Cardinals fire manager Mike Shildt

In a relatively stunning move, the Cardinals announced on Thursday that they have fired manager Mike Shildt, citing philosophical differences with the front office — differences that president of baseball operations John Mozeliak did not elaborate on. Rob Rains of stlsportspage.com was the first to report the news:

While the Cardinals didn’t play to their projected potential for most of the 2021 season, they went on a franchise-record 17-game winning streak in September and made the playoffs, where they lost 3-1 to the Dodgers on Chris Taylor’s walk-off homer.

The Cardinals made the playoffs in all three of Shildt’s full seasons as manager (2019-21) and went 252-199 under his watch. His .559 winning percentage is the highest any Cardinals manager has departed with since Johnny Keane, who was poached by the Yankees after leading St. Louis to a World Series championship in 1964.

Mozeliak mentioned Thursday that internal candidates would be considered for the opening, and bench coach Oliver Marmol and first base coach Stubby Clapp could be two of the leading contenders for the role. He also mentioned that a deep knowledge of the Cardinals’ organizational philosophy would be essential to success in the managerial role — a quality that one would think Shildt possessed, since he had been in the organization since the early 2000s, Candidates across the league who could fit that bill include Padres associate manager Skip Schumaker, whose status is in limbo following the firing of manager Jayce Tingler, and Giants hitting coach Donnie Ecker.