St. Louis Cardinals: Three managers to replace Mike Matheny

When Tony La Russa left the St. Louis Cardinals, the team interviewed a few external options before deciding on Matheny. One of these could return to replace Matheny.

When Matheny was a finalist for the managerial position, the other finalist is noted as Terry Francona. Can you imagine? The organization decided to go with the former St. Louis Cardinals catcher rather than the proven manager who had lead Boston to the World Series.

When I learned of this fact, I was furious. Furious. I believe that Francona would 100 percent be a better manager than Matheny any day of the week.

Yes, Francona is under contract with the Cleveland Indians through 2018 with a club option for 2019 and 2020. This doesn’t mean he can’t be had or that he shouldn’t be had.

Let me shower some praise on Francona. The dude won the World Series twice with Boston and took the Cleveland Indians all the way to the WS in 2016 but had to settle for the pennant after losing to the media darling Cubs. His two WS wins with Boston also netted two pennant titles meaning he has managed three pennant winning seasons.

He has ranked in the top ten in manager of the year voting nine times and has been awarded this accolade twice. He received the AL Manager of the Year award in 2013, his first season with the Indians. He received his second AL MOY in 2016, again with the Indians.

Let’s make believe for a moment… Make believe that Francona had come to the St. Louis Cardinals rather than Matheny to follow Tony La Russa. Do you think Albert Pujols would have stayed with the Cards? Probably not because that was a money decision, but I do believe that the Cardinals would have had better luck winning bids for other players who chose to play elsewhere rather than playing for Matheny.

Imagine if Francona had brought his winning ways to the St. Louis Cardinals? Let’s look just at the two MOY seasons. In these he went 92-70 and 94-67. In the same seasons, Matheny lead the Cardinals to records of 97-65 and 86-76.

One might argue that Matheny was the better choice in 2013 but if we take this as a given then we must also admit that Matheny was managing the remnants of La Russa’s guys. This argument isn’t even one to be made for the 2016 season which I believe was the first true season under Matheny (the La Russa hangover ended at this point).

The biggest argument for me for Francona over Matheny is simply the depth of managerial and baseball knowledge housed in Terry’s brain rather than Mike’s brain. In addition, Mike has started to build for himself a reputation that players don’t want to join while Francona is a player-favorite.

While somewhat of an expensive risk, I would beg Mozeliak to consider this option when Matheny is out. Did you catch the use of my “when” in that previous sentence?