Dexter Fowler is really having a rough go of it in St. Louis

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Things have not gone well for Dexter Fowler since he's left Chicago.

After spending two seasons with the Cubs — including, of course, the 2016 World Series — Fowler signed a 5-year, $82.5 million deal with the St. Louis Cardinals before the 2017 season.

It all started out OK, as he set new career highs last year in homers (18), RBI (64) and OPS (.851) despite playing in only 118 games.

But 2018 has been really, really rough, culminating in Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak absolutely ripping into Fowler Monday:

Here is the entire quote from Mozeliak on Dexter on the Danny Mac podcast:

"It's been a frustrating year for everybody involved. Here's a guy that wants to go out and play well. I think he would tell you, it's hard to do that when you're not playing and not playing on a consistent basis. But I've also had a lot of people come up to me and question his effort and his energy level. Those are things that I can't defend. What I can defend is trying to create opportunities for him, but not at the expense of somebody who's out there hustling and playing hard. And I think really everybody just needs to take a hard look in the mirror and decide what they want that next chapter to look like. In Dexter's case, maybe taking a brief timeout, trying to re-assess himself and then give him a chance for a strong second half is probably what's best for everybody. I'm hopeful to touch base with him in the near future and really just decide what makes the most sense, but clearly he's not playing at the level we had hoped."

Yikes.

It's not often you see a front office executive put a player on blast like that, especially only 1.5 years into a 5-year contract. Mozeliak isn't just calling out Fowler's play on the field (which hasn't been great), going after his effort/energy. That never goes over well with professional athletes who feel like that's an attack on them as a person and not just a player (which it is, most of the time). 

That being said, the full quote from Mozeliak lends quite a bit more context to the situation than just the two sentences in the Tweet.

The Cardinals kept Fowler out of the starting lineup for all three games against the Braves over the weekend and he only came on as a pinch-hitter Saturday. He's currently out on paternity leave as his wife is about to have their new baby (which they plan on naming Ivy).

On the season, Fowler is hitting just. 171 with a .276 on-base percentage and .278 slugging, good for a .554 OPS. Among MLB players with 250 plate appearances, only Baltimore's Chris Davis (.155) has a lower batting average and only Davis (.497) and Kansas City's Alcides Escobar (.518) have a worse OPS.

FanGraphs has Fowler with the 5th-worst WAR in the game (-1.1), ahead of only Davis (-2.0), Victor Martinez (-1.3) and Trayce Thompson (-1.3) and tied with Kole Calhoun (-1.1). 

For reference, Fowler put up 7.6 WAR in his two years with the Cubs.

Throughout his career, some have questioned Fowler's perceived effort level in the outfield, but when he was in Chicago, he and the Cubs laughed that off. Fowler has such long legs, it doesn't always look like he's running hard, but he's still shown he's capable of displaying plus range and being a valuable centerfielder (especially when the Cubs got him starting from a deeper spot).

This isn't the first time Fowler has been the lightning rod for Cardinals Nation. He and his wife both left Twitter last month after receiving so much hate/abuse from St. Louis fans. 

Fowler will forever be loved by Cubs fans and some were quick to rush to his support after Mozeliak's comments made their rounds:

https://twitter.com/PeteG723/status/1013827452559294466

A gentle reminder Fowler's contract runs through the end of the 2021 season, so this situation isn't exactly going away anytime soon.

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