{"id":1680,"date":"2009-10-13T08:31:30","date_gmt":"2009-10-13T15:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/13\/memo-to-mike-rizzo-on-tony-larussa\/"},"modified":"2009-10-13T08:31:30","modified_gmt":"2009-10-13T15:31:30","slug":"memo-to-mike-rizzo-on-tony-larussa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/13\/memo-to-mike-rizzo-on-tony-larussa\/","title":{"rendered":"Memo to Mike Rizzo on Tony LaRussa"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are growing rumors about a rift between Tony LaRussa and the Cardinals after the failure of the Cardinals to perform to expectations in the\u00c2\u00a0NL playoff series.\u00c2\u00a0 A recent <\/em>column by Buster Olne<\/em><\/a>y is one of the more expansive to opine on the subject.\u00c2\u00a0 I hope Mike Rizzo of the Nationals has read it.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Before LaRussa came over to the Cardinals, the team had been wandering in the wilderness for almost a decade.\u00c2\u00a0 The Cardinals are one of the great franchises and getting them back on track was a challenge that helped draw LaRussa to St. Louis.\u00c2\u00a0 Their previous pennant in 1987 had been followed up by season after season of frustration.\u00c2\u00a0 Hiring Tony LaRussa not only brought through the Gateway Arch the best manager in the game, but\u00c2\u00a0the best group of players and coaches one person could command.<\/p>\n

LaRussa brought Dave Duncan with him from Oakland.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Duncan is arguably the best pitching coach in the game.\u00c2\u00a0 For anyone who has missed his ability to transform marginal pitching talent into front line starters and relievers, it has been a long, storied, and very classy\u00c2\u00a0act.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Olney opines in his ESPN article that\u00c2\u00a0Duncan may leave regardless whether LaRussa does.\u00c2\u00a0 Duncan by himself will command a significant following–pitchers who will leave the Cardinals for their mentor.\u00c2\u00a0 Specifically, Joel Piniero has reclaimed his career with Duncan’s help in 2009.\u00c2\u00a0 Piniero won 15 games in 2009 and pitched to a 3.49 ERA.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Always a prodigous talent, Piniero had almost pitched\u00c2\u00a0his way out of baseball after seven less than stellar seasons in Seattle and one in Boston.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Getting Dave Duncan to come to Washington to work with Stephen Strasburg might be\u00c2\u00a0the best arranged marriage outside the Indian subcontinent.\u00c2\u00a0 Getting Piniero as a bonus makes computing the dollar value of that\u00c2\u00a0one just a set of\u00c2\u00a0recurring\u00c2\u00a0infinity signs.<\/p>\n

LaRussa’s worth\u00c2\u00a0is exponentially greater.\u00c2\u00a0 His ability to draw players may not be what it once was when Mark McGwire signed with the Cardinals to play for his former boss, but it is up there.\u00c2\u00a0 The reunion of McGwire and LaRussa made history.\u00c2\u00a0 The value of a manager like LaRussa to a team like the Nationals–one that has to beg players to return phone calls–is, again, off the charts.<\/p>\n

There have been numerous local articles in the Washington papers speculating on the value of this player or that to the Nationals in the hope that the team may land top free agents.\u00c2\u00a0 Tony LaRussa is the best free agent that is not yet available.\u00c2\u00a0 But if for some reason he walks away from the Cardinals, if they are willing to cut the ties to possibly the greatest living manager in the game, then the Nationals should forget all the other free agents until they sign this one.<\/p>\n

Anyone who has read Buzz Bissinger’s book about LaRussa, 3 Nights in August,<\/em> knows something about how hard LaRussa has worked to reach the pinnacle of his profession.\u00c2\u00a0 LaRussa did not pile up wins with the Yankees or the Dodgers, he won them the old fashioned way.\u00c2\u00a0 He earned them with teams like Oakland, the White Sox, and the Cardinals.\u00c2\u00a0 Before there was Billy Beane, there was LaRussa (and Sandy Alderson) making winners of the low-budget Athletics.<\/p>\n

The reason the Cardinals may let LaRussa walk is contained in the preface of Bissinger’s book.\u00c2\u00a0 He cites a Sports Illustrated survey of players about the best and worst managers.\u00c2\u00a0 LaRussa appeared on both lists because, as Bissinger says, he operates with a distinct style “regardless the critics chorus.”\u00c2\u00a0 LaRussa is not\u00c2\u00a0Billy Martin, but something has pushed him to move on even when winning with both Oakland and Chicago.<\/p>\n

Bissinger calls LaRussa, a “baseball man,” and one who loves to be called such.\u00c2\u00a0 No one will say in today’s world that Washington, DC is a “baseball town.”\u00c2\u00a0 Far from it.\u00c2\u00a0 But Mike Rizzo and the owners of the Nationals could made a lot of progress toward changing that with one move.\u00c2\u00a0 If he leaves St. Louis, bring Tony LaRussa to Washington to manage the Nationals.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bob Short lured Ted Williams into managing in Washington, so it can be done.\u00c2\u00a0 It would be the biggest challenge of LaRussa’s life in baseball.\u00c2\u00a0 But making the case\u00c2\u00a0that LaRussa is the greatest manager of all time–or at least better than Torre and\u00c2\u00a0Bobby Cox–could be settled right\u00c2\u00a0here on the\u00c2\u00a0banks of the Anacostia River.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are growing rumors about a rift between Tony LaRussa and the Cardinals after the failure of the Cardinals to perform to expectations in the\u00c2\u00a0NL playoff series.\u00c2\u00a0 A recent column by Buster Olney is one of the more expansive to opine on the subject.\u00c2\u00a0 I hope Mike Rizzo of the Nationals has read it.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-view-from-the-capital","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}