This is Why We Have the Label "Managers Don't Do That Much"

It's true that managers have some influence on a game, on a team, or in a clubhouse. But, unless a manager re-teaches all his players how to hit, throw and field, it's pretty hard to conclude that a manager can be responsible for a group of players suddenly outperforming their career metrics. But some people just don't get it. I present: Gerry Fraley's terrible puff piece about Tony LaRussa, a consummate baseball wise man and the gritty, disciplined leader of the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Cardinals are outperforming expectations this year. Nobody expected much of them, and everyone's surprised to see them leading the wild-card. How should we account for this?

• Should we account for the utterly unexpected appearance of a guy like this guy, who's OPSing .936 in his first full season?
• Or perhaps we might consider this guy, also in his first full major league season, OPSing .849 with seventeen homers?
• Should we account for this guy's excellent season so far, so excellent that he's almost a full run under his career ERA?
• Or perhaps this guy, who's finally learned to pitch in the majors and is also nearly a run under his career ERA over more starts than he'd had in his entire career before 2008?
• Or perhaps this guy, who has the fifth highest career OPS in all 213547 years of baseball history, has been universally acknowledged as the inheritor to the term "Herculean" and is actually outperforming his career numbers this year?

Nope, Gerry Fraley wants to attribute it all to this guy, who has no homers, no strikeouts, and an OPS of 0.

The best part about this article is that there are some patently ridiculous things in it. For example, Gerry cites how the Cards have had a lot of DL problems:

The Cardinals' injured list has had star power...

This is true. Many of the Cardinals's best players have been on the DL, though I would argue that Gerry's list is a bunch of players with 2005 star power like Mark Mulder and Matt Clement, who have no 2008 star power.

and the front-line shortstop in Cesar Izturis.

What? It's pretty ridiculous to call your shortstop front line when he has an OPS+ of 68 and his fielding averages are only slightly above league average.

The Cardinals essentially have only three everyday players: catcher Yadier Molina, third baseman Troy Glaus and Pujols. La Russa has used every bit of the roster to fill in the remaining spots.

Ryan Ludwick and Skip Schumaker have played 79 and 83 games, all in the outfield. I'm pretty sure those guys are "everyday outfielders". Rick Ankiel might fall below "everyday" because he's only played in 75 games... one more than Pujols. Seriously, Gerry, you have to look these things up before you slap them in print!

There are a lot of quotes in this article as well. In fact, Gerry supports his argument with a lot of quotes from various Cardinals who suggest that their manager's stoic fortitude drives this team forward. Overall, I think LaRussa said it best himself. Here's what the man, the myth, the legend says about the reasons his team is winning:

"It's everybody that's in uniform, everyone that's involved in this clubhouse," La Russa said. "We're all here to compete, whatever the set of circumstances. It's that simple. You grow to like certain teams. I like this team. It has a big heart. They come to compete every day. It's never completely fair, but you don't want to see it get so unfair that the season gets away from this team. That would break my heart."

What?

might as well make it 2 posts in one day regarding some idiot recommending outrageously excessive punishments

tony la russa, you're a big time idiot. i can't decide who is more out of touch with how things work: the guy from my previous post who thinks burglars deserve life in prison, or tony with his comments here about how the league should punish pitchers who hit batters in the head. granted, one is talking about the criminal justice system in real life and the other is talking about a professional sport, so its hard to compare. lets just agree that theyre both expressing abso-fucking-lutely insane ideas.

the backstory: reds pitcher aaron harang hit cardinals catcher gary bennett in the head with a pitch on wednesday. harang later apologized. bennett accepted, saying he was sure it was an accident and that there were no hard feelings. end of story? not if la russa and his transition lenses have anything to say about it!

"It's accidental because he didn't mean to hit him, but he meant to throw the ball up and in and that's a very dangerous thing," La Russa said. "I've probably said it 100 times in the 20 years I've managed, so it ain't new material. But if you're a big league pitcher you should be able to get the ball below the shoulder."

this is like saying "if you make it to the NBA, you should never ever miss a layup." anyone who's watched maybe 20 or so baseball games in their life should know that this is not the case. there are plenty of successful big league pitchers who accidentally throw balls as high as a batter's head from time to time. the cardinals themselves, during la russa's tenure as manager, once famously employed a pitcher named rick ankiel who had quite a bit of trouble keeping the ball "below the shoulder." ankiel's tenure as a big league pitcher was relatively short. still, he made it to the big leagues, and had limited success, despite having shall we say minor control issues.

On Tuesday, La Russa said a first-time offender should receive a two-week suspension, a month for the second offense and a full season for a third occurrence.

that is completely and totally batshit insane. i can't even put together any other sentences to describe how dumb that proposal is. i bet tony would also endorse the following punishments:

-15 game suspension from the NHL for high sticking
-lifetime ban from the NFL for roughing the quarterback
-any european soccer player who gets a red card is immediately thrown out of their league and must spend a year in the MLS before reinstatement

ha! comedy by exaggeration. sorry, now back to tony being stupid.

He emphasized that goes for his pitchers, too.
"If our guy does it I yell, 'Get it down or you're out of there,"' La Russa said.

maybe he's yelled that to some 20 year-old minor leaguer during spring training. but i'll bet a fair sum of money tony has never made that threat to any cardinals player on the major league roster during a regular season or playoff game.

presumably la russa takes this stance for safety related reasons. i can't think of any other reasons he would feel so strongly about this issue, can you? well, i hate to resort to ad hominem attacks, but what the heck, it seems somewhat fair in this specific case. hey tony: if you're so concerned with safety, how about you don't drive drunk? asshole.