Baseball Nation - Tony La Russa To Manage NL Team In 2012 All-Star Game

MLB Announces Tony La Russa Will Manage In All-Star Game

2012-01-24T20:53:51Z

Tony La Russa retired after the St. Louis Cardinals won the 2011 World Series. On Tuesday, the commissioner’s office announced he’ll manage one more game:

News: Tony La Russa will manage the NL team in the @AllStarGame, Commissioner Selig announced today.

This is not without precedent. Danny Murtaugh retired as manager of the Pirates following their 1971 World Series win over the Orioles and returned to manage the 1972 NL All-Stars… and later returned from retirement to manage the Pirates for more than three more years, until his death in December 1976.

There have been two All-Star managers who switched teams after their clubs played in the World Series; Dick Williams, A’s manager in 1973, managed the AL All-Stars in 1974 in an Angels uniform, and Dusty Baker, Giants manager in 2002, managed the NL All-Stars in 2003 wearing a Cubs uniform.

Conversely, Casey Stengel was not retained as Yankees manager after his team lost the 1960 World Series to the Pirates, and he did not manage the 1961 AL All-Stars; there were two All-Star games that season, both managed by Paul Richards, who had managed the Orioles to a second-place finish in 1960.

It’s not yet been announced whether La Russa will wear a Cardinals uniform in his managerial role for the 2012 NL All-Stars, though that would seem likely. He could, though, go in the style of Connie Mack, who wore a suit and tie while managing, or perhaps pay homage to the first All-Star Game, where the teams wore uniforms that read “NATIONAL LEAGUE” and “AMERICAN LEAGUE”.

Ryne Sandberg Being Considered For Managerial Opening ... In St. Louis

2011-11-02T19:18:17Z

When the Mike Quade dismissal was announced, the Chicago Cubs director of baseball operations Theo Epstein included this tidbit in the press release:

The next manager ... must have managerial or coaching experience at the major league level.

This seemingly eliminated Cubs Hall-of-Famer Ryne Sandberg from consideration. Sandberg was a popular name in discussion of the Cubs' managerial opening, both because of his organizational ties and his current job as the manager of the triple-A Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, an affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Sandberg is going to get consideration for a major-league managerial opening, but it won't be just from the Cubs. From Ken Rosenthal:

Sources: #Cardinals have asked permission to interview Ryne Sandberg for managerial opening.

Well. That's like the Red Sox considering Derek Jeter for an opening, or the Dodgers looking at Barry Bonds to be their hitting coach. It's one of those things that just can't happen in the universe that we know now.

But if the Cubs are going to pass Sandberg over, other teams will be interested. One of them happens to be the Cubs' blood rival. Maybe it's just a way to tease Chicago fans, or maybe it's something that's really going to happen, making Cubs fans ill for the next several years. Should be interesting.

The Real Genius Of Tony La Russa

2011-11-01T19:38:40Z

Monday evening on NPR, All Things Considered Robert Siegel talked to Mike Pesca -- who knows his baseball and his sabermetrics -- about the retirement of Tony La Russa. You can listen to the piece here, but here's the chunk that caught my eye:

SIEGEL: La Russa walks off with 2,728 regular season wins. That's the third most in baseball history and he was named manager of the year four times. NPR's Mike Pesca joins us now. And Mike, what made Tony La Russa such a great manager?

MIKE PESCA: It was that he flew against convention. Baseball is at its best when it's connected to its history, but it's at its worst and most frustrating when it's chained to its history, where people do things just because that's always how they've been done. And La Russa questioned everything. He was a first rate intellect. He was a lawyer. He was one of the first to use computers as a means of getting statistics and he would question everything, so sometimes, he wouldn't bat the pitcher ninth. He'd bat him eighth.

And sometimes, he'd bring out, you know, eight pitchers in a single game. This wasn't the way things had always been done and he was respectful of the game, certainly, and he knew his place in history because he was a minor leaguer forever. A tendon injury hurt his arm and he didn't get a shot at the big leagues, so he really loved baseball, but he also loved to tweak it. And some of the changes, especially with the bullpen, that Tony La Russa made will go on forever.

Well, it's not all the bullpen, right? When we talk about the things La Russa did that we can measure, did anything else stick? La Russa has for many years taken a special interest in players who could play multiple positions. In 1988, Tony Phillips played first base, second base, shortstop, third base, left field, center field, and right field for the A's. In 2011, Allen Craig played first base, second base, third base, left field, center field, and right field for the Cardinals.

