I think I already know the answer, but let’s make it official:
http://scripts.poll-maker.com/3012/scpolls.js
Joe Maddon is a free agent.
Joe Maddon is a 2X former AL Manager of the Year.
Joe Maddon is awesome:
Let’s establish a few things here:
1) The Cardinals have a manager.
His name is Mike Matheny and he’s under contract right now through 2017. The exact terms of the deal aren’t known, but it was believed that he made a base of around 750K/yr plus bonuses the first two years of his deal. He got a substantial raise with this most recent re-up.
Here are the richest contracts in baseball for managers in 2014. Mike Scioscia is the highest paid manager, signed to a 5M/yr deal. Clint Hurdle makes 1.125M/yr in Pittsburgh (similar market size, same division), so a good estimate might have Matheny currently in the 1.3/yr-1.6M/yr range.
And no matter how pissed you were about the Cardinals postseason exit… it cost Mike Matheny way more money than it did you. Those bonuses add up.
If we’re erroring on the high side, it would cost the Cardinals around 5M to fire Matheny. (No he won’t be going to the minors, even though that’s a brilliant idea!)
2) The Cardinals like their manager.
You might not. But management seems to like Matheny. The players definitely like Matheny. For all intents and purposes, the people that matter in this decision are on-board with Mike Matheny.
I can understand the players perspective – Matheny will die on a hill for some of these guys – but the management backing is a little more suspect. After all, guys like Mitchell Boggs and Allen Craig had to get traded before they stopped getting undeserved playing time in St. Louis.
Still, John Mozeliak is backing Matheny. At least he has been.
3) Joe Maddon won’t be cheap.
He made (estimated) 2M/yr from the most consistently cheap team in MLB. And that was with Florida’s notoriously low income tax rate. As a true free agent and one of the most generally coveted names around baseball, Maddon has pretty much all the leverage. If he want’s money, he’ll get money.
Are the Cardinals willing to pony up 4M+/yr for their manager on a longer term deal?
History says yes. Tony LaRussa did make (estimated) over 4.5M/yr with the Cardinals towards the end of his managerial career. So it would likely be the number of years that is an issue for the Cardinals rather than the base pay. But bake in Matheny’s dead dough and it’s even more expensive.
Oh, and the whiff of a NY or LA team getting involved? That’s going to ensure that Maddon gets exactly what he wants – which, in fairness is still to be determined. Years? Personnel control? Money?
4) We’re not the only ones out there.
Sometimes it seems like it. But I promise you that fan bases from Minneapolis to Texas and everywhere in between are clamoring for some Joe Maddon.
Maddon has indicated before that he’s a Cardinals fan. That’s not nothing. But it’s hard to go HAM on a free-agent pitch when there’s a guy that’s still got the job. Ergo, the Cardinals are in between a rock and a hard place.
Do you abandon the current skip to try to land Maddon? And if you do, how sure are you that you can actually do it? It’s like divorcing your wife to try and date a supermodel. No guarantees that you’re going to make her your new wife… but STILL – she’s agreed to at least a date. And she’s single.
Bottom line:
It’s probably not going to happen.
The Cardinals are many things, but being reactive isn’t one of them. They think that Matheny was a big part of the reason the team has been to 3 straight NLCS. And they’re willing to give him at least another year to try and figure out the postseason managerial machinations he’s struggled with. They’ll tell us that TLR didn’t get to championship #10 for a decade.
BUT
It’s a different time in baseball. It’s not 1996. Or even 2004. People have a louder voice than ever. And if Matheny implodes again in 2015, the fact that the Cardinals had a legit shot at landing the best in the business at the expense of giving him the benefit of the doubt?
It’ll probably spell doom.
Regardless, the Joe Maddon story just instantly became the biggest story in baseball – perhaps the biggest we’ve seen in a while, considering just how coveted he is by so many teams.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering how we voted above?
Joe Maddon.
Photo: TampaBay.com
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