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Am I correct about what his plan was? I thought it was to have his "starters" go 3 innings and then get them out of there.
I ask because of how pitchers (today's relievers) seem to do much better when they know they're only working a few outs, or only need to go through the lineup once.
I thought it did. It's too bad he abandoned the experiment so quickly. My god was that an awful pitching staff. Where was the Dunc, TLR magic for that team. Yikes!
Ooo. That could be cool. 6/60 as a player. 6/200 as manager. Or whatever. But more for "managing" so that they don't pay luxury tax on it.
I thought it was interesting and worth testing out. But I think he ran into trouble with the pitchers themselves hating it. Part of that is probably the win rule itself, if you go three innings you can't get a win no matter what, but you can be tagged with a loss. That's more a problem with the win rule than the strategy, but not much one manager can do about that.
I ask because of how pitchers (today's relievers) seem to do much better when they know they're only working a few outs, or only need to go through the lineup once.
Don't ask us, Ray, ask MGL. :-)
You could kinda sorta get around that if you "started" a middle reliever, then brought your "starter" in for the second or third inning, a la Earnshaw Cook's scheme, which was dreamed up in the pre-DH era.
He was a worthy adversary, but honestly, this can only be good for the Brewers.
Rosenthal:
Re: the 2012 NL AS Game manager, it *should* be Roenicke, so I'm sure it will be someone else.
Edit: I like Ray's suggestion in #117 better.
"Tony LaRussa" is such an obvious and sensible answer that there's no way it will happen.
It's also apparently the precedent. Danny Murtaugh skippered the NL in 1972 despite not working in that capacity for the Bucs that yaer. Dusty also kept the gig when he moved from SF to Chicago in 2003, while Dick Williams was only on the Angels bench for three weeks but was still the manager for the AL in 1974.
It really was a desperation move with a team going nowhere. It also required using 13 roster spots for pitchers. I can't see it as a viable strategy for a "good" team.
To review, here's a squib I wrote a few years back after researching the details:
With his team in sixth place in a seven-team division on July 19, 1993, La Russa announced his radical new pitching plan. There would be three clusters of three pitchers each who would pitch every third game. Plus there would be four relievers who would be available as needed late in games. Todd Van Poppel, Ron Darling and Kelly Downs would be Group A; Mike Mohler, Bobby Witt and John Briscoe Group B; and Bob Welch, Shawn Hillegas and Goose Gossage Group C. Edwin Nunez, Joe Boever, Vince Horsman and Eck would be the short men.
From the start, things never went according to plan. Kevin Campbell replaced Downs in Group A, but still didn't pitch in the first game as Van Poppel and Darling worked 4 innings each in a 4-2 loss. The second game, a 9-5 loss, Mohler went 1 2/3, Boever 1/3, Campbell 1, Witt 4 and Briscoe 1.
In Game 3, Downs (replacing Hillegas) went 4, Welch 3, Horsman 0+, Gossage 1 and Eck 1 in a 7-2 win.
In Game 4, a 9-7 loss, Van Poppel (on two days' rest) went 2 2/3, Campbell 1 1/3, Darling 3 (also on two days' rest) and Nunez 1.
In Game 5, Mohler went 3, Witt 4, Eck 2 and Gossage 2/3 in a 6-5 loss. Mohler and Witt were working on two days' rest, with Witt throwing four innings each time -- the most radical departure from the conventional use of having pitchers throw long every five days, or short every day or two.
By Game 6, La Russa was stretching out his old starters: Downs went 4 2/3 -- giving him 8 2/3 over two games in the span of about 72 hours -- Horsman 1/3 and Boever 3. The A's lost 5-3
The next night, Welch went 4 1/3, Rick Honeycutt rejoined the team and went 2/3, Campbell 2 and Horsman 1. The A's lost 8-1.
After going 1-6, La Russa ended the experiment, and Darling became the first A's pitcher in a week to qualify for a win, going 6 innings in a 11-4 victory.
John McGraw piloted the first All-Star Game even though he retired 13-14 months before.
