John Mozeliak has sabotaged Cardinals' clubhouse with insane handling of Erick Fedde

How far have the standards fallen in St. Louis? Are the St. Louis Cardinals really an organization that completely fails their clubhouse and fanbase by holding out hope that a depressed asset will turn things around?

Well, I guess that's not a new phenomenon with this organization during the latter years of John Mozeliak's leadership, but in the case of Erick Fedde, they've reached brand-new lows that are causing them to become a laughingstock in the game of baseball.

John Mozeliak has completely failed the Cardinals' clubhouse and the fanbase by continuing to let Erick Fedde make starts.

Fedde took the mound for the Cardinals on Tuesday night and, as per usual, was shelled by the opposing offense. I understand that he was pitching at Coors Field, but the Colorado Rockies *checks notes* are 24-76. They are on pace for a 39-123 season, which would be the worst record in MLB history during the modern era. Fedde served up six runs on seven hits, one walk, and two bombs to Rockies hitters, leaving the mound after just three innings of work.

Over Fedde's last five starts, he has covered just 14.2 innings of work while allowing 26 earned runs, amounting to a mind-boggling 15.95 ERA. He's been unplayable as of late, but it's just a continued trend of his awful performances that have seen the Cardinals go 5-15 in his starts this year, assuming the Cardinals lose the game tonight, which is still in progress. Fedde's ERA for the year is now up to 5.22, but the expected numbers are somehow far worse than that.

Fedde should have been traded in the offseason, but the Cardinals decided to hold onto him. He then should have been traded during spring training when Michael McGreevy, Matthew Liberatore, and Steven Matz all emerged as starting pitching options for the club. John Mozeliak refused to do so. The club then should have moved him during the early months of the summer when his production was far better than what the underlying numbers told us, but again, they held onto Fedde.

Now the club is rolling him out in the rotation over and over again, leading to automatic losses due to horrible pitching from the veteran right-hander.

Manager Oliver Marmol is clearly ready to pull the plug on the Fedde experience, but his hands continue to be tied by Mozeliak's insistence that the club can muster some kind of trade value out of Fedde at this deadline. Willson Contreras was very clear yesterday that Michael McGreevy has to stay in the rotation. This fanbase has been clamoring for a change for weeks now, and local media have been cranking the pressure up as well.

Will Mozeliak swallow his pride and end the Erick Fedde experience before he makes another start? Honestly, I don't know. And even if he does, it's too little, too late. The damage has already been done. The Cardinals overachieved throughout the summer and put a fun product on the field, and while the offense and the rest of the pitching staff have their own issues, the Fedde experiment has been a fatal blow to their chances for a while now.

What kind of message is being sent to the clubhouse full of young players who are scraping and clawing to earn the respect of the fanbase? What kind of message does Fedde continuing to get starts send to the fanbase that cares so deeply about this team, but can see clear as day that Mozeliak cares more about his pride than doing what is right for the team?

I honestly feel bad for Fedde. The reason fans, media, Oliver Marmol, and this clubhouse are so frustrated goes far beyond him. Yes, it is his own fault that he hasn't been good enough, but Mozeliak could have ended this a while ago. He continues to defy common sense, and who would've thought that disaster of a decision continues to get worse and worse? Oh, all of us, except Mozeliak apparently.