Man, LaRussa sounds like he's got a giant case of PMS.

I am sure greenback06 will be by to explain why LaRussa needed to say this to reporters instead of saying it to Kennedy and Spiezio directly.

Keep those quotes coming, Tony---way to make it a bigger deal and distraction than if you had just kept it between you and the players.

How many dots off the resume for driving drunk?

What a dooshbag.

You kids get off my lawn!

No one is allowed to wear their baseball hat backwards, it insults the game!

I want all my pitchers to throw three innings, and yes I do think it's worthwhile to try this at the major league level!

I believe sending out a guy who struggles every day is ok, until he does something to annoy me!

No one player is above the team! But there is one manager above the team!

Scott Rolen ate my ham sandwich, which was clearly marked, from the fridge and denied it afterwards!

Troy Glaus has promised to bring his own snacks!

Anyone else think LaDoucha is having one heck of a great winter? Way to alienate your troops, skipper!

Tony LaRussa is a talented manager, but a giant jackass.

Way to alienate your troops

Well, I don't know who did show up for the Winter Wonderland or whatever the hell it's called, but if Pujols and Carpenter and Isringhausen and anybody else who could be relaxing on his own private island showed up and shook hands and signed autographs, they were probably pleased that their manager told off the slackers. Alienation can work both ways: if you don't tick off somebody for failing to get with the program, that can work against you, too. IOW being a big-league manager is always a no-win situation :)

The Cardinals GM job just keeps getting harder...it's difficult to trade all the players that piss off Tony LaRussa.

Agreed, Bob, but why does he have to tell off the slackers through the media? Wouldn't a behind-the-scenes spanking accomplish the same goal without making it look like, once again, LaRussa wants to create public melodrama and a distraction?

I've never seen a so-called "good" manager start this much crap through the media with so many players. People can talk all they want about LaRussa working so hard to get his "edge" but my impression is that he alienates people and that his negativity and high pressure is ultimately a hindrance to his players being able to relax and perform.

my impression is that he alienates people and that his negativity and high pressure is ultimately a hindrance to his players being able to relax and perform.

Tony LaRussa: 2375 wins, 2070 losses.

Maybe all this media stuff is overblown.

Tony LaRussa, career winning pct. before Pujols: .524 (156 games over .500 in 21 seasons)

Tony LaRussa, career winning pct. since Pujols: .566 (149 games over .500 in 7 seasons)

Hmmm, maybe all this LaRussa stuff is overblown....

Hmmm, maybe all this LaRussa stuff is overblown....

That would have more meaning if LaRussa didn't take a 21 year old straight out of A ball and give him the starting job based on a good spring training. If anything, Pujols is one of the biggest feathers in LaRussa's hat.

If you take away the times when a manager had good players, all managers look worse.

Still, 156 games over .500 in 21 seasons is seven and a half games a season. That's much more than Pujols is worth.

take a 21 year old straight out of A ball and give him the starting job based on a good spring training.

Yeah, LaRussa somehow had that brilliant insight that was independent of the thousands of Cardinals fans clamoring for that very move... and it took a Bobby Bonilla hamstring injury and his being placed on the DL right before the season opened in order for LaRussa to actually commit to calling Pujols up.

LaRussa somehow had that brilliant insight that was independent of the thousands of Cardinals fans clamoring for that very move...

Yeah, I'm sure LaRussa bogarted the idea from all the Cardinal bloggers and therefore doesn't deserve any credit for recognizing a once in a decade hitter with little experience. He certainly doesn't deserve any credit for starting him full time at the Major League level and bending over backwards to get him playing time by playing him at 4 different positions. Just your typical "manager steals brilliant ideas from the under appreciated fans" story line.

I'm not saying he "bogarted the idea." I'm saying that he didn't recognize something that nobody else saw---everyone who was down in Florida then saw the same things LaRussa saw, and LaRussa resisted more than anyone bringing Pujols up..