Lisa you are always welcome to root for the Braves. A front office that knows what it is doing, good farm system that regularly produces good players and we are competitive today. The only down side really is we have a faceless, tax-dodging owner that will be peddling the club sometime soon to who knows what corporation.
Thanks.
I'd go with Davey Johnson. By my count, there are seven current managers who have won a World Series, but none of them have won two.
Or a Cleveland Browns running back?
1588 Leyland
1484 Baker
1360 Bochy
1188 Johnson
1066 Scioscia
1. I didn't realize Bochy has been managing so long. He somehow keeps a lower profile than the other guys on the list. I don't know if it's his personality, or starting in San Diego, or him just not doing crazy things to make headlines. Such as some of Dusty Baker's quotes, Scioscia's intangible/imaginary ideas of what makes a catcher valuable, or pretty much everything LaRussa did.
2. Sciosca has managed only 3 fewer seasons than Davey Johnson, thanks to Johnson's long breaks in between jobs. This despite Scioscia not yet being arb-eligible, or at least pre free agency, when Johnson started managing.
The wrestling fan in me will choose to remember this as the Rangers winning the blowoff Loser Leave Town match between Ron Washington and Tony LaRussa.
Sammy Baugh?
Is there a good football video game that allows for old-timey two-way players, super-limited rosters, that kind of stuff?
Yes, but under a mask and a new identity.
"Doubleswitch."
I think it's closer to $5M- COTS has him making 2Y/8.5M from 08-09, and I doubt if he took a pay cut in '10 or '11.
Anyway, I think Lance Berkman would be a better manager than Albert Pujols. He's always seemed like a very intelligent player, and his press conferences would be hilarious. Albert is also an intelligent player, but Berkman is so much funnier, I don't think it's a contest.
1. Johnny Keane did not retire." He was fired, due to some really bad decision-making by Gussie Busch.
2. Oquendo is the heir apparent of sorts, but the Cards had troubles getting him to put in even one year as a minor league manager. He didn't want to go back to the minors. The records of MLB managers who never managed in the minors is poor. Oquendo did manage in some winter leagues.
3. Dave Duncan has one year left on his contract. Of course, that can always be bought out. His wife is gravely ill with cancer.
4. Way back when I had a press pass, I did one interview with TLR. I asked him about the three-pitcher/three-inning plan. What he said amounted to he couldn't find anyone who wanted to start, because it takes five IP to get a win. No one wanted to go negotiate a contract based on 54 starts, a 2.30 ERA, but a 0-11 W/L record.
- Brock Hanke
Wasn't the torch passed to Mr. Washington this WS?
In the 1960s the policy for the American League ASG managers when the Yankees dumped Houk and Yogi was to get the second place manager, Al Lopez. But it could have looked funny getting Houk to step down from his GM job in 1964 and even funnier when Yogi was a Mets coach in 1965. They also got Paul Richards in 1961 after Stengel made the mistake of becoming 70.
More of a trade but player manager Rogers Hornsby in 1926 for the Cardinals. But Rajah did manager again, usually with disastrous results.
from Jon Morosi
True Story: When Bill Veeck fired Hornsby as manager of the Browns after only 49 games in 1952, his players were so grateful that they presented him with an enormous trophy that read "To Bill Veeck - For the greatest play since the Emancipation Proclamation. June 10, 1952. From the players of the St. Louis Browns." The link has a photo of the actual trophy, and you can actually read the words.
I speak, of course, of Tony LaRussa's invention of the IBB specialist. In the World Series. A more LaRussian move is impossible to comprehend. What else could he do?
Rumor has Jerry Reinsdorf offering him some front office position with the White Sox. I can't figure out whether this would make the organization more or less dysfunctional than the middling club that just exercised its option on Jason Frasor.
Duncan had health problems? I knew his wife had a tumor, but I don't really remember any health problems with him. I imagine he'll stick with the Cardinals(I thought he signed a contract extension for next year, not sure though) and prove himself as his own man.
Correct, and a mutual option for 2013.
