Cardinals manager Mike Shildt won the Manager of the Year award in his first full season at the helm, and he’s taken the club to three consecutive postseason appearances, including a division title in 2019. He’s under contract for just one more season, though St. Louis is likely to explore a contract extension for their skipper, per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak considered making some personnel changes on the coaching staff, but they held firm and eventually turned the season around. Now it appears that most of the coaching staff will return, though decisions are still being made about 2022 and beyond.
- The Pirates will not bring back third base coach Joey Cora, the team announced today, per Jason Mackey of PGSportsNow (via Twitter). The 56-year-old Cora began his Major League coaching career in 2003 on Ozzie Guillen’s staff with the White Sox, where he eventually rose to the level of bench coach. He was the third base coach for the World Series winning team in 2005. His time in Chicago ended after in September of the 2011 season, corresponding with Guillen’s own departure. Cora would joined Guillen’s staff in Miami for 2012. He had been the Pirates’ third base coach since the 2017 season.
- Pirates’ manager Derek Shelton will need to fill out a couple of positions on his staff for next season, including hiring a new hitting coach following the mid-season firing of Rick Eckstein. The Pirates are likely to hire from outside the organization to fill Eckstein’s spot, per Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic (via Twitter).
- The Diamondbacks are rethinking the way manager Torey Lovullo builds out his coaching staff, writes The Athletic’s Zach Buchanan. Primarily, Lovullo is looking to better bridge the gap between the Majors and Triple-A, allowing for a more cohesive promotion process for young players. They’ll do so by hiring a number of assistant hitting and pitching coaches, some of whom will themselves split their time between the Majors and Triple-A.
Joey Cora is the only person in the Pirates organization that has any understanding of what winning looks like.
Yeh, this is a head scratching move. But, it IS the Pirates, so. Hopefully he gets to work with a winning org.
Apparently it was to let him pursue opportunities elsewhere. I mean, you usually keep someone until they have another job lined up but who knows.
His brother will hire him in Boston
Stupid comment. Cora was terrible in Pittsburgh. He won’t be missed. I suspect all of the current coaching staff included Shelton won’t be here past 2023.
Cora was less than adequate.
Pirates’ outs at home the past four years:
2021: 19, third-most in MLB, most in NL
2020: 7, 7 in MLB w/more
2019: 23, most in MLB
2018: 23, two MLB clubs w/more
(From Jason Mackey on Twitter)
Red Sox should pick up Cora.
Cbee—- I’m lmao on that comment. TY
I’m not sure one good month should save Jeff Albert in St. Louis. The Cardinals’ bats have looked hopeless for most of 3 years. Basically Goldschmidt transformed back into Goldschmidt and Tyler O’Neill became a little more disciplined and selective. I don’t know that Albert deserves any credit for either. I’d join the cool kids club and make a change.
Not sure it should save Schildt either. He cost the cards the playoffs. No way he should have put Reyes in that game when he did. It was so painfully obvious what was going to happen. Probably destroyed any confidence Reyes had left too.
Exactly. The last 2 games when Reyes came in to pitch 9th (prior to this one) he’d given up walk off home runs. No way he should’ve pitched in that spot.
Shildt is more like Matheny 2.0
The players must really like him because his game management skills really need work.
For 3 years Mike Schildt has taken disjointed rosters that began the year poorly, kept his cool, worked with the coaching staff and individual players, then deployed the players into roles they could produce in. The Cardinals peaked all 3 years during the pennant stretch, playing as a unit and finishing strong.
Mr. Schilt is totally professional ML manager, easily within the top 5.
On the other hand, John Mozeliak and his staff……..
Since Shildt became the manager we/ the Cards have been eliminated three times from the playoffs. We lost against the Nationals in 2019, last year against the Padres and this year against the Dodgers. Why should he get an extension? We did not even win the division this year. I believe Yadi would be a better manager than Shildt.
Maybe because the Nationals in 19, the Padres last year and Dodgers this year were better. The Dodgers in the last 10 games were the hottest MLB.
About 15 other teams would take Shilts success and be happy
Del Griffith- read this. Always do a little research before criticizing a manager’s move. Schildt did not want to put Reyes in, but had little choice.
redbirdrants.com/2021/10/09/cardinals-alex-reyes-n…
Evidently links don’t work, my first time posting and didn’t know that. Schildt wanted to leave Gallegos in, but he split a fingernail and couldn’t continue. The article explains it in better detail.
Reyes wasn’t the only option. I tend to agree he should have called for someone other than Reyes. Especially in a walk off scenario.
It was sort of a tough call. If Kodi Whitley gives up the walk off, Shildt would have taken a lot of flack for not using Reyes. There is an argument to be made both ways. But really the situation occurred because the bats couldn’t find a way to score more runs, even though Scherzer wasn’t having his best night. It’s going to take more than one run to beat the Dodgers in October. No matter who comes out of the pen.
Still no excuse to use Reyes. He had Dakota Hudson and Jack Flaherty in the bullpen. Both were better options than Reyes in that spot.
The biggest disappointment for me personally was Schildt pulled back the reigns on the hottest team in baseball the last week by pulling as many starters as possible as soon as the Cards clinched a playoff spot. 17 wins in a row and playing better than ANY team in baseball. He let the air of the tires so to speak. Believe it or not, momentum is huge in sports. I don’t know if pulling starters in a 17 game winning streak with 5 games left in the season came from the front office or from Shildt but it was a dumb move. If it did come from the front office then Shildt is just a pawn for upper management. Like most Cardinal fans I knew it was over when Shildt put Reyes of all people in that situation. Frustrated Cards fan here. Schidlt’s game management was below average in my opinion.
For the love of the game , please fire Jeff Albert and let people start hitting again!
I loved Cora as a player and is a good coach. Red Sox hopefully pick him up with his brother. Otherwise Seattle to coach or Chicago White Sox as an ambassador or front office assistant.
Cora has interviewed fot Manager jobs in the past. Could interview for Padres and Mets jobs
Cora was awful 3b coach. Didn’t notice it as much this year but I believe that was pure luck and me not watching as many games. I remember a runner not tagging and cora not noticing. Moran being thrown out while he was closer to 3b than home.
Cora got a reputation as an overly aggressive third base coach (Go-ey Cora, etc.) but he simply understood that the odds of a bad throw would always exceed the probability of a Pirate getting a clutch hit.
Cora was the only holdover from Hurdle’s staff; Shelton obviously wants to pick his own coach(es). It’s no big deal, people; stop over-analyzing it!
Dcahen – So u are the self anointed arbiter of when people should discuss what they want to discuss ?
Considering Shelton should be shown the door too I don’t particularly want him picking his own coaching staff. That said it doesn’t really matter who is coaching what on a team that has so little talent actually playing the games.
I remember the days when a team had 4 coaches max
Some teams literally employ as many coaches as active position players.
Mike Shildt has a job simply because the POBO refuses to admit his mistakes. There should be zero talk of extensions until his contract is closer to running out. He’s hardly in demand.
Worst part of 17 game win streak-stuck with Schildt, Maddux, and Albert.
Joey Cora most likely ask to get out.He is the only guy on the staff that has a clue as to what it takes to win.This organization should be thrown out of MLB until they come up to level with MLB baseball until then they get no respect you can’t win and not spend at all.
Love his aggressiveness but flatly isn’t good for the organization. He cost quite a few runs. Even more so if he was the one making the calls on the steals, though he is probably just relaying they have the green light from Shelton.