The Cardinals Way: How One Team Embraced Tradition and Moneyball at the Same Time

by Howard Megdal

Overview

The Cardinals Way presents an inside look at the St. Louis Cardinals, a team that has emerged as the model organization in the MLB through developing young talent and embracing analytics.

The St. Louis Cardinals have experienced the kind of success that is rare in baseball. Regarded by many as the premier organization in Major League Baseball, they not only win, but do so with an apparently bottomless pool of talent, one that is mostly homegrown.

Despite years of phenomenal achievements, including going to the World Series in 2004 and again in 2006, the Cardinals reinvented themselves using the "Cardinal Way," a term that has come to represent many things to fans, media, and other organizations, from an ironclad code of conduct to the team's cutting-edge use of statistic and analytics, and a farm system that has transformed baseball.

Baseball journalist Howard Megdal takes fans behind the scenes and off the field, interviewing dozens of key players within the Cardinals organization, including owner Bill DeWitt and the former general manager John Mozeliak. Megdal reveals how the players are assessed and groomed using an unrivaled player development system that has created a franchise that is the envy of the baseball world.

In the spirit of Moneyball, The Cardinals Way tells an in-depth, fascinating story about a consistently good franchise, the business of sports in the twenty-first century and a team that has learned how to level the playing field, turning in season after successful season.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250058317
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/23/2016
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	322,077
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.50(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

HOWARD MEGDAL has written for Capital New York, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, and USA Today, among others. He is the author of The Cardinals Way and other books.. He lives in Rockland County, New York with his wife, Rachel and his two daughters, Mirabelle and Juliet.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

1 The Cardinal Idea 11

2 The Language of George Kissell 18

3 Bill DeWitt Jr. 41

4 Luhnow Enters 55

5 Happy Days Are Here Again 124

6 After He's Gone 164

Epilogue: Transition and the Irreplaceable Cardinal 256

Acknowledgments 275

Notes 279

Index 283

Editorial Reviews

11/09/2015
In this dry overview aimed strictly at die-hard fans of the St. Louis Cardinals, veteran sportswriter Megdal (Taking the Field) lauds the team’s ability to adapt while it holds on to the past’s good stuff. The Cardinals were an early proponent of using analytics—even employing baseball outsiders for that task—which was not universally embraced by executives. At the same time, they retained the services of coach George Kissell, whose commonsense lessons seeped throughout the organization and touched lives for 68 years. And the Cardinals still rely on scouts, those road warriors of the past, for insight into the baseball stars of tomorrow. Megdal enjoys terrific access to Cardinals management, talking extensively to owner Bill DeWitt, current general manager John Mozeliak, and analytics whiz Jeff Luhnow (now with the resurgent Houston Astros). Unfortunately, his flavorless, rigid approach—setup, lengthy quote, repeat—leaves no room for anecdotes, descriptive scenes, or a deeper understanding of what goes into making a baseball machine. Serious Cardinals fans will savor this glowing insider take on their beloved organization, but most other readers will find the book bland and tiresome. Agent: Sydelle Kramer, Susan Rabiner Literary Agency. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"Megdal enjoys terrific access to Cardinals management...Serious Cardinals fans will savor this glowing insider take on their beloved organization." - PW

"This is an excellent book that every Cardinals fan will want to add to his or her bookshelf. Other readers who are interested in how players are evaluated and developed will also appreciate this book." - Sports Book Guy, 4 ½ of 5 stars (excellent)

"Megdal’s talents lie in his ability to get those men to open up, to freely discuss the failures as well as the successes...those who are passionate about business and baseball will find an illuminating and educational resource in THE CARDINALS WAY." - Book Reporter

"This is a book that will be eagerly read by front offices and sportswriters as well as fans. Megdal, a frequent contributor to Politico and USA Today, thinks with the precision of a statistician and the passion of a fan but writes like a journalist who knows how to get a point across. The Cardinals Way is both a reverential piece of baseball history and a lucid analysis of how a team stays great by constantly reinventing itself." - The Dallas Morning News

From the Publisher

12/01/2015
Journalist and sportswriter Megdal (Wilpon's Folly; Taking the Field; The Baseball Talmud) chronicles the history and tradition of the St. Louis Cardinals, from the era when they were managed by Branch Rickey in the years following World War I to the present day. Specifically, Megdal proves that much of the Cardinals' consistent success is linked to an ideology established by Rickey and adhered to by coaches, managers, and the front office at all levels, from the late 1910s to today. The strategy requires a strong farm system, a focus on baseball fundamentals, and data-driven decision making. One of the most interesting aspects of this narrative is the traceable lineage of people linking Branch Rickey to current players, each of whom have left indelible legacies of success, all of whom were followers of the Rickey institution. Even more provocative is how a system can remain relevant and effective amid an evolving sport increasingly dominated by statistical analysis and a departure from more traditional evaluative criteria. VERDICT While targeted toward Cardinals fans, this book will entertain anyone interested in baseball history and is appropriate for all ages.—Matt Schirano, Magnus Wahlstrom Lib., Bridgeport, CT

Library Journal

2015-12-08
Revealing look inside the locker room and front office of a storied baseball franchise. What is the "Cardinals Way?" On one hand, writes seasoned sportswriter Megdal (Wilpon's Folly: The Story of a Man, His Fortune, and the New York Mets, 2011, etc.), it's "a product of a hundred years of serendipity," the result of the confluence of the ideas of numerous baseball pioneers and the realities of the playing field. On the other hand, it's the outcome of a not-always-easy fit between the insistence on old-fashioned, people-based fundamentals and a devotion to metrics and analytics. Megdal digs deep into the business of how a player is picked. We can expect to see one, a young pitcher named Daniel Poncedeleon, in the 2016 season, and a fine choice he will be, capable of hurling hellacious heat and uttering menacing utterances like, "I like someone in there that wants to hit the ball so I can strike 'em out," while also revealing himself to be a pretty nice guy. Having picked a player, the Cardinals coaches now have to groom and train, and therein lies a heavy program of enculturation. After grooming and training, they have to retain their best players, which means paying money, something skinflint owners don't like to do but that does keep a player happy and loyal. Money pervades the game, always figuring in the calculus of who is signed and who is cut and, in the case of the Cardinals, involving "analytic firepower to confidently run an estimate for a player going forward." By that calculus, writes the author, Poncedeleon carries an on-paper value of $1.75 million, cinched for a $5,000 signing bonus—not a bad deal at all and speaking to the shrewdness of the staff and the hunger of a kid eager to show his stuff on the field. Megdal writes with the easy fluency of a Jim Bouton, delivering a book that's of value to students of business as well as baseball fans.

Kirkus Reviews