La Russa got and even the harshest of critics were more likely to shake their heads and say, “That’s Tony” after another questionable call blew up on the Cardinals. While people still didn’t agree with his over-reliance on platoon splits and small sample sizes, he’d earned the right to pull a Frank Sinatra and do it his way.


So when he abruptly retired days after the 2011 World Series, not only did it send shock waves through Cardinal Nation, it also forced Cardinal fans to shift their mental paradigm. For the first time in the true Internet era, where managers are dissected not the next day, but the next minute (when they aren’t being first-guessed before their move), St. Louis was going to have a new man in charge.
That man was seemingly predestined to be Mike Matheny. The Cardinals went through the motions of the interview process, but only one person interviewed – recently deposed Red Sox manager Terry Francona –had any major league managerial experience.

Jose Oquendo, long thought by some to be the heir apparent, had managed in winter ball and the World Baseball Classic, but had only been a coach in the Big Leagues. Chris Maloney was the current manager of the Cardinals’ Triple-A team in Memphis, but that’s as high as he had gone. Ryne Sandberg interviewed as well, a well-regarded up-and-comer but, again, not that high up. Finally, there was Joe McEwing, another player that had done some coaching, but never been the top man.

With that bunch of candidates, the fact that general manager John Mozeliak was a mentor of sorts to Matheny gave him the inside track. Only Francona could really play the experience card and, given how his tenure in Boston had ended, that experience wasn’t completely positive. For Cardinal fans, though, that lack of experience meant that Matheny was a blank slate when it came to managing. While many had a favorable opinion of him, given his time with the Cardinals as a player and his reputation as a good and decent man, exactly what kind of manager was he going to be?

As the season has gone on, both Matheny and the Cardinal faithful have been learning. Matheny has been learning about how to manage a game, the fans learning what Matheny’s tendencies are and what the new memes are going to be. After roughly 140 games, the fans still haven’t completely figured him out, but there are definitely some tendencies that have become noticeable in that time.
The most frustrating thing about Mike Matheny from a fan perspective may be his over reliance on the bunt as a weapon. To be fair to the manager, after the move of Jon Jay to the leadoff spot, this seems to have lessened somewhat, but numerous times this season Matheny would bunt a runner to third with nobody out....in the first inning.

Obviously, the bunt has its uses at times, but one of the most game-changing things to come out of the sabermetric movement is the idea of how precious outs are. If it is a tie game in the seventh inning, sure, bunting the runner over might be the right thing to do. However, if your second batter in the lineup can’t be trusted to get a hit or move the runner along from second, there’s a problem with your lineup construction. This goes back to the manager as well.

Matheny tends to use the bunt in other situations as well at seemingly a higher rate than other managers do. Every year Baseball Prospectus, in its yearly annual, puts out the various managerial stats such as sacrifices, intentional walks, and the like. I look forward to reading those and seeing if there is empirical evidence backing up this frequent bunting or if it is more anecdotal. One thing’s for sure, when it does happen it surely sticks in your mind.

Another thing that Matheny has had to learn is bullpen management. After the deadline deal the Cardinals made, sending minor league third baseman Zack Cox to Miami for reliever Edward Mujica, the bullpen seems to have settled in. Whether that is because of the personnel or evidence of Matheny’s growth in this area, it is hard to say. Any smooth usage contrasts with some of Matheny’s moves from earlier in the year. Case in point: back in July, the Cardinals played a game against the Chicago Cubs. It was a scoreless game until the seventh, when the Redbirds put up a historic 12 spot and gained themselves a comfortable lead.

Since Jake Westbrook had been pinch-hit for in that inning, Barret Browning comes out to start the eighth inning. Remember, this is a twelve run lead he’s got to deal with. Browning dispatches the first two with little difficulty, but then walks Tony Campana.

Out pops Mike Matheny from the dugout, striding purposefully toward the mound to make a pitching change. Apparently, he was under the impression that Starlin Castro could hit a home run that was worth a baker’s dozen, because he brings in Victor Marte to get the final out. Then, not content to let Marte continue to work, he brings in Trevor Rosenthal, a rookie who had been starting in the minors, to do the ninth.

Three pitchers to get six outs in a twelve run game. Why he didn’t let Rosenthal just take the last two, giving the rookie valuable experience, is unknown. Why he didn’t let Browning finish off the eighth is equally unclear. Yet Matheny often would stick strictly to his roles, even if there was little reason to do so.

Finally, one of the other knocks on Matheny is that he occasionally puts the player’s psyche over the well-being of the team. You saw this occasionally with Tony La Russa as well and there has to be some massaging of egos and encouragement of the fallen as part of the manager’s job, but it seems like Matheny sometimes takes it over the top.

An example of this happened just recently. In an early August game against the San Francisco Giants, Mitchell Boggs came in late to a blowout. The Cards were down 11-0 in the ninth and everyone was just ready to pack up and call it a night. Apparently Boggs was as well because he only got one out, giving up a hit and two walks before Marco Scutaro launched one over the wall. Boggs’s night was done, one of those rare off nights for the St. Louis reliever.

Boggs also threw 29 pitches in that inning, one of his highest totals of the season. In the minds of most reasonable fans, he was out for the series finale the next afternoon due to overwork.

However, after Adam Wainwright allowed just one run over seven innings and departed with a two-run lead, Boggs was sent out there to handle the eighth inning. He threw a scoreless frame and nothing went awry, but it seemed like an unnecessary risk when there were other arms down there that hadn’t been worked extensively the night before. It seemed like Matheny wanted to show Boggs that he still had confidence in him and not let him stew in failure for any longer than he had to.

Loyalty to the players is an admirable thing, however, and Matheny seems to have that in spades. He never criticizes them to the press and if he’s had any behind-the-scenes blowups, we have not heard about them. The players seem to reciprocate his feelings, lauding him often in the media and seemingly willing to follow him anywhere.

This was kind of the idea when Matheny was hired. The front office assumed he could figure out the tactics and deal with the in-game stuff as he learned, but he was a great leader of men and a guy everyone respected, which was something that you can’t teach. They have gotten that aspect and, as noted, Matheny is starting to figure out the game stuff as well. St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer Joe Strauss said in one of his weekly chats that rival scouts and others outside the organization are of the opinion that Matheny could be a very good or great manager in time, a verbal bouquet that means something coming from the resident curmudgeon.

All in all, the manager is not the problem in St. Louis. While he’s had terrible luck in one-run games, it is only fair to note that La Russa had the same problem, going under .500 for his career in such matchups as well as struggling in them in 2011. There’s been a lot of frustration in St. Louis this season, but the manager hasn’t borne the brunt of it. If he continues to learn, Cardinal fans could be happy for a long, long time.