But has La Russa's fondness for super-utility players caught on around the majors? Not really. There might be a few more guys like that because of La Russa, but it's certainly not something that's changed baseball.

Same thing with batting the pitcher eighth. For one thing, La Russa never really embraced the tactic for long. And while two or three other managers have fooled around with it, everybody's figured it just isn't worth the attendant headaches.

Amidst a review of La Russa's career -- which of course includes a couple of gratuitous swipes at Moneyball and sabermetrics -- Buzz Bissinger drops in this list of examples of La Russa's "strange genius":

Sometimes the strategy had mixed results, like deciding for several seasons to bat the pitcher eighth. But the overwhelming majority of the time the strategy worked, not just from one game to another but in effecting lasting change. It was La Russa, in concert with his genius pitching coach Dave Duncan, who defined the use of the ninth-inning closer when they were with the Oakland A's and wanted to utilize starter-turned-reliever Dennis Eckersley in as many games as possible. It was La Russa who used computer analysis as far back as the early 1980s when he was managing his first team, the Chicago White Sox. It was La Russa who paid obsessive attention to how certain batters did against pitchers and vice versa and therefore adjusted his strategy accordingly. And it was La Russa who elevated the role of situational relief pitching into a whole new dimension in this year's playoffs by calling for his bullpen a record 75 times, and winning the World Series despite no starter going more than five innings in the National League Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Did La Russa use "computer analysis" in the early 1980s? I don't know. I know the White Sox used computers to compile and sort various data. But the notion that La Russa was the first to use batter-vs.-pitcher data is preposterous. Earl Weaver quite famously had notecards with the same sort of information, and of course he was using that data to set his lineups when La Russa will still playing third base in the American Association.

Did La Russa (and Duncan) invent the modern closer? Not exactly. In 1988, Eckersley's first season as the (supposedly) prototypical one-inning closer, he pitched 73 innings in 60 games. That same season, Twins closer Jeff Reardon pitched 73 innings in 63 games. Two years before that, Astros closer Dave Smith had pitched 56 innings in 54 games.

I'm not saying that La Russa wasn't an innovator, or that he wasn't influential. I'm just not sure that he invented anything, or that even if he did, someone else wouldn't have come along and invented it a year or two later.

Just one more example ... La Russa is often credited with inventing the one-out lefty reliever. I certainly remember it that way ... Here comes Rick Honeycutt again, just to face one left-handed hitter. Damned pitching changes, all they do is slow down the game!

But Honeycutt's first season in that role was 1992, in which he pitched only 39 innings in 54 appearances.

In 1991, Dodgers lefty John Candeleria pitched 34 innings in 59 games.

Maybe he was the first modern LOOGY. Maybe La Russa was actually taking his cues from Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda. As were other managers, perhaps. Because right along with Honeycutt in '92, Boston's Tony Fossas threw 30 innings in 60 games and Milwaukee's Jesse Orosco threw 39 innings in 59 games.

You might argue that La Russa refined (or perhaps even fetishized) contemporary bullpen usage; that he was an early adopter. But I just don't see where he actually invented any of this stuff.

The problem, I think, with portraying La Russa as some sort of mad genius innovator is that we lose sight of what really made La Russa a great manager, which (boringly enough) is the same thing that makes most great managers: the requisite abilities to evaluate talent and motivate players.

I'm not saying those things have been completely ignored in the various requiems I've seen. Some attention has been given to his (and in fairness, Dave Duncan's) ability to salvage the careers of otherwise-unwanted veteran pitchers. And La Russa's impatience with guys like Scott Rolen, J.D. Drew, and (recently) Colby Rasmus is oft-noted, by both his detractors and supporters. His impatience might have cost him a few good players over the years, but it probably gained him a great deal of credibility with the players who remained.

I think Tony La Russa was a genius, too. He was a genius like John McGraw and Joe McCarthy were geniuses. He knew how to spot players who could help him win, in ways that weren't always obvious to everyone else. He also knew how to keep almost everyone on the roster pulling on the same end of the rope.

Yeah, that's old-fashioned stuff. But it's always worked, and always will.

