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| Monday, September 8, 2008 |
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Connecting the dots - the Duncan angle
Posted Wednesday, July 25, 2007, at 8:39 AM<< Previous | Read comments | Respond | Email link | Next >>
Over at Baseball Prospectus ($), Will Carroll relays a trade rumor involving Reds outfielder Adam Dunn that could potentially have implications across the National League Central.
OK. Let's connect them.
Duncan, off to a terrific start in New York, is the oldest son of Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan. If Jocketty leaves for Cincinnati, it's reasonable to assume that Cards manager Tony La Russa and his pitching coach may also have an interest in joining the Reds.
Thus, the trade accomplishes two things for Cincinnati. It gets Adam Dunn off their payroll (the Reds hold a $13 million option for next season -- he's a free-agent if he's traded) and gives additional incentive for Cards management to head east. Dave Duncan could leave St. Louis and still coach on a staff with a son on the team.
As Carroll says, it's a "wild scenario" but an intriguing one.
Tony La Russa is coming to the defense of his medical staff. Riled up about an article over the weekend, the Cards skipper praised Dr. George Paletta on Tuesday.
"He's as good as anybody with any club," said La Russa. "I recommend that we have a press conference, trot the players out there and produce the records.
"There would be no doubt in my mind that the public will see in each case, the quality of care these guys received."
I think La Russa's defense is somewhat misguided because it misses a larger point. You can have the best care in the world. But what good is the advice of the doctor if you don't follow it?
In the column that started this whole thing, Bernie Miklasz mentions a couple of illuminating incidents. In one of them, just last season, Paletta said that Jim Edmonds was incapable of running, fielding or throwing before the start of a weekend series. Two days later, La Russa had him in the lineup. Another time, La Russa started Albert Pujols over the objections of trainer Barry Weinberg.
Just as La Russa critized Scott Rolen the other day for wanting to have it both ways when it comes to injuries, the manager appears to want to do the same. If the medical staff is so good, why do you choose to ignore them?
Defend the doctors all you want, but it ignores the culpability of others involved in the decision making process.
"The doctors are doing their jobs," wrote Derrick Goold last week. "This is more about an apparent organizational philosophy."
It's that philosophy that has La Russa in the middle of yet another media controversy this season. Comments Showing comments in chronological order [Show most recent comments first] |
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Do you honestly believe that crap about Duncan abandoning one son and coaching the other one? Maybe Dave loves Shelley more than Chris.
I think the media is bent on putting a negative light on everything LaRussa so that they can get rid him. Then the door to the coach will keep on revolving until DeWitt finds someone who can work with a Royal sized payroll
You can almost guarantee that the payroll will be significantly smaller within the next three years. Keep the owner happy...then everybody is happy!
Yeah right.
ok these stories are just getting dumb. Does anybody believe this crap.
Okay here's my question Mike...
Is there a possibility that Jocketty hasn't been "at his best" or that players "aren't available" recently even going back to last off-season because Jocketty knows he's leaving and heading to a central division opponent... and if he knows he's leaving to the Reds, why in the WORLD would he want to make a division opponent considerably better?
Especially when he has all the job security in the world and can just cop out and use the "no one is available" line or the "they're not available at market value" line.
This is a bit of a conspiracy theory I suppose. But it does seem incredibly curious to me that there are all these rumors about him leaving to go to another team in the central division...and all of a sudden he's gotten INCREDIBLY cold on the GM front over the last year, unlike previous years when he had been on fire making moves.
What do you think?
I'm sure Royal fans would drool over having a Cardinal-size payroll! Matt, why do you hate DeWitt? The Cardinal payroll will never approach the Yankees or Red Sox or even the Cubs due to the significant difference in market size. But the payroll has always been high enough for this team to win. The DeWitt/Jocketty/LaRussa administration has been successful on all levels but all good things must end. Too bad they sometimes have to end ugly!
Look at what we got in the offseason...Wells and Kennedy. Both have turned into major flops. If the owners were willing to part with more money, we might have been able to sign someone who is not the worse pitcher in the League. Walt and Tony are only signing people that the ownership was willing to pay. The Cards are swimming in money and the ownership is not willing to part with it. It makes the team worse, the fans madder, and morons like Miklasz something to write about.
BTW: Fair Weather Bernie is now pulling for the Cubs.
Matt: Whom exactly should we have signed?
http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/mlb/new...
There is every starting pitcher that was available to be signed last year, The 2B list looks far more barren. With 20/20 hindsight 6 months into the deals it looks like Ted Lilly was a good snag, & Mark DeRosa was worth the extra cash over Kennedy. But 80%-90% of those players don't look like any kind of improvement.
If the Cardinals had thrown money at the problem spots what would we have ended up with? The highest priced 2B & SP that we seriously talked to were Ray Durham & Jason Schmidt. How many more wins would that $23 million a year have gotten us versus the $7 million a year for Wells & Kennedy.
At least they didn't resign Weaver, then they would be paying more than twice Kip Wells salary for an even more terrible pitcher.
We should have signed Suppan and Schmidt.
Weaver was on the road to success with Duncan. He definitely would have done better than the losers, Reyes and Wells.
We could have traded for some decent 2b help.
Prior to the season I to really wanted to see the Cardinals sign Schmidt, while he's been injured so far when he is at his best he is an all-star caliber pitcher. Suppan on the other hand is almost the definition of a league average pitchers, while that is a lot more valuable than it sounds it's not worth giving a long term contract to. Do you want Suppan in 2010? He had a great first month this season, but since May 1st he's got over a 6 ERA and a WHIP of 1.70. As a fan I don't want to see what he degrades to 3 more years down the road.
On the Weaver situation if you believed Dave Duncan was such a miracle worker why not sign Kip Wells instead and let Duncan work his magic? Number-wise prior to this season Kip Wells & Jeff Weaver were pretty darn similar. Same age, drafted with the 14th & 16th picks in the same year. Weaver had been a slightly better pitcher, but Wells was stuck on some pretty terrible Pirates teams and had the better strikeout rate.
Not sure who the Cardinals could have traded with for 2B, exactly what team has an extra infielder of any quality they can afford to trade? I would have liked to see Ray Durham or Marcus Giles signed, although neither has done that great so far this year(but either would still be a great improvement on Kennedy). At this point I just wish the Cardinals would promote somebody like Jarrett Hoffpauir and throw them the second base job to see if they can stick even if it means eating the rest of Kennedys contract to release him at the end of the season.
I like that guy named Miles at second. I would have preferred they give the job to him and spend the money they spent on Kennedy for a pitcher. Miles is under-appreciated, in my estimation...
I think many of you are missing the point from a business perspective. It is by design that the Cardinals did very little in the off season. 1) Just won World Series, everyone is excited. 2) Save more $$ on roster 3) Still draw 3 million in 2007 4) Regroup in off season to create new excitement for 2008 and another 3 million in St. Louis.
No big deal to the ownership.