Former Cardinals manager has new team in first place — and St. Louis full of regret

Following the 2021 season, the St. Louis Cardinals decided to part ways with manager Mike Schildt. Shildt was with the Cardinals for four seasons, recording a 252-199 record at the helm over that span. His firing came after the Cardinals went 90-72 and lost in the National League Wild Card game. 

Nearly five years later, the Cardinals are on the verge of having to search for yet another manager — and Shildt is living his best life with the San Diego Padres. There’s no doubt the St. Louis front office is filled with regret, and Shildt still very much remembers how things went down toward the end of his time with the team.

For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot,our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop during the MLB season.

Mike Schildt is making the Cardinals regret letting him go 

Ever since Schildt left the Cardinals organization, underachieving has been the norm. 2022 (the season after Schildt was fired) is the only year in which the Redbirds have made the postseason since his departure. 

It has some in St. Louis relitigating the circumstances under which he was let go; winning 90 games and making the playoffs sure seems like an upgrade over the current situation, even if Shildt did ruffle some feathers along the way.

Shildt, for his part, still seems a bit stung by being shown the door so abruptly.

"You go into this second opportunity a little more open, a little more aware of how the industry works, what I'm responsible for, what I need to let go of," Shildt told Jayson Stark of The Athletic in an interview. "But at the end of the day, I'm going to love our players. I'm going to treat people as well as I can, but I'm still also not going to apologize as respectfully as possible to a standard of excellence that, quite honestly, our ownership, our fans, our team expects."

St. Louis’ current manager, Oli Marmol, is already on the hot seat. Schildt, on the other hand, is proving that he can be successful as a big-league manager. The Los Angeles Dodgers were fully expected to run away with the NL West division from the first day of the season. But the Padres and Schildt had other plans. 

The Padres are a surprising 17-8 and are in the division lead entering play on Friday. Only the New York Mets at 18-7 have a better record in MLB right now. Of course, a lot can change throughout the rest of a long season, but you have to tip your cap to the job Shildt has done in San Diego. 

There is something to be said about a manager who can lead a team who was expected to go into a rebuild to be a frontrunner in arguably the best division in baseball. Shildt has done just that, and with the questionable decisions Marmol keeps making in St. Louis, Cardinals fans can’t help but wonder what life would be like if they had held on to their previous skipper.