Tony La Russa Retires, Jerry Reinsdorf Comments

2011-10-31T20:46:12Z

Jerry Reinsdorf, White Sox chairman, wasn’t the first baseball owner to hire Tony La Russa — Bill Veeck was — but La Russa had his first successes under the Reinsdorf ownership of the White Sox, winning the AL West in 1983 with 99 wins.

Less than three years after that, La Russa was fired by Hawk Harrelson, who had been made White Sox GM in an ill-advised move by Reinsdorf. Today, Reinsdorf commented on La Russa’s retirement announcement in relation to that, saying, “Tony is one of the few people I know who would do something for a friend even if it was bad for him personally. It’s a measure of the man that we fired him and remained friends.”

It’s interesting that Reinsdorf says “we” fired La Russa, since it seemed pretty clear at the time that decision was Harrelson’s alone.

La Russa went on to 25 more seasons of success in the major leagues, and apparently, had told Reinsdorf he was going to retire at the end of the season, because Reinsdorf also said, “I knew Friday night was his last game, and I wanted to be there for it. Like a father who gets more enjoyment out of seeing his children succeed, I was as happy for him Friday night as I was when we won in 2005.”

Tony La Russa Retires From All-Star Game Too

2011-10-31T18:11:43Z

Monday morning, Tony La Russa made the kind-of-but-I-guess-not-really surprising announcement that he was retiring as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, going out on top the way no other Major League manager ever has. But La Russa's announcement didn't leave one team in need of a new manager. It left two teams in need of a new manager! Good grief, the consequences!

@Ken_Rosenthal
Ken Rosenthal NL manager for 2012 ASG will be decided by commissioner's office. Could be La Russa's replacement with #STLCards, but not necessarily. #MLB
Oct 31 via Twitter for iPhoneFavorite RetweetReply

You'll remember that the managers in the All-Star Game are the managers who managed in the World Series the previous year. With La Russa removing himself, the 2012 National League All-Star team is now a rudderless collection of stars and overachievers all pulling in different directions. It's on Bud Selig to find the right guy who can get them all pulling on the same rope, because if the team can't pull itself together, it'll fall apart like pulled pork. Pull. Pull. It's not even a word, "pull." Pull.

Tony La Russa Retirement: Jim Leyland Now Active Leader In Managerial Wins

2011-10-31T16:58:37Z

Tony La Russa retired from the St. Louis Cardinals after winning the World Series, and in 33 seasons with three teams, he won six pennants and three championships. Just as impressive, his career 2738-2365 record. That's 5097 games, or 15,291 different situational relievers. Quite the career.

La Russa retired with the third-most wins as a manager, behind Connie Mack (3731 wins) and John McGraw (2763). That leaves Jim Leyland of the Detroit Tigers as the new active leader in managerial wins. Well, he's not really active, per se -- he kind likes to sit there and smoke when he gets the chance -- but he is employed, and his 1588 wins ranks 18th all-time among all managers.

After Leyland, it's Dusty Baker (1484 wins), Bruce Bochy (1360), and Davey Johnson (1188) at the top of the list for active managers. To give some perspective on how long La Russa has been around, Johnson would have to manage a 100-win team for the next 15-plus seasons to catch La Russa; Leyland would have to do it for 11-plus seasons.

If it seems like La Russa has been around forever, it's because he has.

Tony La Russa Retires: Leaving On Top Is A Rare Feat In Sports

2011-10-31T16:38:08Z

Tony La Russa managed the Cardinals to the World Series championship last Friday.

On Monday, he announced his retirement, going out as a winner.

How hard is this feat to accomplish? As actor Brent Jennings, playing Ron Washington in "Moneyball", said, "It's incredibly hard."

So difficult, in fact, that it has never before been done in baseball history. No other manager has won a World Series title and retired immediately after. Some, in fact, have gone on to less-celebrated career-enders; the all-time managerial leader in wins, Connie Mack, won five World Series, but none in his last 19 seasons. Casey Stengel managed seven Yankees teams to World Series wins, but finished his career managing the woeful expansion Mets. Joe McCarthy also won seven World Series and never had a losing season, but managed six years after his last title.

In more recent years, championship managers Bobby Cox and Joe Torre both went out with postseason appearances, but lost their final series.

We have to look to other sports to find men in these positions -- all called "head coach" rather than "manager" -- who went out the way La Russa has following the Cardinals' great postseason run.

