Willson Contreras wields predictable Cardinals legend to cast blame for his failure

Willson Contreras didn’t take much accountability on the day the St. Louis Cardinals announced he lost his starting job at catcher.

Willson Contreras is no longer going to be the man behind the plate for the St. Louis Cardinals, a shocking development considering the organization just signed him months ago to a multi-year, $87.5 million deal. It felt great at the time, pulling a former All-Star away from a division rival.

Now, the Cubs are the ones laughing, as the Cardinals sit at last place in the NL Central.

Contreras has been so bad behind the plate that he will now see playing time in the outfield and as a designated hitter. In his first comments since the move was announced, he was anything but accountable.

Willson Contreras uses Yadier Molina to cast subtle blame on Cardinals pitchers

Cardinals team reporter John Denton shared what Contreras said about a conversation he had with Yadier Molina, the team’s long-time catcher who retired after the end of last season:

“(Molina) said he was watching the games and he said that we’re not executing pitches,” Contreras said. “I’m not blaming anybody. I’m not pointing fingers at my pitchers because I’m on their side. But we just need to be better executing.”

While Contreras says he’s “not pointing fingers,” isn’t that exactly what he’s doing here? Contreras basically borrowed the credibility of Molina to say, “Hey, I’m the scapegoat here, but not truly to blame.”

The Cardinals pitching has not been great, that’s a fair criticism. With Adam Wainwright making his debut on Saturday finally, perhaps that will be on the upswing. But no one has more control other than the guys on the bump over that part of the game than the other half of the battery: The catcher.

Maybe it’s fair that the execution has been poor, but a good catcher can recognize that in real time and share that with his pitchers. He doesn’t need Molina to call him up and tell him.

Contreras couldn’t do that for his pitchers, or he simply couldn’t do it well enough.

Perhaps Contreras will get some more shots behind the plate later this season or further down the line in this contract. For now, though, he deserves a sizable part of the blame for the Cardinals bum start to the year, but he seems to refuse to acknowledge that.