Friday Rewind: The Mighty Have Fallen

OK, can we freeze the world for a moment here? I’m writing this on Cinco de Mayo, the morning of May 5, 2023, and as of this moment, the New York Yankees AND the St. Louis Cardinals are in last place in their respective divisions.

The last time this happened was never.

Don’t look it up. I didn’t. I’m just telling you, the last time this happened was never. The Yankees and Cardinals have never been in last place at the same time, not ever, I will not look at the comments, I will not let facts dissuade me, this is the first time it has ever happened, and it’s glorious.

We’ll start with the Yankees, because they offer a fairly easy explanation: Aaron Judge is hurt. Also Giancarlo Stanton is hurt, but, mainly, Aaron Judge is hurt, and without Aaron Judge the Yankees’ lineup stinks. It’s really that simple. I mean, Anthony Rizzo doesn’t stink, and Anthony Volpe might become a superstar, and D.J. LeMahieu has been a very good player, but in total, this lineup without Judge is a mess of players who scare nobody.

Even WITH Judge, this is an extremely flawed team. If Nestor Cortes turns into a pumpkin, as it appears he might, the rotation is Gerrit and Cole and pray for black hole. But with Judge, because they’re the Yankees and are practitioners of the dark arts, there’s always the chance for them to get hot, sneak into the postseason, have Gleyber Torres or Aaron Hicks or somebody turn into Rogers Hornsby for a couple of weeks, win the World Series and so on.

Without Judge? Well, as you might read in an upcoming Esquire piece, the Yankees’ future without Judge is unimaginably bad. For his part, Judge was angry the team even put him on the injured list and assures everyone he’ll be back and fully ready to go early next week. I imagine the Yankees will be fine. Baseball-Reference still gives them a near 60% chance of making the playoffs.

The Cardinals, on the other hand, are a walking disaster, and it’s not easy to explain. My buddy Dan made a comparison, though, that makes a lot of sense to me. In 2013, the Washington Nationals had a disappointing 86-76 season, and in the aftermath they fired Davey Johnson as manager. It was the FIFTH TIME that Davey was fired the season after having a winning record, which has to be a record. Actually, let me take a second and look that up quickly.

I guess the right answer is Billy Martin, who has been fired six times after winning records, but four of those were by George Steinbrenner and the Yankees, so I don’t think that counts.

Dusty Baker has been fired three times after winning seasons, though one of those was that sort of mutual parting with the Giants in 2002.

Buck Showalter has been fired twice after winning seasons — and both of those teams went on to win the World Series the next year.

So, yeah, I think Davey’s all alone in getting fired by five different organizations after leading teams to winning records. It really is quite an achievement. I promise this will come back around to the Cardinals.

The Nationals fired Davey and replaced him with Matt Williams, who led the Nationals to 96 wins and, somewhat absurdly, was named Manager of the Year. I didn’t know a single person who thought Matt Williams was a particularly good manager in 2014, but, you know, Anthony Rendon got healthy, Doug Fister was brought in and he pitched great, Tanner Roark stepped up as a full-time starter, and the Nationals won 10 more games.

The next year, the Nationals were a disaster, one of the true underachieving teams of the decade, Jonathan Papelbon choked Bryce Harper, Jayson Werth complained that nobody had any idea what was even going on, and Matt Williams seemed utterly paralyzed by it all. As one baseball exec told me that year, “Imagine looking down the bench and seeing him looking petrified. That doesn’t exactly instill confidence.”

I don’t know how fair any of that is … but life as a baseball manager isn’t fair, and the Nationals fired Williams at the end of the season, brought in Dusty Baker, and all was fine with the team again.

Are Marmol’s days numbered in St. Louis? (Joe Puetz/Getty Images)

Now, the Cardinals: You’ve got Oliver Marmol who, like Williams, came in after a manager was fired with a winning record (Mike Shildt’s 2021 team had won 90 games). Last year, the Cardinals played well, won the division, and Marmol got some Manager of the Year consideration even though, again, I didn’t really know anybody who thought he had done all that special a job. Then this year, there have been troubling signs. He feuded with a player, sort of backed off, made several odd moves, and this week he went on a rather bizarre monologue about how fans are not more frustrated than the players.

