Matheny Talks Lineups

(Jupiter, FL) Just three days into Spring Training, St. Louis Cardinals Manager Mike Matheny couldn’t help but have a little fun when asked if it was too soon to discuss starting lineups.

“There’s gonna have nine guys out there and everyone of them is real important,” he quipped at Saturday’s media session.

“We’ve talked about Kolten probably more than anybody else just because of what he’s trying to say,” acknowledged Matheny, who understands what his second baseman is hoping to achieve by suggesting he could lead-off. “His message is that he’s wanting to do whatever he can for this team and be willing to make some maybe adjustments, which is a great philosophy.

“But when it all comes down to it, it’s something that I believe is fluid this time of year. We’re going to throw a lot of stuff against the wall as we start these games and as we watch them workout and hear about some of the things that they’re thinking.”

The variables for putting together a Cardinals lineup for 2016 are many–with or without Wong at the top. Would the power Matt Carpenter displayed last year be better off deeper in the lineup? Does Holliday stay in the third slot, or how to align the middle of the order?

Matheny credited hitting coaches John Mabry and Bill Mueller with understanding the goals the players have worked towards during the off-season and if that could make a difference in their contribution this season.

“How will change the way that maybe they go about their at-bats and could that then change how we go about drawing up a lineup,” said Matheny. “We have nothing set in stone right now. We throw guys out there–watch, see what we see, and then try to come up with the best one through nine that we can come up with.”

Adam Wainwright, Mike Leake, and Jaime Garcia are very good-hitting pitchers but Matheny remains reluctant to bat his pitcher eighth, though qualifies that he will “never say never”.

“It’s not easy–you have to have the right kind of person,” stated Matheny, who still remembers his own experience having the pitcher bat in front of him. “If you had that and you had some data that would support this particular lineup would benefit from it, but I’m also going to tell ya, I felt like I was probably the right kind of person and it was still difficult. Mostly because we had to do this. Every time I was in that position, I had to answer questions and I had teammates around me that it affected more than it affected me, so then it became an issue. And part of our job description is eliminating issues.”