Along the dusty minor-league backroads in the early days of the 2012 season, the Double-A Springfield Cardinals had just finished getting the pulp and pride beaten out of them by a loaded team from Frisco that included future Padre Jurickson Profar.
The Cardinals, filled with young talent like pitchers Michael Wacha and Trevor Rosenthal and infielders Greg Garcia and Kolten Wong, slumped in their bus seats.
Without warning, up-and-coming manager Mike Shildt stood up. He was no eyewash guy. No rah-rah speech guy, just for effect. When he spoke, players listened.
“Shildt, who doesn’t say a lot, gets up and says: ‘That’s a good team over there. ‘I know you don’t see it now, but five months from now, we’re going to be raising a championship trophy on that field,’” Garcia said.
“Now, we suck at that time. I mean, we suck. Sure enough, we ended up winning the title at Frisco. He called that (crap).”
Garcia does not simply heap praise on Shildt, whom the Padres picked to become their newest manager Tuesday. He gushes. He threatens to go on for three hours about the man who led him in parts of five minor league and big-league seasons.
It’s a letter of recommendation the size of a Tolstoy novel.
“The one thing that comes to mind is winner,” said Garcia, who played seven seasons in the majors with the Padres and Cardinals — and in 2018, played under Shildt — and lives in Santee. “We won the title my first season in the minors in Johnson City, Tenn. We won when we were together in Double-A.
“I couldn’t be happier for the Padres. They got an absolute winner. That’s what this guy does. With that roster, it would be no surprise for them to have a huge season.”
One story triggered another.
Garcia began explaining the “Yellow Pad” meetings Shildt conducted in the minors, something he learned from mentor and legendary Cardinals coach, scout and instructor George Kissell.
The would sit around a table and go through the previous day’s game. It was the small, intricate parts of the game. Maybe it was a guy hustling down the line to beat a throw before the next hitter belted a home run.
They never talked about or showed film of strikeouts with guys on. It was designed to identify and dissect the types of plays that fueled winning. As many teams brushed away games and moved on to the next, Shildt mined gold from the past.
When Shildt took over in St. Louis more than midway through 2018, he asked Garcia if the practice would translate to established stars in the majors.
“I said, (crap), I don’t know,” Garcia said. “This is the big leagues. The film doesn’t lie. It was the kind of stuff where you felt called out, but you didn’t want to be the guy not hustling or whatever. It kept us accountable.
“Yadi (Molina) and (Adam Wainwright) bought into it. We became a tighter group because of it. Guys loved it.”
Mike Shildt brought his “Yellow Pad” metings to the Cardinals when he took over as manager.
(Marcio Sanchez / Associated Press)
That’s the type of experience the Padres chose. That’s the level of player connection, touch and timing the Padres are banking on. That’s the person they learned about the last few seasons as Shildt bounced between a range of roles.
Some will grumble they’re pushing the chips to the center of the table with Shildt, a veteran who was chased from St. Louis not for a lack of winning — the former National League Manager of the Year’s winning percentage is one of the best in history — but because he tangled with GM John Mozeliak.
That became the undoing of Bob Melvin, another veteran manager who was diplomatically nudged to the same role with the Giants after things became untenable with A.J. Preller.
Why go there again with Preller?
This is wholly different. The organization knows Shildt from his varying fingerprints across the organization. He’s worked with Preller and vice versa. Those tires have been kicked.
Mike Shildt poses for a photo following Tuesday’s news conference.
(K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The relationship with Melvin was a fresh start, from the jump.
“ ‘Shildty’ … is old-school to me in the way he respects the game,” Garcia said. “He puts a huge emphasis on the veteran players and taking care of his guys. I was playing every day in the minors. He would come up and say, ‘Hey, Greg, you’ve got the day off tomorrow.’ If it was up to me, I’d want to play. He’d take that out of your hands and you appreciated that. He has a great feel.
“He knows how to push buttons, good and bad. He has your back 110 percent. You have to play hard for that guy.”
That’s what the Padres are banking on.