“You think they’re more frustrated than us?” he asked a reporter who had simply asked about fan frustrations (he had not said fans were more frustrated than them).

“No, I don’t think so,” the reporter said.

“No, I can tell you right now they’re not,” Marmol continued. “That clubhouse is extremely frustrated. Understand something, I’ve had the privilege of doing this for 17 years with one organization … you wake up every single day with one thing in mind, it’s how to improve the organization. So to sit here and think that other people are more frustrated than the people in this clubhouse is insane. Absolutely insane.”

In a book called WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL, which I’ll talk about in a minute, there’s a countdown of the greatest rants in baseball history. This is obviously nowhere near that list — I wouldn’t even call it a rant — but it is a lighter version of a typical rant theme that follows this line: “Nobody outside this clubhouse can understand how hard we work or how much we care.”

I have little doubt, by the way, that the theme is basically true: Players, managers, coaches, executives, they no doubt work hard and care deeply.

BUT … it’s a very dumb and inevitably doomed argument. You don’t ever compare clubhouse frustration with fan frustration; it’s losing logic and also not the same thing at all. Players, managers, coaches, executives, they are PAID to work hard and care deeply. If Oliver Marmol (even as a lifelong Cardinals man) was manager of the Chicago Cubs or Colorado Rockies and Baltimore Orioles, he’d care just as deeply about that team as he cares about the Cardinals.

But a Cardinals fan is a Cardinals fan is a Cardinals fan … their love of the team and frustration with losing is not bought, and it is not negotiable. Sure, the players are trying, and they hate losing, and fans are often unfair, great, but, my friend, that’s the life you have chosen as manager. Telling a fan that you’re trying your best and you’re more frustrated than they are is pretty much telling a fan that you are all out of arguments.

And no, I’m not saying Marmol is doing a poor job. I can’t know that any more than I could know if he did a good job last year. What I do know is that the Cardinals are 10-22, worst record in the National League, and they were expected by most to win the division, and it won’t be long at all before someone in the Cardinals organization wonders if maybe a managerial change could shake things up.*

*On Thursday, Marmol took a different tack: “No one’s feeling sorry for us right now,” he said. “The league loves watching us fail because we’re good every year.” Well, um, yeah.

Hey, if you feel like it, I’d love if you’d share this post with your friends!

Orlando dreaming

Ah, my old pal Pat Williams is back at it in Orlando … you gotta love Pat. He’s always getting into something. Pat was the main guy in bringing the Orlando Magic to town all those years ago. This time around, he’s trying to get a $1.7 billion stadium built in Orlando and try to win an MLB expansion team.

Now, look, the chances that Orlando gets an expansion team are, well, take a 0 and subtract 0 from it. I mean, Orlando is barely an hour and a half from towns called Tampa and St. Petersburg, you might have heard of them, they currently have a baseball team called the Tampa Bay Rays that is playing about as well as any team in the last 40 years but is still 25th in baseball attendance, perhaps because they play in an abandoned shopping mall. You think MLB is putting ANOTHER team on the I-4 Corridor? Come on.

They could, I suppose, try to get the Rays to move to Orlando.

There is talk of baseball expanding by two teams, though, and it’s very interesting to try and figure out where expansion works. Let’s assume the A’s-to-Vegas thing happens. In my mind, the best cities for expansion, in order, would be:

1. Nashville. They’ve got a good and aggressive group in place, and the city is just exploding.

2. Montreal. It just makes sense to go back to Montreal, assuming the city is willing to pay the price for baseball.

3. Charlotte. I’m biased, obviously, since I live here. But I think baseball could work here.

4. Portland. Great baseball town.

5. Austin/San Antonio. Another exploding population area; baseball could definitely work if there could be city cooperation.

6. San Jose. There absolutely should be more than one team in the Bay Area.

7. Salt Lake City. Metro Area is pretty small, but there are no teams anywhere close.

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WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL update

OK, I’ve got a really cool announcement, but before that …

I’ve spent this week doing final copy edits on Why We Love Baseball and was reminded once again just how much I loved writing this book. There are just so many cool baseball moments in there. I mean, even though it’s a countdown of the 50 most magical moments in baseball history, there are actually 108 moments included (bonus!), so already I am going through the book and thinking, “OH YEAH, I forgot about that one.” I cannot wait for you to see it.

