Atop the Royals’ off-season checklist sits the task of hiring a new manager. While a number of names have been thrown around as potential replacements for the newly retired Ned Yost, one candidate seems to have a bit more weight behind him than the others. That candidate, of course, is Mike Matheny.

For the record, I’m not fond of the idea of Matheny becoming the Royals’ manager. Though I grew up in the KC area, I live quite a bit closer to Busch Stadium than I do the K these days, and at this point in my life, I know more Cardinals fans than I do Royals fans. Because of my proximity to St. Louis, I heard a lot about Matheny’s downfall as it happened. Every fanbase complains about their manager’s batting order and bullpen management – and there was plenty of that with Matheny – but the rumors about clubhouse dysfunction and mishandling of young players went beyond the usual talk radio faux outrage. It was legitimately toxic stuff.

The weirdest part to me was how off-brand this all seemed for Matheny. He’d been a popular player and seemed to be universally respected when he was given the job. He wrote a popular book about leadership. I heard him on Fresh Air and thought he seemed like an all right guy. Say what you will about Cardinals fans, they are a loyal bunch, and for them to turn on Matheny the way they did was alarming. It just seemed like he was in way over his head and completely lost.

The fact that the Royals hired this guy – this guy that had crashed and burned so badly – was disappointing. And now it’s sounding like he has a real chance to become the next Royals manager. I keep hoping I’ll learn something that will change my mind, help me understand, make me feel OK about it – because I think it’s fairly likely to happen. So far I’m not finding it.

Since there are Cardinals fans all around me, I decided to reach out to a few that I know and respect to get their takes. Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe there is more to Matheny than I realized. Perhaps they could help me wrap my head around this – or at least gain a better understanding of what to expect if he is given the job. Plus it was a great excuse to sit down and talk baseball with some friends.

I chose people with high baseball IQs, people I can talk baseball with even though we support different teams. They were all eager to talk about Mike Matheny and had lots of interesting things to say, just as I knew they would.

Spoiler alert: I’m still not feeling great about this.

On Matheny’s initial success as manager

Dennis: Things were good for a while because they had such a great team. They were riding such a great wave, you know? But it’s like when a new president takes credit for the great economy. How much of that is that guy? And how much of it is his predecessor?

Elise: The Cardinals were just coming off of winning the World Series under the leadership of Tony LaRussa, who had over 30 years of managerial experience. Compare that to zero years of experience from Matheny.

Eric: Mike Matheny owes Tony La Russa, Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, and Yadier Molina a huge debt of gratitude [for his initial success]. I think everybody thought Matheny was going to be just amazing. He was... I don’t think everybody realized how good Tony La Russa was.

On “Mathenaging”

Dennis: There was a game [that we attended]. I remember it was a Padres game. And I remember getting so pissed off at something that he did with the bullpen. And I said to [my wife], “We’re out of here. I’m not sitting here watching this.”

Elise: There were a lot of poor strategic decisions that Matheny made, the grandest of which is the final game of the 2014 NLCS. I mean, who calls upon a pitcher who missed the second half of the season with injuries, hadn’t shown any of his good stuff upon his return, and throws him into the game in the win-or-go-home moment of the season?!

Eric: We had one of the best [tacticians], probably ever [in LaRussa]. And we came from that to Matheny, so there’s a chance Matheny was better than he really was given the chance to be here. I think he was in the middle of that, “I’m trying to prove that I’m great, I’m as good as La Russa.” And he just wasn’t going to be.

How did Matheny handle young players?

Dennis: I think he likes to think that he is [good with young players], but I don’t know that he is. There were those events like the thing with [Bud Norris] ragging on Hicks. And some people were saying that Matheny either let it go or encouraged it to try to get Hicks going when I didn’t think he really needed anything. He was just a kid, just kind of getting started.

Elise: He seemed to support an old school mentality of seasoned players hazing young players and mocked young players as being “soft.”

Eric: I personally don’t think Mike Matheny would be the manager that I would hire to coach up young players.

Did the Cardinals embrace analytics under Matheny?

Dennis: Just by watching things play out and listening to him I think he puts more on how he feels about a person or a situation or whatever than he would on stats. I think it might be hard for him to be objective.

Elise: While with the Cardinals, Matheny seemed to privilege a more old school mentality of baseball in general.

Eric: I think in today’s game if you ignore [analytics], you ignore it at your own peril. Do I think Matheny’s going to buy into it? I don’t know. No, honestly.

Was his firing warranted or was he a scapegoat?

Dennis: I’ll tell you what. I was in favor of firing Matheny in ‘17, not ‘18. I told people in ‘17 he needs to be fired.

Elise: At the time, it felt warranted. He was handed a championship team and managed not to screw it up for a couple of years. Then, things went severely downhill, having missed the playoffs in 2016, 2017, and having only a .500 record at the time of his firing in 2018. On top of it, he had just alienated members of the team like Dexter Fowler with scathing comments about effort. Rumor had it that he’d even pissed of Yadi. You can get away with ruffling some feathers if you are winning, but if you’re not AND you’ve lost all of your players’ loyalty, the writing is on the wall.

Eric: I do think it was warranted, as evidenced by how the team did when he left. You can’t argue with how the Cardinals turned it around once he left. The fact that he started the season as manager was the bigger problem. Matheny should’ve been gone before the season because there were problems with that team from that standpoint at the end of the previous year. That’s when he had lost Molina and Wainwright.

Should the Royals hire Mike Matheny as their manager? Would a change of scenery do him some good?

Dennis: Eyebrows went up around here when the Royals hired him for the adviser role. So I don’t know, maybe they’ve spent some time with him and see something we didn’t. And who knows? A change of scenery with a different organization, some experience. Maybe he’s learned. He was in a tough position in St. Louis, I guess, and so maybe he could be the manager of another team; he just couldn’t be the manager of the Cardinals. But if it was me, I would not want to deal with it.

Elise: I’d like to think that he learned a lot from his experience in St. Louis and would use that going forward. If I were a Royals fan, however, I’d be throwing my support elsewhere. I would personally want my team to hire someone with more experience – someone with a proven track record of uniting a clubhouse, being respected by the players, and creating a winning environment. I think Matheny should have spent more time developing as a coach (a bench coach, a minor league coach, in player development, etc.) before being thrown in as the Cardinals manager at 41. It’s hard to say where that leaves him now.

Eric: Mike Matheny was dealt a difficult hand. He was taking over for one of the most storied managers in the history of the franchise. He had some immediate success, but as soon as the established players left, so did his hold on the team. So I tend to think that’s what Mike Matheny would bring. He won’t make you, he won’t rise you up. History says that when Mike Matheny hasn’t had the greatest players, the teams have regressed. They’ve gone downhill. That’s what my gut says would happen if the Royals hired Mike Matheny. Let the Cubs have him.