The Cardinals have a way of planning for the long-term. As an organization that thrives off prospect and minor-league talent, it's hard to look at any Cardinal's decision and not think that it's either the culmination of months (or years) of effort or the payoff of a long-term plan. The Cardinals locking down Mike Shildt for three years as Manger feels like one of those moments to me for a multitude of reasons.

Shildt has been coaching at a high level since 2004 where he coached a Cardinals Single-A affiliate part-time on the recommendation of the future Cardinals GM John Mozeliak. As an aside, I've heard Mozeliak has a knack for planning ridiculously long into the future so whether or not he had his eyes on Shildt to become Manager remains in question for me.

Shildt moved on to coach Johnson City (which produced talents such as Matt Adams and Rick Ankiel) for three years where they won back-to-back Appalachian League Championships in 2010 and 2011. Shildt was also named Appalachian League Manager of the Year in 2010.

In 2012, Shildt was promoted to the Springfield Cardinals, the St. Louis Cardinals' AA affiliate, and was then moved to the Memphis Redbirds (AAA) before being promoted to the MLB as the Cardinals' quality control coach. After the rocky start to this season, he was eventually moved to the third base coach before becoming the bench coach for the 2018 season and eventually Interim Head Coach following the termination of Mike Matheny's contract.

I wrote at the time of Matheny's firing that the unfortunate reality of baseball (and all major sports for that matter) is that the manager is always the first person to get the blame and eventually the boot when things start going wrong. And I will admit, Cardinals fans have very high expectations for the team's performance, and justifiably so. Maybe the team just needed a shakeup to get things started, but maybe Shildt himself has more to do with this recent success than we think.

I had been reading around online, trying to figure out what made Shildt so different and try to get an idea of the changes that he brought to the clubhouse, and I came across something very interesting. After batting practice if the Cardinals are playing at Busch Stadium, or beforehand if they're on the road, Shildt sits the entire team down and they talk baseball. According to Shildt himself:

Preparation leads to consistency, consistency leads to winning. I love it. I'm learning a lot. Guys are sharing information and observations. It's about honesty and transparency. It's about competing as a team and as a family.

He also provided consistency with his defensive configurations. He got Jose Martinez off of first base, placed Carpenter there and kept Kolten Wong at second and Harrison Bader can fly around the outfield in center field. Since then, we've seen highlight after highlight from the Cardinals' defense with Gold Glove caliber defensive plays from Wong and the emergence of a truly defensive powerhouse in Bader.

I've said it before, all of our players have an immense amount of talent, they just have to be put in the right situation to let their skills shine. In August alone, the Cardinals let in only four unearned runs, a far cry from the slue of errors we were witnessing earlier in the season. Shildt brings a players-first mentality back into the clubhouse, and maybe that's what we need to see this team back in the postseason.