If Amaya can succeed as rookie, why is Contreras getting blame in St. Louis?
There should be no mixed feelings for Cubs fans when Willson Contreras returns to Wrigley Field wearing a St. Louis Cardinals uniform Monday.
Not only should fans appreciate a player from the 2016 World Series team, who choked up at the thought of leaving the Cubs last year, they should also be appalled at the treatment he's getting beneath the Arch.
It's a strange and developing story, but it certainly seems like the Cardinals are making Contreras a scapegoat for their disappointing pitching staff and 11-24 start.
In fact, St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol essentially said Sunday, whatever Contreras was doing in his seven seasons with the Cubs, it didn't prepare him for the Cardinal Way.
"The way I would describe it is truly understanding our internal system of executing the game plan for each individual pitcher," Marmol said, according to mlb.com. "The reality is, it's more than he's ever had to do. Nothing against the way he's done it, but it's very different and it's a lot of work."
The Cardinals announced Saturday that Contreras was being removed from the catching role, replaced by players more familiar with the pitching staff. There was some talk about Contreras playing in the outfield, but the new plan is for him to DH and sit near the coaches in the dugout to keep learning about how to handle the delicate St. Louis pitchers.
There's no doubt it takes time for a catcher to get comfortable with a new team, new terminology, new pitching personalities. Contreras passed on an invite to play in the World Baseball Championship so he could focus on bonding with his pitchers in spring training.
But here's the part that doesn't make sense: The Cubs just brought up Miguel Amaya from Double A, he's started three of the last four contests and they've gotten well-pitched games every time.
Hayden Wesneski went well out of his way to praise the job Amaya did calling pitches during Sunday's 5-4 loss in 14 innings to Miami.
"I was very surprised how prepared he is, it's incredible," Wesneski said after the game. "I'll even say, the first inning or two (thinking), 'He's a young guy.' You're not sure what you're going to get when you call a game. So I kind of start double-guessing him and myself.
"Then I come in the dugout and, 'You know what? I'm trusting you. You have called the right pitches so far, in my opinion, and I've been really hardheaded about it.' So about the third inning, I started trusting him and you see where that got us."
Wesneski ended up throwing 6 innings while allowing 2 runs. The game went to extra innings tied 2-2 and eventually Amaya was lifted for a pinch-runner.
Amaya has been impressive since being called up. At some point, he'll be the full-time backup to Yan Gomes, though it may not happen this week.
"I'm telling you right now, that guy, he's mature and I'm impressed with his game-calling, because that's one thing that's really tough moving up through the ranks," Wesneski said. "It's not necessarily the framing or the blocking.
"It actually blew my mind. I tried to be overly prepared today thinking I didn't know how prepared he was going to be. Dude, he was more prepared than I was."
Also, there's no sense for Cubs fans to gloat about the Cardinals making the wrong choice in giving Contreras a five-year, $87.5-million deal in free-agency to replace longtime backstop Yadier Molina. He's less than two months into that deal and could still have a successful run in red.
Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer telegraphed his plans, choosing to follow popular MLB analytics logic of finding two good defensive catchers, rotating them almost equally and not spending a lot of money. Hoyer appears to have nailed an extra-base hit with Gomes, while as mentioned above, Amaya should eventually replace Tucker Barnhart as the second catcher.
Cubs manager David Ross took his kids to the Luke Combs concert at Soldier Field on Saturday night, so he admitted not knowing much about what's happened with Contreras in St. Louis.
"Every organization I was with had different terminology and different formats with how they presented information on the opposing team," Ross said. "So there's definitely an adjustment period for that."
St. Louis management has repeated for two days the poor start is not Contreras' fault. But actions speak louder than words.
Twitter: @McGrawDHSports