Do you think Tony LaRussa is "overrated" as a ML m

[Richie Allen]

Watch who you quote please.

Allergy medicine.
Changed it.

[GatewaySnayke]

Guess who put all of those players into a position and/or was instrumental in giving them an opportunity to succeed?

But Dan, Tony did nothing out of the ordinary there. He had no choice but to go with Weaver, Eckstein and Molina.

Plus in 2005, he had Rolen, Reggie, and Walker on the DL for most of the season and somehow won over 100 games with So, Mabry, and Nunez.

Yeah...that and the undisputed best rotation in baseball + 1.000 OPS from Pujols and .900+ from Edmonds. Nunez was crap after July 31 that season.

Maybe the player rises to the occasion to play in St. Louis, or maybe Tony just knows the strengths of each player and knows when to use them to let them shine.

There's no way to quantify a player rising to the occasion though. Outside of a hot streak of course. A player who has been a .260 hitter his entire career cannot suddenly become a .330 hitter just playing for a different manager. He can get hot, but he's not going to stay hot forever. There is so much luck that goes into this game.

Then why are you so quick to blame him when we lose? Sounds like your opinion is that a manager can not make a team better but can, most certainly, make them worse.

No, I think it goes both ways. It's when he doesn't give the Cardinals their best chance to score runs (i.e. starting Taguchi over Duncan) that I blame him.

[maddash]

Gateway, again, you're putting way too much emphasis on what amounts to a very small part of a manager's job. There's quite a bit a manager does that we don't end up seeing... at least not directly.

[GatewaySnayke]

Perhaps there is. But from what I see on the surface, I'm pretty sure that if you gave the worst manager the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals, he could've coaxed 100 wins out of them.

[StL Dan]

Guess who put all of those players into a position and/or was instrumental in giving them an opportunity to succeed?

But Dan, Tony did nothing out of the ordinary there. He had no choice but to go with Weaver, Eckstein and Molina.

Not to be meanspirited, Snayke, but, that's a pretty naive outlook.

[maddash]

Perhaps there is. But from what I see on the surface, I'm pretty sure that if you gave the worst manager the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals, he could've coaxed 100 wins out of them.

This has nothing to do with being overrated/underrated, but all you have to know about Tony La Russa is this: if Tony goes, so does Duncan.

Now, you may think Papa Dunc is overrated as well, but I think you'd have a hard time finding a group of "Tony Haters" that also want a new pitching coach.

[GatewaySnayke]

Guess who put all of those players into a position and/or was instrumental in giving them an opportunity to succeed?

But Dan, Tony did nothing out of the ordinary there. He had no choice but to go with Weaver, Eckstein and Molina.

Not to be meanspirited, Snayke, but, that's a pretty naive outlook.

Not really. What other options did he really have? Miles did not provide a better chance of winning than Eckstein, Bennett certainly didn't give the Cardinals a better shot than Molina, and unless Mulder had super fast muscle healing, he wasn't going to be better than The Weave.

And remember, the Cardinals weren't lighting the world on fire when these three were regularly in the lineup in September.

[Popeye_Card]

Perhaps there is. But from what I see on the surface, I'm pretty sure that if you gave the worst manager the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals, he could've coaxed 100 wins out of them.

The same team picked by everyone and their uncle to finish a distant 3rd in the division behind the Cubs and Astros?

--P--

[GatewaySnayke]

Perhaps there is. But from what I see on the surface, I'm pretty sure that if you gave the worst manager the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals, he could've coaxed 100 wins out of them.

The same team picked by everyone and their uncle to finish a distant 3rd in the division behind the Cubs and Astros?

--P--

Yep, that team. The team where two players put up OPS+ of over 170, and another finished with 160. The team where the two corner OFers put up 102 and 105 and then another one came along and put up a 146.

I'm not comfortable saying, "hey, Tony, nice job on getting Rolen and Edmonds career years, then on convincing Colorado to swap Larry Walker for almost nothing."

[Radio_Bugtussle]

What seperates TLR from others is the results he's gotten following extrordinary circumstances.

TLR regrouped the A's following and got a win in the Earthquake series.

The 2001 Cardinals came out of the gate on all cylinders following the September 11th stoppage.

The '02 Cardinals recovered well from the loss of Darryl Kile.

Not all managers get such good results in disasterous, tragic circumstances like that.