NFL coach Bill Walsh was recently quoted by Theo Epstein, when Epstein took over the Chicago Cubs, as saying that after about 10 years, both a team and a management person should move on. Walsh took his own advice, quitting the San Francisco 49ers after ten seasons and three Super Bowl wins, the last one in 1988, his final year as a coach in the NFL.

In the NHL, Toe Blake, coach of many great Montreal Canadiens teams, won eight Stanley Cups and retired after the last of them in 1968, and Scotty Bowman, generally recognized as the greatest coach in NHL history, left coaching after his final Stanley Cup season in 2002.

Red Auerbach, whose basketball coaching career predated the start of the NBA, won titles in each of his last eight seasons, then retired from coaching -- to a long and successful career as a Celtics executive. To underscore how difficult this is to do, Phil Jackson nearly did it when he left the Chicago Bulls after winning six titles. But he came out of retirement to coach the Los Angeles Lakers, and won five more championships there -- only to hang on one season too long, searching for his second six-peat. The Lakers fell short in 2011 and Jackson is now retired.

A salute, then, to Tony La Russa for his unique feat in baseball history, and for knowing that perhaps the best time to bow out is at the top of your profession.

Tony La Russa Retires: What's Next For The Cardinals?

2011-10-31T16:28:21Z

Tony La Russa's retirement isn't exactly shocking -- he's not the first head coach to go out on top, and the man is 67 years old -- but it's certainly surprising, as nearly every indication was that La Russa would return to the Cardinals in 2012.

But he's not returning. Not unless he changes his mind real soon. About 2012, anyway. By historical standards, La Russa's old for a manager and not getting any younger. But in recent years, Bobby Cox managed at 69, Joe Torre at 70, and Jack McKeon at 80. So let's not completely discount the possibility of La Russa returning to the dugout somewhere, eventually.

It sure looks like he'll be taking 2012 off, though. Which will have certain ... ramifications.

Is Albert Pujols gone for sure?
No man except Pujols can stay. But he and La Russa seemed to enjoy a wonderful relationship. If Pujols were going to stay, one imagines that sentiment would play a part in his decision. There presumably is still some sentiment, but La Russa's exit certainly wouldn't seem to help the Cardinals' chances of retaining Pujols. And probably hurts them.

What happens to Dave Duncan?
For years, when asked how long he would manage, La Russa would jokingly respond that he would manage as long as Dave Duncan would run the pitching staff. After stints as pitching coach with the Indians and Mariners, Duncan joined La Russa with the White Sox in 1983 and they've been together ever since; when La Russa moved first to Oakland and then St. Louis, Duncan moved right along with him. La Russa's always given a great deal of credit for his teams' successes to Duncan, and at least one observer (me) believes that Duncan deserves Hall of Fame consideration.

Is this the end of the line for Duncan? Managers usually prefer their own coaches. If the Cardinals promote from within, or if they hire some unknown with little leverage, perhaps Duncan will be retained. But if they hire a name manager, he'll probably want a clean slate on the coaching staff. But if Duncan wants to keep working in baseball, there will be other opportunities.

What happens to Mark McGwire?
Remember when the Cardinals, at La Russa's behest, brought McGwire aboard as hitting coach in 2010? And people said he would be a distraction? And/or that he didn't have any meaningful experience as a coach?

In 2010, the Cardinals moved up one notch in the scoring column, from seventh in the National League to sixth. But in 2011 they jumped to first and just kept on hitting in October. If you believe that hitting coaches make a real difference, you almost have to believe that Mark McGwire richly deserves his forthcoming World Series ring.

Will the Cardinals' new manager want to keep McGwire in place? Will McGwire want to work for anyone but La Russa, who has been such a stalwart supporter? I have my doubts on both counts, especially the latter.

Who's going to manage the Cardinals now?
Who knows? But there are now three excellent jobs available: Cardinals, Red Sox, Cubs. And the opening in St. Louis is going to give the top candidates for those jobs just a bit more leverage, as all three teams might be looking at the same sort of candidate.

Most of all, we might assume that the Cardinals' chances of repeating, not good to begin with, just fell another few percentage points. Say what you want about La Russa, bu the combination of him and Dave Duncan presumably meant a few extra wins for the Cardinals, most years. And replacing them will be difficult if not impossible.