The Dusty-LaRussa debate

[JakeSlater]

Here's the thing........

 

I read "3 nights in August" this week and could not put the book down. Really gets into the head of LaRussa, and even Baker at times too. You get to see who he loves, the players he hated(Kerry Robinson), and all that stuff. I recommend it for anyone that hasn't read it.

 

For the ones that HAVE read it, I'd like to have this little debate with ya.

 

With some people here who want to bash Dusty, and give credit to LaRussa, I want to know why. Those two have a TON of the same baseball philosophy, it's not even a joke. A lot of the stuff people crucify Dusty for, Tony does in spades, and maybe even more than Dusty.

 

I just want to get into some heads here without calling Dusty an idiot or whatever. See what people think overall.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I have not read the book, but here's my take on Baker and LaRussa.

 

Baker does a pretty good job of letting his offense go without meddling. LaRussa isn't as good at this, but he's no Guillen either.

 

LaRussa has shown a willingness to try new lineups, the pitcher hitting 8th during McGwire's time comes to mind. Dusty is traditional to a fault with his lineups, leading to acquisitions based on lineup spot rather than offensive ability. There are pros and cons to both of these.

 

Dusty runs his starting pitchers into the ground, one of his worst traits. I don't really know that much about LaRussa in that respect, maybe one of our resident Cards fans can elaborate.

 

Dusty and TLR both live and die by the Lefty/Righty bullpen matchups. Dusty follows them almost blindly(see Remlinger and Farnsworth). TLR I'm not as familiar with, but he is ridiculously obsessive with L/R matchups, using 3 and 4 relievers in an inning even when not necessary.

 

From my experience, LaRussa is better with younger players than Baker. In the past you've seen TLR ride the hot streaks of Bo Hart and John Rodriguez, although with the way the Cards organization is run you don't see a lot of top prospects trying to get time. Dusty's preference for veterans is well documented. He's shown he will stick with a veteran guaranteed to give you poor performance over a younger player who is an unknown.

 

Other factors include LaRussa being much more vocal/whiny with opponents and umpires, and Dusty's "player's manager" reputation, what it entails and if it's deserved

[JakeSlater]

Thing about "running pitchers into the ground" is a little over the top, description wise. One quote in the book stated that Dusty's from the school of "the idea of a pitch count was seeing if the guy's arm was connected to his shoulder". He played longer than Tony, and at a higher level too. He sees young arms and wants them to earn their keep. Say what people want about Dusty using them too much in 2003, but we don't get near that far if he doesn't.

 

My big fault with Tony is that he and Duncan get WAY WAY WAY too by the book on things. Same with Dusty and Larry being WAY WAY WAY too by the gut on things. Each manager has a strength, being that Tony is a slick type of general that does it all by the book, and knows everything word by word. Dusty knows the game very well, but he also has these inhuman instincts that seems to know the right matchups at the right times. Difference is that you need the combination of the book and good instincts. Dusty and Larry are too instinctual, Tony and Dave are too by the book.

 

Both are awesome, both are a fault. It happens that way.

[JakeSlater]

Also, Tony is great with young players, no question about it.....he develops them about as well as any manager in baseball. Lots of patience. Read how he felt about Kerry Robinson though......couldn't stand him.

 

This is really Dusty's first true year of having real star quality young players. He has tried using young guys in the lineup, like Jason Dubois for instance, and it ends up not working. He has used the veterans because the majority of them have NOT failed in his career, and in fact, his whole career has been known for reenergizing dead careers of old guys. Hollandsworth was a REAL big exception last year with his .220 average. Neifi definitely is not an example because his career was pretty much rejuvenated, regardless of how people felt about him.

[Andy]

I don't buy that Baker ran our young arms into the ground. There are a fair few young pitchers in the game today that have been firing 200+ innings a year for a while now and suffer no ill effects (off the top of my head, Jon Garland, Mark Buehrle, Johan Santana and of course, Z himself come immediately to mind). Maybe throwing a lot of pitches had something to do with it, but Wood was having arm problems before Dusty arrived, and Prior has always been somewhat fragile so we can't put it all on "well, they threw a bunch of innings in 2003".

[Drew Doughty]

Wood wasn't having serious serious arm problems that caused him to miss a lot of time after the TJS. He had 130 innings after returning in 2000, 174 in 2001, and 213 in 2002. Since then, his inning totals have steadily declined.

[frostwyrm]

Guthrie vs. Lowell in game 1. After the game Dusty said he put in the lefty Guthrie because the Marlins had LH-swinging Lenny Harris on their bench. He preferred to face Lowell.

