Pending board explosion. (Updated: Cards resign Miles)

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cpebbles
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Re: Pending board explosion. (Updated: Cards resign Miles)

Post by cpebbles »

What, Kennedy doesn't have enough of a track record of sucking for LaRussa's tastes? Last year was a good starting point.

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GatewaySnayke
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Re: Pending board explosion. (Updated: Cards resign Miles)

Post by GatewaySnayke »

I blame this on the parody poster over at Cards Talk.

And just imagine -- if they took Izturis and Miles' salary and combined it together, they could have found enough change in their pockets, dresser drawers, car seats and couch cushions to bring back Eckstein.

That Mozeliak! Everyone else is playing checkers and he's outsmarting them in chess like a Garry Kasparov. Why I remember just a few weeks ago he was moving out the old pieces, getting younger talent that knew how to get on base without a soft hit ground ball through the right side. The old guys had no future! Wanna play this year, Jim Edmonds? Not for this team! How about you, Eckstein? Not only are you NOT welcome back but we aren't even going to give you a chance by offering arbitration!

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clement
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Re: Pending board explosion. (Updated: Cards resign Miles)

Post by clement »

Stunning.

$1.4 million for Miles at this point is a real head-scratcher.

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ghostrunner
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Re: Pending board explosion. (Updated: Cards resign Miles)

Post by ghostrunner »

I hate to say it, but this seems like La Russa pulling more strings. I wanted him back, but I thought with the new "approach," this wouldn't be an issue.

Larry over at VEB posted this today:
i'm reasonably certain that miles was re-signed because tony demanded it --- because he thinks miles will help the cardinals "compete" in 2008. i e-mailed the following question to an informed source: "if the front office doesn't want the guy (and i assume that nobody wants him but la russa), why does the manager get to make the call?" the response came back: "he ain't just any manager."
.....

.... in spite of what many people think, mozeliak is not an ignoramus. he gets concepts such as on-base percentage and zone rating. and unlike walt, he's actually listening to the sabermetricians in the front office; those guys are not ignoramuses either. but they're still not empowered, despite the big shakeup. la russa's got the owner in his corner; for all we know (warning: unfounded speculation to follow), dewitt --- who desperately wanted la russa back for another year or two --- agreed to give tony a bigger say-so on personnel decisions, as an inducement to get la russa to re-up.

some of you have been saying as much for weeks; i've suspended judgment, waiting to see how things play out. there have been some mildly encouraging signs, but the miles re-signing is very, very discouraging.
I guess that's where I'm at. It seems like we are going in the right direction in some ways, but the only explanation I have for this move is Tony. If this is the sort of thing that will go on, I wish they had gone another way. I still think he's a great field manager, but someone has to put him in his place on this stuff. If, in fact, that's what is happening.

Having said that, even with this move I think we're better than others here seem to believe.

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EastonBlues22
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Re: Pending board explosion. (Updated: Cards resign Miles)

Post by EastonBlues22 »

This offseason is starting to remind me of the Mike Keenan years for the Blues, except I have more respect of TLR's ability to manage a game than I ever had for Keenan's hockey "system."

It's very hard for managers (who closely interact with their players on a daily basis) to remain objective about those players and their performance levels. Keenan shipped in personal favorites Noonan, Tikkanen, Hudson, Creighton, Kravchuk, Matteau, and others from his previous coaching stops. The result was a dismal product low on talent, youth, and energy but high on "intangibles" and "winning experience."

I really don't want to see the Cardinals go down that path. If this is true, then someone up top needs to sack up and put TLR back in his place. Frankly, I'm quite disappointed that Mozeliak didn't do it himself.

Edit: Not that I anticipate that sort of full scale implosion happening with the Cardinals over the next few years...I just cringe at the thought of those notions being given credence when roster decisions are being made.

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Re: Pending board explosion. (Updated: Cards resign Miles)

Post by greenback44 »

I don't know that Mozeliak can put TLR back in his place. TLR makes more money than Mozeliak. He's headed to the Hall of Fame, and Mozeliak isn't. TLR was hired and extended by DeWitt himself, and as VEB implied, who knows how much power TLR was granted as part of the decision to bring him back. I have to wonder if the problem here is more DeWitt than TLR or Mozeliak.

All that said, if I were Mozeliak, I wouldn't go to war for Brendan Ryan. Most folks take it granted that Ryan is better than Miles, and I'd bet if you got some booze into LaRussa, even he would admit that Ryan is a better ballplayer than Miles (although he'd waste our time asking if the difference is "significant"). But he's not the kind of player or guy that you go out on a limb for. That's the bigger picture, and why I'm still laughing about this. The Cardinals are enough of a mess that it'll get worse in the standings before it gets better.