Who knows maybe he is a horrible manager, but I really think he deserves the shot based upon his mentors alone. Add in continuing the Cardinal tradition etc.
Again, I have no idea how he would manage, or how he would handle a press conference or people, but if I'm Mo, I think that Oquendo has the job until he interviews out of it.
LaRussa underachieves in Chicago, his A's certainly didn't do better than expected, and in his first 22 seasons he fails to get over .500 in half his seasons, finishing fourth or worse half the time; then he seems to turn into a completely different manager, at least as far as results are concerned. What changed?
LaRussa's career arc reminds me a little of Paul Molitor's, who put up about 40% of his career value starting with his age 33 season.
LaRussa didn't underachieve in Chicago and I'm not sure what "was expected in Oakland." He clearly cemented his Hall of Fame status and did his best work in St. Louis, but he established himself as a quality manager in both his first two stops.
For good measure, the cards should at least interview Sandberg though
Of course there is Sam Rice retiring with 2,987 hits but the Morocco native (Morocco, Indiana that is) insisted that 3,000 hits wasn't a big thing back in the day.
I believe he didn't know he had 2,987 when he retired. But you are correct on his Newton County origins.
Ryne Sandberg as Cards skipper would be divine.
I think people are under the impression that LaRussa got more out of players than other managers would have. What I find interesting about him is that he had such a stable coaching staff that if he did get more out of players --and he seemed to--it's hard to tell how much he had to do with it and how much the various members of the staff had to do with it. It will be interesting to see Dave Duncan coach under another manager.
Getting 99 wins out of the 1983 White Sox is hardly underachieving.
That would make heads explode all over the midwest.
How much you over/under achieve is dependent on the talent you have to work with, not your record in relation to .500. In the case of the Sox during Tony's time, it wasn't much (I addressed all this in hte other thread the last time you were going on about this).
TLR was not a Hall of Fame-worthy manager after his Chicago/Oakland stops. So what? He was already established as a damn good major league manager.
What's amazing about TLR's record is not his peak, even if it was pretty damn good in St. Louis. What differentiates him from most everyone else, save Bobby, is the length of time he was effective. Most other greats lose it before they reach 20 years - they aren't still going strong at 30.
Well, the Leo Mazzone era in Baltimore wasn't exactly Exhibit A in the case that the magic is all in the coaching.
The first time you said this, I thought you were trolling, but maybe not. Perhaps there's a reasonable person somewhere who thinks that a normal expectation for the nine full years LaRussa managed the A's was five or six division titles, rather than the four they actually won. But I doubt it.
The talent LaRussa acquired in Oakland did not look very impressive at the time. He picked up Dave Stewart after being released by the Phillies, and turned him into an ace, and got Dennis Eckerley from the Cubs for three non-prospects, and turned him into a Hall of Famer. Dave Henderson looked like nothing when the A's signed him as a free agent. And so on.
Addressed? You made a couple of generalizations. I'll give you that.
It's also entirely possible that without Pujols LaRussa retires as the Harold Baines or Rusty Staub of managers. There's no shame in that, but it's ludicrous not to note it, or note things like it, to not trouble to look even that much into a guy's career and see why he found success or if it found him. One equivalent would be a good hitter who moves into the best hitter's park in the majors for the last third of his career and starts to look like a great hitter. Did LaRussa become a different manager during the last third of his career? Did he really figure something out? Sometimes guys do. Or did he get lucky, in that the Cardinals were always up there in their division in terms of payroll and he happened to have the best player in the game over a decade, and cheaply at that? I'd think that someone who gave a #### about LaRussa's career might have an actual opinion about that, but you don't seem to.
@167: troll yourself, pal. So we give LaRussa credit for finding or getting the most out of players in Oakland, but don't dock him for failing to do so in Chicago? That's rigorous. What was he doing differently? Did he ever talk about it? Doesn't it seem like he got better at finding guys and getting more out of them once he got to Oakland? If it's not too much ####### trouble, why do you think that is? How much of that was Duncan joining LaRussa about halfway through his stint in Chicago, iirc?
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