Willson Contreras social media activity has Cardinals fans on alert

St. Louis Cardinals catcher Willson Contreras has been a scapegoat all season long. Now, he may have taken it to heart.

Now, it’s important to note that social media activity is just that — social media. It doesn’t always have to mean something, though fans often take it to heart.

Timing is everything in the sports world, which is why Willson Contreras removing his Instagram profile picture — which previously featured him proudly wearing a Cardinals uniform — is noteworthy.

The Cards hinted at a Contreras position switch to the outfield as recently as this weekend. As far as we know, Contreras was in on that plan. However, St. Louis quickly backtracked, suggesting that Contreras would DH until he earned his way behind the plate again.

Yes, you can thank the St. Louis front office and Oliver Marmol for this disaster-class.

Cardinals point finger squarely at Willson Contreras

“What I don’t want to have happen is a finger-point, this is all Willson’s fault. It’s not,” John Mozeliak said. “There are many parts of our team right now that are not performing to what we expected.”

Yet, by announcing a position switch for Contreras, the Cardinals actively blamed him for their poor start. Replacing Yadier Molina was tough enough, now Contreras has to worry about the public perception of his ability behind home plate?

"“I do think the nuances of the catching side, we haven’t had to spend a whole lot of energy thinking about it because of what Yadi did for us. You know that saying, you sometimes feel like you had a coach on the field? That was Yadi. That’s how we thought. Even though you might have a game plan, Yadi had the ability to allow that to evolve during a game, real-time decision-making,” Mozeliak added, per The Athletic (subscription required)."

Contreras still has some photos of himself in Cardinal red on his social accounts — it’s not like he wiped it clean. Nonetheless, athletes are very calculated. They often have an entire social team posting for them.

Unless it’s a mysterious accident, Willson has some explaining to do.