I went through this with a poster last year, and I resurrected a number of contemporaneous newspaper accounts to dispute this guy's assertion that Bonilla's injury had nothing to do with Pujols' callup.

The week before the season, Jocketty was quoted as saying that he thought Pujols should be with the big club from day 1, but Tony didn't necessarily agree. The weekend before opening day, there was still speculation as to whether or not Bonilla would go on the DL, and it wasn't until Bonilla was DLed---on Sunday---that Pujols made the team.

And yeah, if a guy hits .330 and slugs .580 you're guying to find a place to play him.

That Pujols could play serviceably at 3rd, 1st, LF and RF says more about him (and the Cardinals injury problems) than it does about any special insights of Larussa.

lotta comment on this over at viva el birdos. tony does seem to have his panties in a bunch lately.

I'm saying that he didn't recognize something that nobody else saw---everyone who was down in Florida then saw the same things LaRussa saw, and LaRussa resisted more than anyone bringing Pujols up..

LaRussa resisted more than anyone? What manager wouldn't have some reserves about putting a 21 year old with one year of experience in the lineup on a team expected to make the playoffs. Joe Torre sure as hell wouldn't have done it, he would have buried him after his 1 for 9 start. LaRussa spotted Lankford, Edmonds, Polanco, Mcgwire, and Drew to get Pujols playing time at the beginning of the season. Granted, those guys were not beacons of health but you also had corner utility guys like Craig Paquette and Eli Marrero on the team. There were plenty of other options that many other managers would have leaned on more heavily IMO.

I went through this with a poster last year, and I resurrected a number of contemporaneous newspaper accounts to dispute this guy's assertion that Bonilla's injury had nothing to do with Pujols' callup.

The week before the season, Jocketty was quoted as saying that he thought Pujols should be with the big club from day 1, but Tony didn't necessarily agree. The weekend before opening day, there was still speculation as to whether or not Bonilla would go on the DL, and it wasn't until Bonilla was DLed---on Sunday---that Pujols made the team.

I'm not doubting the veracity of that point. I hardly followed the story until late April when I picked him up on my fantasy team. You clearly know more about this than I do.

And yeah, if a guy hits .330 and slugs .580 you're guying to find a place to play him.


In 2003, Joe Torre pinch hit Nick Johnson (OPS+ of 138 to end the year) with Ruben Sierra (slugging heavy OPS+ of 100).

That Pujols could play serviceably at 3rd, 1st, LF and RF says more about him (and the Cardinals injury problems) than it does about any special insights of Larussa.

Again, LaRussa, over the course of the year had decent veteran options for all the corners throughout the season, without Pujols, the team looked built to withstand injuries to McGwire, Drew and Lankford, and he still played Pujols in 161 games. That's an impressive accomplishment for a Major League manager, most of whom are extremely risk averse because of the lack of job security in the profession.

That doesn't even get to the fact that not every supremely talented young hitter (granted, few are as talented as Pujols) blossom so quickly, like Pujols did with LaRussa.

Something else might be going on with Kennedy that LaRussa is trying to get him to stop sniffin, something that Scott Spiezio took a few months off for...

Are we still pretending that Albert Pujols was 21 in his rookie season?

What manager wouldn't have some reserves about putting a 21 year old with one year of experience in the lineup on a team expected to make the playoffs?

It's not like LaRussa was choosing between Pujols, Chipper Jones and Scott Rolen to make the team; it was Pujols vs. Bonilla and John Mabry. And not coincidentally, Pujols did sit the day after his 0-for-5 on the second day of the season. The next game back in the starting lineup, he had a homer/double/single to kick off an insane 23-game run that saw him reach base every game (with a base hit in all but one) and hit .391/.456/.761. There is NO manager in all of baseball that would have sat ANY hitter during a run like that.