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Re: Pending board explosion. (Updated: Cards resign Miles)

Post by New Pagodi »

I guess I just really don't understand why they would do this. If some of the posters on scout are to believed, the Cardinals do have people to monitor what is being said about them on various message boards and blogs. And we know Dewitt is not unaffected by criticism - he personally wrote a letter to that one columnist who called him cheap last year.

But this is the second time this season that one of their moves has been universally trashed throughout the blogoshpere. The first of course was the Izturis signing. (A third may have been the Edmonds trade, but I think the response on that was mixed once it was revealed he requested the trade.)

So it seems to me there were two clear alternatives: make a move that brings nothing to the team, wastes 1.4 million, and results in almost universal condemnation or do nothing and have the team be just as well off. Given everything we know about the team, it's just unfathomable to me that that they would pick the first option.

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EastonBlues22
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Re: Pending board explosion. (Updated: Cards resign Miles)

Post by EastonBlues22 »

greenback44 wrote:I don't know that Mozeliak can put TLR back in his place. TLR makes more money than Mozeliak. He's headed to the Hall of Fame, and Mozeliak isn't. TLR was hired and extended by DeWitt himself, and as VEB implied, who knows how much power TLR was granted as part of the decision to bring him back. I have to wonder if the problem here is more DeWitt than TLR or Mozeliak.

All that said, if I were Mozeliak, I wouldn't go to war for Brendan Ryan. Most folks take it granted that Ryan is better than Miles, and I'd bet if you got some booze into LaRussa, even he would admit that Ryan is a better ballplayer than Miles (although he'd waste our time asking if the difference is "significant"). But he's not the kind of player or guy that you go out on a limb for. That's the bigger picture, and why I'm still laughing about this. The Cardinals are enough of a mess that it'll get worse in the standings before it gets better.
I agree that a one year deal for Miles isn't someone that you should feel like you need to draw a line in the sand for. Neither, for that matter, is a one year deal for Izturis. Still, if enough deals like that are made you can end up wasting a signficant amount of time and resources...and that's ultimately going to reflect poorly on you as a GM spearheading what is essentially a rebuilding effort.

Besides, if you let TLR (and Dewitt, for that matter) undermine your authority early and often on the small things, it is going to be all that much harder to hold him/them in check when it is time to make more significant (and perhaps controversial) decisions. By caving now, Moz is only making his job more difficult in the future. Not an auspicious start (assuming that's what's actually going on).

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Re: Pending board explosion. (Updated: Cards resign Miles)

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ghostrunner wrote:Larry over at VEB posted this today:
i'm reasonably certain that miles was re-signed because tony demanded it --- because he thinks miles will help the cardinals "compete" in 2008.
It seems like we are going in the right direction in some ways, but the only explanation I have for this move is Tony. If this is the sort of thing that will go on, I wish they had gone another way. I still think he's a great field manager, but someone has to put him in his place on this stuff. If, in fact, that's what is happening.
I honestly think that Tony, at this point in his career as a future Hall of Fame manager, is more interested in trying to work miracles with an underdog team than he is trying to win with a team that is loaded with talent. There was talk of him being in the running for manager of the year last season until that early September collapse. I think he likes being in a position where he's going to look like a genius if they're above .500. I suppose it could be up for debate but, in my mind, he's pretty much proven throughout his career that he can't win the big one when he's expected to. Fielding guys like Miles, Ludwick and Ryan and running starters out there like Looper, Wellemeyer and Thompson can only make him look good if they win. If they lose, LaRussa's off the hook because he just didn't have the talent.

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Re: Pending board explosion. (Updated: Cards resign Miles)

Post by greenback44 »

EastonBlues22 wrote:I agree that a one year deal for Miles isn't someone that you should feel like you need to draw a line in the sand for. Neither, for that matter, is a one year deal for Izturis. Still, if enough deals like that are made you can end up wasting a signficant amount of time and resources...and that's ultimately going to reflect poorly on you as a GM spearheading what is essentially a rebuilding effort.

Besides, if you let TLR (and Dewitt, for that matter) undermine your authority early and often on the small things, it is going to be all that much harder to hold him/them in check when it is time to make more significant (and perhaps controversial) decisions. By caving now, Moz is only making his job more difficult in the future. Not an auspicious start (assuming that's what's actually going on).
I don't have pleasant thoughts about Mozeliak right now. We're not sure of the details, but we know he failed in some capacity. If TLR has significant authority, then part of Mozeliak's job would be communicate to everybody why moves like this are a bad idea, and obviously either wasn't convincing. Now I can see a scenario where TLR completely ignored him and steamrolled him, but that's only a neutral for Mozeliak and not a positive.

I'm not worried about the long-term consequences for Mozeliak here. If he's telling DeWitt that TLR is building a 75-win team, then his influence will only go up (the Mulder trade was the best thing that happened to Luhnow). TLR's probably gone after the 2009 season, when the Luhnow drafts start showing up en masse, anyway.

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