I want to thank so many of you for reaching out to our fave publicist Jamie and requesting that I come to your town on the book tour. She says that response has been absolutely incredible, and she’s trying right now to put some order to the madness. I’ll keep you updated. And, yeah, absolutely, I’d like to have WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL tour T-shirts made. I don’t know how Jamie will feel about that.

Here’s your weekly reminder that if you preorder the book from Rainy Day Books in Kansas City, I will not only sign the book but I will inscribe it with anything you like. One idea someone suggested is to for me inscribe books with random player names, so you might get a book that says “Rance Mulliniks is the best!” or “Viva Lee Lacy!” or something like that. If you like that idea and want your own random player book, I think all you have to do is write “Random player” in the inscribe box, and you’ll get a unique player. Of course, if you just want me to write, “I admit secretly I’m a Yankees fan,” you can do that, too. It’s totally up to you.

I’m doing this, by the way, because we are trying to break Mike Schur’s presale record for whatever his dumb book was called. No, I take that back, it’s not a dumb book, it’s a great book, How to Be Perfect, but I helped him set up and execute that presale, and then he broke my presale record and I have to get it back. I feel like the quarterback who trains the talented kid to take his job.

And speaking of quarterbacks, my big news! Dutton Publishing has bought my next book, tentatively titled WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL, which will be coming out in late summer 2024 and will be based on The Football 101 countdown we wrote here at JoeBlogs. We’re going to try all sorts of cool and surprising things with that one, but I’ll save all the hype and talk until I finish writing it late this year.

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Bottoms Up: The Reverse Power Rankings

1. Athletics: Bad week lowlighted by two Mariners losses in front of <3,000 fans.

2. Royals: Did you catch that Aroldis Chapman disaster on Thursday?

3. Rockies: Well, at least Kris Bryant is hitting better.

4. Cardinals: It’s a full-blown disaster in St. Louis at the moment.

5. White Sox: Maybe they can hire Tony La Russa again.

6. Nationals: They just took three of four from the Cubs, so it’s not all bad.

7. Reds: Still no word on when Joey Votto will return.

8. Mets: Hey, it was a really bad week — this was supposed to be the Tigers’ spot.

9. Tigers: Just swept the Mets, beating Scherzer AND Verlander.

10. Cubs: Fading after a good start.

11. Giants: Lots of injuries making it tough to build momentum.

12. Guardians: Rough week; looks like runs will be hard to come by.

13. Mariners: Playing a bit better, still waiting for Julio to take off.

14. Phillies: Bryce Harper’s back! They haven’t won since he returned.

15. Marlins: Still undefeated in one-run games; 6-16 the rest of the time.

16. Yankees: Aaron Judge will be back soon, but until then, yeesh.

17. Diamondbacks: Third in the league in runs scored.

18. Astros: Another meh week, but you get the sense they’re playing possum.

19. Brewers: When will Corbin Burnes be Corbin Burnes again?

20. Angels: Nice week for the Anaheimers, sweeping the Cards.

21. Blue Jays: Looks like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is back on the MVP hunt.

22. Twins: Sonny Gray and Joe Ryan are a combined 9-0 with a 1.60 ERA.

23. Red Sox: Red-hot week; suddenly Masataka Yoshida looks like a star.

24. Padres: Things do seem to be coming together for the star-studded Pads.

25. Rangers: Josh Jung and Adolis Garcia are powering this team so far.

26. Pirates: They’re still in first place! Bryan Reynolds for MVP!

27. Orioles: They keep winning the close games. Ryan Mountcastle for MVP!

28. Dodgers: A weekly reminder that the Dodgers are still really good.

29. Braves: Is Ronald Acuña Jr. going to hit 40 homers and steal 80 bases?

30. Rays: They just keep on keeping on. Randy Arozarena for MVP!

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JoeBlogs Week in Review

Monday: A baseball roundup and a farewell to Mike Shannon.

Tuesday: Track by track, a look back at the years through the song I heard most and the biggest athlete in the world.

Wednesday: The fourth class of the JoeBlogs Hall of Fame.

Thursday: Around the sports world, and a “Ted Lasso” thought.

As always, would love for you to join us here on JoeBlogs — this week, we’re offering a special 30-day free trial!