At that point, it's the first week in May and the rookie is hitting .366/.429/.703 for the year; this isn't Nick Johnson and his 138 OPS+; this is a historic rookie year. ANY manager in baseball will get that kind of production in his lineup. It helps when McGwire is out for 6 weeks, and Drew is out for 6 weeks, and Renteria misses a week here and a week there so Polanco lsides over to short and Pujols plays 3rd, or you're a manager that likes to sit both Drew and Lankford vs. lefties...

It is not risk-averse to play a hitter who for the season is hitting .318 or higher every day since the 4th game of year, with an OPS over 1.000.

It would have been interesting to see what LaRussa would have done if Pujols HADN'T gone on that insane streak after he was sat on the third game following his 0-for-5. LaRussa apologists will probably say that it was BECAUSE Pujols was sat in the third game that he subsequently went on the insane streak. The fact is, once Pujols starting hitting at historic levels on the 4th game of the season, he never stopped. It took no special managerial skill to put that hitter in the lineup every day---it was a luxury that LaRussa had a player flexible enough to start at four different positions, thereby making his job that much easier.

I guess maybe it's just hindsight being 20-20, but comparing Pujols to "corner utility guys like Craig Paquette and Eli Marrero" seems a little silly.

Polanco lsides

To me, that is a totally credible Spanish name.

Salvo,

I was likely the poster, and you are still wrong.

It went down to the end--and the order was 1)Pujols makes team and 2) Bonilla goes on DL and Mabry makes team. When Bonilla came back, Mabry was traded to the Marlins.

The game three non-start? That's a new one.

Let's go to retrosheet, shall we? It was a day game after a night game. Ever hear anyone complain about "getaway day" lineups with LaRussa as the manager?

Besides Pujols, who else didn't start Game 3? Why, it's Mark McGwire and Jim Edmonds! Were they in danger of being sent back to AAA also?

The facts are that LaRussa played a 21 y/o who spent most of the prior year in A ball for 161 games that year. The fact that Pujols made it easy for LaRussa is irrelevant.

Here's the Wikipedia entry:

"During spring training in 2001, the Cardinals were preparing for Pujols to join the Major League ranks, but the Cardinals' roster was already full of talented players, including Mark McGwire, Fernando Viña, Edgar Rentería, Ray Lankford, Jim Edmonds and J. D. Drew. While it's widely believed that an injury to bench player Bobby Bonilla freed up a roster spot, Pujols actually played extremely well in spring and won a spot on the Opening Day roster before Bonilla went on the DL. Others will claim this is revisionist history from looking at the order of the player transactions with John Mabry being the last player added to the team. They note that Pujols was not added to the 40-man roster until after the injury to Bonilla and point to articles such as George Vass in Baseball Digest (December 2001), or George Wickers (Oct. 26, 2004) Orange County Register article explaining that the Cardinals were planning to send Albert to their AAA-club in Memphis (Redbirds), where he would get more experience than sitting on the bench in St Louis. Those potential at-bats increased with the injury to the right-hand hiting Bonilla and Pujols better filled the need of replacing Bonilla's right-handed bat than other left-handed player options. Cardinal coaches pointed out to manager Tony La Russa the need for his bat against the pitchers in the opening series against the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks. The decision was made to put him on the roster. His first Major League game was against the Colorado Rockies in Denver."

Amazing that the articles to support your theory cited by Wikipedia were 6 months and 3 years 6 months AFTER the decision to add Pujols to the roster.

The articles I posted at the time supported what is written here.

Dave

Dave,

I wish I could remember the site on which we discussed this earlier (perhaps you have a link?), but the articles I cited were all Post-Dispatch articles written during spring training and in the run-up to opening day, featuring quotes from LaRussa, Jocketty and others regarding the roster composition and Pujols' status. Those articles have Pujols not being added to the roster until Sunday, after determining that Bonilla's injury (suffered the previous week) was serious enough to warrant placing him on the DL. Again, I don't remember the exact chronology and series of moves, but Pujols was never a lock to be added to the roster at the end of the spring exhibitions, and Tony seemed to be the last person to acquiesce to the move while others (most notably Jocketty) were encouraging it.