Ranking the 10 worst and most inexplicable Cardinals sagas under John Mozeliak

5. "Philosophical differences" with manager Mike Shildt

We may never know what truly happened between Mozeliak and former manager Mike Shildt, and while I do think Cardinals fans overstate Shildt's importance to the club and ability as a manager, it's hard to think of many things that can be categorized as more "inexplicable" from Mozeliak during his time running the club.

Following a historic win streak that got the Cardinals into the 2021 playoffs to then be knocked out by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Wild Card round, Mozeliak apparently intended to extend Shildt, but by the end of whatever conversation they had, Shildt was instead fired by the club.

Here's where it gets complicated: we don't know for sure what happened. There are different reports and theories out there on what the disagreements were about, but ultimately, I'm not going to focus on that. The point is, how did things go this south on a dime with the manager? And considering all of the other things on this list, what are the odds it had to do with poor decision-making or processes that Mozeliak had that Shildt was not a fan of?

Mozeliak hasn't exactly earned the benefit of the doubt from this fanbase, so it's no wonder that there are so many questions surrounding this and distrust built within the fanbase toward Mozeliak. It also started Marmol out on a bad foot with the fanbase, and he is constantly compared to Shildt and considered to be "Mozeliak's puppet" by some fans.

Mozeliak has always called the issues between him and Shildt "philosophical differences", refusing to go into further details. Shildt, on the other hand, has stated that there were things he and Mozeliak disagreed about, but he was shocked that it somehow led to his firing.

Here's the cold hard truth - even though I don't think it was a big deal that Shildt was let go, and I think Oliver Marmol has been unfairly criticized by many fans, the issues that Marmol has had to deal with during his tenure as manager are likely many of the things that Shildt himself called out. And no, I am not saying Marmol has not called these things out as well. Have you not heard how vocal he's been about the whole Fedde situation? Marmol is not a guy who avoids conflict, and he's acknowledged that he and Mozeliak disagree behind closed doors, but

Mozeliak has set up his managers to fail in recent years, and those philosophical differences seem to be the downfall of his regime.