Ranking who deserves blame for the Cardinals' issues with Willson Contreras

#4 - Willson Contreras

Yes, Contreras needs to own some of the issues that have arisen with the Cardinals pitching this year, but I'm honestly not sure what else he could have done to fix that so far this year.

It's hard to completely ignore the statistical differences between when Andrew Knizner catches versus when Contreras catches. Going into May 7th, the Cardinals' pitching had a 3.84 ERA with Knizner behind the plate and a 5.30 ERA when Contreras was catching. It's a small sample size and hard to approximate the circumstances for each game, but those are major differences.

The underlying catching numbers show those differences as well. Knizner ranks in the 80th percentile in framing, while Contreras ranks in the 35th percentile in 2023. If you look at the strike percentage, Knizner ranks 17th in baseball, and Contreras rants 36th.

But even with those statistics, I don't really blame Contreras for that. He's learning a brand new staff, replacing a Hall of Fame legend, and wasn't supposed to be a great defensive catcher anyways. And even so, Contreras has committed to getting better regardless.

Contreras shares a bit of the blame, but it does not measure up to the other parties involved.

#3 - The Coaching Staff

When asked by Jeff Jones how much they've changed their process as a team to accommodate Contreras behind the plate, Oli Marmol said the following.

"Hmm-mm, no. We haven't altered the way we think through our preparation. At the moment, it's the other way around. We are making sure that he understands the full process of how we think through a game plan. Saying that he's more than putting in the work is an understatement."

It's hard to say how much of that comes from the front office versus how the coaching staff wants to prepare, but the fact that they are asking Contreras to do all of the accommodating to replace a Hall of Famer catcher is ridiculous. There is only one Yadier Molina, so if you expect your next catcher to do everything he did, you set them up for failure.

#2 - The Pitching Staff

I mean, at some point the Cardinals have to realize they have a bad pitching staff, and more specifically, a bad starting rotation, right?

Contreras referred to a conversation that he had last weekend with Molina, where the legendary Cardinals catcher told Contreras that transitioning to a new staff would be difficult, to trust his own feel and pitching calling abilities, and continue to prepare well. But ultimately, Molina told Contreras the main issue was missed execution from their starters.

Ouch.

What I find especially intriguing about these comments is that Molina has caught pretty much every pitcher Contreras caught this season. He's not calling out the execution of guys he doesn't know, he's calling out the poor execution of pitchers he's worked with for years. I don't think that is something Molina would do lightly.

The Cardinals' pitching was a major question mark entering the 2023 season, and there has been increased commentary lately on how their lack of swing-and-miss stuff sets them up for failure. Everyone saw the pitching, especially the rotation, as a major issue, so to act surprised by a lack of execution to this point is ridiculous.

#1 - The Front Office

Some of President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak's comments this weekend baffle me almost as much as the move itself (comments come via Ken Rosenthal and Katie Woo's reporting on The Athletic.com, paid subscription required).

“What I don’t want to have happen is a finger-point, this is all Willson’s fault. It’s not,” Mozeliak said. “There are many parts of our team right now that are not performing to what we expected. I do think the nuances of the catching side, we haven’t had to spend a whole lot of energy thinking about it because of what Yadi did for us. You know that saying, you sometimes feel like you had a coach on the field? That was Yadi. That’s how we thought. Even though you might have a game plan, Yadi had the ability to allow that to evolve during a game, real-time decision-making."

Here is what I read with that statement. The Cardinals say it's not "all Willson Contreras' fault", yet he is being removed from his primary responsibility as a Cardinal while the rotation continues to see no significant changes. The Cardinals knew they needed to replace Molina but apparently weren't prepared to actually hand the reigns over to Contreras.

Sounds like a front office issue to me.

The entire baseball industry knew about the question marks surrounding Contreras' ability to call games for years now, so for the Cardinals to already be upset with how things are going behind the plate is shocking on many levels. Did they really now think this would be an issue for them? Did they really think Contreras would come in and even come close to what Yadier Molina provided for them in such a short amount of time?

I get the Cardinals say they have a plan to reinstall Contreras as the catcher, but come on, they have to realize how many issues they are potentially causing here There are surely fractures in their relationship with Contreras now. It will be hard to convince their pitching staff and future free agent pitching that Contreras can be trusted. And they are hurting the rest of their bats by creating a bigger logjam at DH.

If the Cardinals were so willing to make this move already, then why on earth did they not just trade for Sean Murphy this offseason? Ken Rosenthal reminded people again this week that the A's asked for one of Lars Nootbaar or Brendan Donovan plus Gordon Graceffo for Murphy's services. Murphy is currently one of the best hitters in baseball, a great defensive catcher, and easily an MVP candidate at this point in the season. It would've hurt to part with guys like Donovan and Graceffo, but the payoff would've been great.

I agree that Contreras was a good signing, but as I detailed last week, a Murphy trade would have cleared up logjams and opened the Cardinals up to make other moves in free agency. Alas, they went with Contreras, but are hurting his value even more by making the move they have with him.

The way Contreras has responded since this incident went down has been top-class, and I feel like he is endearing himself to Cardinals fans as each day passes by. Let's hope all of this gets resolved soon.