But I still think Dayton’s hiring of Matheny will pan out. Matheny has made a ton of adjustments since his St.Louis days but he will have to make more to win this entire clubhouse. The Royals are close, and with all that young pitching on the rise, the future is bright. But ..(8)

— Jeffrey Flanagan (@FlannyMLB) July 8, 2021

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It does no good to say it now, but I was never a fan of the Matheny signing. I thought he underachieved with a clearly superior Cardinals roster the last few years he was there and couldn't see him doing any better with a lesser roster here.
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I’m still hoping Sherman cleans house. A fresh start with a new philosophy would be wonderful.
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Yeah that's pretty clearly coming from the clubhouse and Flanagan doesn't work for the team anymore so he can let it rip. Matheny has changed a lot, I'm not sure I've seen a professional coach change analytically like he has. He actually applies a lot of modern strategies to the game, which was supposed to be a huge weakness. But overall his teams here are looking like they did in St. Louis, just a little too sloppy and too many bad mental errors. Like Taylor getting picked at 3rd today. Just inexcusable. His teams aren't complete disasters but they make some really terrible mistakes at bad times. Not sure if that's being too loose or too tight on the guys, but you'll never win doing stuff like that. If he starts piling up bullpen injuries watch out.
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There are enough vets on the roster who had Yost during the World Series runs that whoever is talking to Flanny has plenty of cover. Regardless, this is the most critical I have ever seen Flanny of anyone hired by the Royals. Even earlier this year, he was steadfast in his defenses of Matheny and was never, ever critical of Yost while hired with the team or in retirement.

The bullpen stuff is interesting. With Matheny, he is leaning on Barlow, Holland, and Brentz really, really hard. It is not a good thing that they are all near the top of the league in appearances. We were critical that Yost had 7th, 8th, and 9th inning guys, but before the playoffs, he very much protected his arms and they all seemed overwhelmingly loyal to him for that.
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The Royals play like a team full of dudes with no baseball IQ, they constantly fuck up the little things winning teams do.

Also for the bullpen, every team in baseball has multiple dudes coming in throwing 99, if you're a bad team all relievers should be up for trade. Even for the best guys 3-4 years is about what you get before they rapidly decline.
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There is no defense of Mike Matheny. He is a fucking boob as a Manager. Full stop.
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That was straight and to the fucking point. :-)
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Bullpen over usage has been mainly because the starting pitching has been dog shit.
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Pitching is the currency of baseball / Dayton


27th fWar pitching staff ^
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The Angels should have pulled some bullshit to keep Ohtani out of the HRD.
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Flanagan is still sucking on Mathenys dick.

Him saying Matheny is the smartest manager is the dumbest shit I've ever read about Matheny. The dude is a meat head. Hate everything about him.
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To me that’s the necessary politics he has to play after just alleging that vets inside Matheny’s clubhouse (and there’s a lot of them) are disgruntled with his style. That’s a pretty big grenade he just launched towards a clubhouse that has notoriously thin skin (GMDM had multiple meltdowns at Andy’s reporting in 2014 about much lighter topics). Flanny, unlike Andy, has never had a combative relationship with the team and even churched up bad years like 2012. This is significant for him to come out and say.
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That Flanagan Twitter thread is fantastic.

Speaks to a lot of the things I was worried/concerned about with Matheny and staff.

I think Matheny will survive this season/offseason and end up getting canned midseason next year. His staff will get turned over. Pay attention to his bench coach - if they hire someone with prior managing experience, the writing is on the wall.
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