I hesitate to write this article, but one cannot deny its newsworthiness and timeliness. It was talked about in yesterday’s comments and I’m sure it will be talked about in the future on this site. It just seems weird to not address the Mike Shildt situation in an official article. Especially given the complete lack of anything else to talk about for now. Trust me, if I had another idea of what to write about, I would be writing it.
In case you have spent the last week on a phone cleanse and this is the first article you’ve decided to read, Mike Shildt retired as manager of the San Diego Padres. That’s the official story anyway. The conspiracies started immediately because it is highly unusual for a 57-year-old man in Mike Shildt’s position to retire. And then reporter of the San Diego Union-Tribune Kevin Acee broke the news that nobody really liked working with Mike Shildt. Odds were very good that if you were not a player, you did your best to avoid Mike Shildt’s wrath.
Nearly 20 sources — 12 of whom worked with Shildt on a daily basis during the season — have in recent months characterized Shildt as unyieldingly demanding of his coaching staff and the team’s support staff and as having a tendency to micromanage and possessing a quick temper that is easily triggered by questioning or feedback.
Okay not great, admittedly. What alarmed me more before I read the full article was listening to Acee being interviewed on BK and Ferrario on 101, and his description of his interviews made it sound pretty bad honestly. He said, “If I could give you a picture of what people painted, it was kind of like being in an abusive relationship, and please let’s keep that in context, I’m just saying it really felt like a support group in some of these interviews. Not some, MOST of these interviews felt like a support group.”
If that is not ringing alarm bells for you, I’m not really sure what would. Most people who work in baseball, even in the lower rungs, probably love baseball and are happy to have a job related to the sport that they love. And if you get to a place where you cause those people to actually hate going into work because they don’t know what they’re going to get yelled at about this time, you don’t deserve to be manager. And that very much seems to be what was happening at both St. Louis and San Diego.
Many in the organization spoke over the past several months of repeated angry outbursts and what were painted as unproductive and destructive communication tactics. Shildt often made employees feel silly for suggestions or what they deemed helpful information, but he then would sometimes complain that they had not prepared him for situations.
Some veteran coaches lamented that the coaches lower on the totem pole bore the brunt of Shildt’s vexation.
Yeah this is just terrible leadership. It’s a very specific kind of despicable behavior, because you’re treating people horribly who you know can’t do anything. He’s not treating the players badly, because he knows they can do something. The management will choose an important player over the manager. But someone who is just getting his start in baseball is going to stay quiet, not make noise, accept the verbal abuse.
It’s also just bad to create an environment where people are afraid to give you their opinion. Not even morally, just to get the best results. You are significantly less likely to go with the best option or best plan of action if you are unwilling to listen but also if people are afraid to even bring it up, because they know you won’t listen. That sounds like the kind of environment he fostered. And I’m sorry, managers do not have a large enough impact on wins and losses to make any of this even close to worth it. Part of the job of a modern manager is in fact to foster a good environment behind the scenes, which he clearly does not seem to have done.
He was taken aback by the depth of some grievances about him and disputed that he had acted inappropriately, though he did not deny he was aware of a certain level of discord. He almost exclusively attributed that to some staff members not being on board and/or not knowing what it takes to be part of a championship effort.
I find this baffling personally. First, I must state the obvious: Mike you’ve never actually won a championship. Maybe it’s the type of person I am, but if I was in a situation where I got fired and it was made clear to me why I was fired (and it presumably was, even if it wasn’t to the public), I would do something differently. Shildt doesn’t seem to have changed at all. How are you completely unaware of your role in this? Like I said I find it baffling. To have this little self-awareness is crazy to me. Do some people just lack the ability to have self-awareness, truly, someone help me, I cannot wrap my head around this.
I do recognize I care too much,” Shildt said then. “… And so I held accountability to these departments that I didn’t have the autonomy for, and that’s what rubs people wrong. … I know what togetherness looks like. I know what a respectful, accountable conversation looks like. The fact of the matter is nowadays, you can’t have as many accountable conversations.”
He said he “wouldn’t push as hard” if given another opportunity to manage.
He said this in spring training of 2022. In hindsight, these quotes just really rub me the wrong way. There’s a difference between accountability and what it seems like Shildt did. There’s a way to make people accountable and not make everyone absolutely hate going into work or at least talking with you.
And by the way, none of this news is surprising in the slightest. If you happened to listen to 101 yesterday, nobody in the media is actually shocked by this. These rumors have been present for years. I cannot remember if this was said while a podcast was recording, but one of the media members who the VEB podcast interviewed said Mike Shildt was fired because there was a mini-coach revolt and that Shildt must go. They may have said it off the air, hence me not being specific with their name. Bernie Miklasz has hinted at this for years, as far back as October of 2021.
7) Despite predictable claims to the contrary, there were problems with Shildt and his staff. Not all coaches, but Shildt was rough on some members of the staff. Perhaps there was still some lingering resentment. If so, this became part of the “philosophical differences” rub. I say that because Mozeliak said (last Thursday) that he wants the staff to return. We’ll see how many coaches stay on for 2022.
As you can see it was point #7, so I don’t even think Bernie knew the extent to which this played a role in his firing at the time. And since then, to me at least because I am lucky enough to have some connections that the normal fan doesn’t, it became clear in the years since that it wasn’t a reason he was fired, but THE reason he was fired.
And by the way, he was also bad tactically. He was lucky enough to follow Mike Matheny, the lowest of low bars as far as strategy. But he was not good himself. I cannot get over him having Adam Wainwright bat for himself in a do-or-die playoff game, and then taking him out a few batters later in the next half inning. Padres fans complained most of the 2nd half that he kept batting Luis Arraez 2nd, who was at best the 7th best hitter on the Padres. And I say at best, because that only includes guys with over 400 PAs. Both Ryan O’Hearn and Ramon Laureno joined the team in the 2nd half, so at the end, it’s more accurate to say he literally had the 9th best wRC+ on the team. And he batted 2nd.
And I’ll also add merely being able to say that Luis Arraez was arguably the 9th best hitter on the Padres speaks to the fact that, while yes they did win, doesn’t it seem like they should have done better than 90 wins? I only point this out to the people who think this was all worth it because they won games. His behavior could very well have made them a worse team. Batting Arraez 2nd certainly did.
In case you haven’t been able to tell, and I didn’t even know I would feel this way until I was writing it, this was cathartic for me. It has been frustrating, not necessarily from the readers of this site, but certainly Cardinals fandom at-large, at how people talk about Shildt. John Mozeliak has turned into the big boogeyman and it probably started with the firing of Shildt, which ironically was Mozeliak and the Cardinals doing Shildt a favor by just saying “philosophical differences.” They took the heat on that firing for three years basically for Shildt’s benefit and certainly not to their own.
And we finally have evidence they were justified in the firing. It happening at two different places and that the same things are being said at two difference places, I don’t see how you can deny that the Cardinals were right to fire Mike Shildt now.