Kansas City Royals: Mike Matheny would not be good hire

The Kansas City Royals will be looking to find a new manager for the first time since 2010, as Ned Yost is retiring at the conclusion of the 2019 season. Mike Matheny will be a heavily rumored option, but please don’t hire him, Royals.

Ned Yost is calling it a career and will retire as the all-time winningest manager for the Kansas City Royals. It was a good career for Yost (despite the losing record), as he won two American League pennants and a World Series title.

Yost decided to retire though and that means it’s time for new owner John Sherman and the rest of the Royals front office to find themselves a new manager that can help get this rebuild on the right track.

Mike Matheny is not that guy.

Matheny managed the St. Louis Cardinals for seven seasons before being relieved of his duties midway through the 2018 season. After he was fired, he joined the Royals organization as a special adviser for player development. The consensus for most fans seemed to be at the time of that hire was that Matheny would be a top candidate to take over as manager once Yost was out the door.

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This would be a poor decision by the Royals organization.

Matheny was fired from St. Louis for a reason. The Cardinals, who as much as I hate them and don’t want to compliment them, are typically a playoff team yet when Matheny was there, they missed the postseason in three of his seven years. He wasn’t there for all of 2018, but they were hovering right around .500 when he got canned.

Matheny finished his St. Louis tenure with a record of 591-474, but the Cardinals missed the postseason in each of his last three seasons. Since he’s been out as the manager there, the Cardinals have bounced back and very well could win their division this year, something they hadn’t done since the 2015 season.

For a team that desperately needs this rebuild to pan out, Mike Matheny doesn’t exactly have the track record to show he’s the right guy for this job. Hopefully the Royals look outside of the organization and don’t just hand the job to Matheny.

If the Royals do decide Matheny is the right guy to take over for Yost, he needs to earn it. Nobody should be handed anything especially for an organization that is clearly in rebuild mode and needs the right manager to be able to take over and get these prospects developed.

With all of the buzz that’s already surrounding Matheny as the future Royals manager, it won’t be shocking if the news becomes official sooner rather than later, but hopefully the team opts to go in another direction and not use another MLB manager retread.