After calling out his own player publicly yesterday for a lack of effort, energy, and hustle, St. Louis Cardinals president John Mozeliak followed up his comments on Dexter Fowler with additional comments that … didn’t really help things.
Mozeliak said he actually wasn’t just talking about Fowler, even though he spoke specifically about Fowler in response to a question about Fowler and mentioned no other players whatsoever in those comments:
Mozeliak says he has spoken to Fowler about the comments, and he has offered some clarification: It's not just Fowler about whom — and to whom he — was speaking. It was the entire #stlcards team: 'Time to get this right.' https://t.co/UK1YQPnHNa #MLB #Cardinals
— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) July 2, 2018
Mozeliak’s explanation now is that he was basically going in and out of referencing Fowler and the entire team (questioning their commitment? I really can’t tell) in a stream of consciousness that I’ll remind you, looked like this:
“It’s been a frustrating year for everybody involved. Here’s a guy who wants to go out and play well. I think he would tell you it’s hard to do that when you’re not playing on a consistent basis. But I’ve also had a lot of people come up to me and question his effort and his energy level. You know, those are things that I can’t defend. What I can defend is trying to create opportunities for him, but not if it’s at the expense of someone who’s out there hustling and playing hard. And really I think everyone just needs to take a hard look in the mirror, and decide what they want that next chapter to look like. And in Dexter’s case, maybe taking a brief time out, trying to reassess himself, and then give him a chance for a strong second half is probably what’s best for everybody. I’m hopeful to touch base with him in the near future and decide what makes the most sense, but clearly he’s not playing at the level we had hoped.”
If I’m being wildly generous, I could say there are sections of that commentary that were informed more broadly by a challenge to the entire clubhouse. It didn’t sound like that yesterday, and I don’t really think it matters given the rest of the commentary. But, hey, sure, if you want it to be about the whole team, cool. Fine.
On Fowler, specifically, here’s how Mozeliak put his comments to MLB.com: “Really, what I was trying to say was I hear what our fan base is saying, and I hope our players understand what’s going on. There’s still time to win. There’s still time to change. I wasn’t trying to single out Dex in any way. When I’m out, people have no problem telling me what to do. It’s come up. In general, wherever I may be sometimes, I get feedback. What I was trying to say was, ‘I hear it. And I just hope our players are hearing the same thing and that they adjust to it.’ Dex is frustrated. And, really, I was just trying to defend his frustration of the inconsistencies.”
The implication there is that Mozeliak was … agreeing, publicly, with meatball fans who complain about the perceived “effort” they see on TV? And that’s supposed to be a defense of his comments? Once again, I’m trying to understand what exactly is being said here.
We can’t know what Mozeliak is seeing behind the scenes, or what these anonymous people (whether in the organization or meatball fans) are saying about Fowler’s effort and energy, nor can we know what their motivations are. Nor can we know if it’s true that Fowler has been unusually low energy and effort this year, nor why that might be (after a year and a half of being ground down by unpleasantness surrounding the team and the fan base).
All I know is that, however ugly a season is going, however bad a contract is turning out, it’s not going to play well to the rest of the baseball world to go out there and start ripping your own guy’s hustle, and then you fall back on blaming it on fan perception. If I’m a big money free agent, and St. Louis is courting me, you better believe this is in the back of my head – “When I go through a slump, are my bosses going to be out there distancing themselves from the outcome and instead just blaming my effort?”
And a reminder that this is all happening while Fowler is out on paternity leave for the arrival of his second kid.