 

Mark Prior, the most overworked pitcher in baseball at the time, throws 116 pitches with an 11 run lead. After the game Dusty said he had Prior on a 115 pitch count. Apparently the 11 run lead meant nothing to Dusty.

 

Prior subsequently melts down in the 8th inning of his next start(game 6). The closer Borowski watches from the bullpen as the 3 run lead disappears.

 

A laboring Kerry Wood stays in game 7 for 5.2 innings and gives up 7 runs. Zambrano and Clement, both on several days rest, are spectators.

 

Veres(.359 BAA vs. RH batters) faces Gonzalez. Dumbest pitching move I have ever seen.

[wolf stansson]

Dusty runs his starting pitchers into the ground, one of his worst traits. I don't really know that much about LaRussa in that respect, maybe one of our resident Cards fans can elaborate.

I can't think of any guys who have had recurring injury problems beyond normal pitcher's issues (a tommy john or shoulder surgery here and there).

 

Dusty and TLR both live and die by the Lefty/Righty bullpen matchups. Dusty follows them almost blindly(see Remlinger and Farnsworth). TLR I'm not as familiar with, but he is ridiculously obsessive with L/R matchups, using 3 and 4 relievers in an inning even when not necessary.

Tony keeps notecards with him of all his pitchers stats against the opposing lineups. He goes with the lefty/righty matchups but not blindly.

[JakeSlater]

Guthrie vs. Lowell in game 1. After the game Dusty said he put in the lefty Guthrie because the Marlins had LH-swinging Lenny Harris on their bench. He preferred to face Lowell.

 

Mark Prior, the most overworked pitcher in baseball at the time, throws 116 pitches with an 11 run lead. After the game Dusty said he had Prior on a 115 pitch count. Apparently the 11 run lead meant nothing to Dusty.

 

Prior subsequently melts down in the 8th inning of his next start(game 6). The closer Borowski watches from the bullpen as the 3 run lead disappears.

 

A laboring Kerry Wood stays in game 7 for 5.2 innings and gives up 7 runs. Zambrano and Clement, both on several days rest, are spectators.

 

Veres(.359 BAA vs. RH batters) faces Gonzalez. Dumbest pitching move I have ever seen.

 

And the year before, Dusty's Giants had a seemingly insurmountable 5-0 lead and he let it to the bullpen early. Look what happened there.

 

I am not saying it's right or wrong, because I'd say he left Mark in too long. I'm saying that I see his point. When he says "you never know", he had experience.

[J.R.]

Guthrie vs. Lowell in game 1. After the game Dusty said he put in the lefty Guthrie because the Marlins had LH-swinging Lenny Harris on their bench. He preferred to face Lowell.

 

Mark Prior, the most overworked pitcher in baseball at the time, throws 116 pitches with an 11 run lead. After the game Dusty said he had Prior on a 115 pitch count. Apparently the 11 run lead meant nothing to Dusty.

 

Prior subsequently melts down in the 8th inning of his next start(game 6). The closer Borowski watches from the bullpen as the 3 run lead disappears.

 

A laboring Kerry Wood stays in game 7 for 5.2 innings and gives up 7 runs. Zambrano and Clement, both on several days rest, are spectators.

 

Veres(.359 BAA vs. RH batters) faces Gonzalez. Dumbest pitching move I have ever seen.

 

Thanks for ruining my day.

[Gunned]

I don't buy that Baker ran our young arms into the ground. There are a fair few young pitchers in the game today that have been firing 200+ innings a year for a while now and suffer no ill effects

 

Innings are totally irrelevant -- it's the number of pitches that counts. Maddux can get through nine innings with 80 or fewer pitches, while you'll rarely see Prior or Wood hit the late innings and still be under 110 pitches.

[JakeSlater]

I don't buy that Baker ran our young arms into the ground. There are a fair few young pitchers in the game today that have been firing 200+ innings a year for a while now and suffer no ill effects

 

Innings are totally irrelevant -- it's the number of pitches that counts. Maddux can get through nine innings with 80 or fewer pitches, while you'll rarely see Prior or Wood hit the late innings and still be under 110 pitches.

 

Yeah, but last couple years, we didn't exactly have a lot of horses from the pen to replace the starters.

 

This year, we have them. Let's see how thisis works out.

[Soul]

Similarities in their philosophy aren't so important. What matters is Dusty is stupid, and Tony isn't.

[JakeSlater]

Guarantee that there isn't one manager or player in MLB that thinks like you do.

 

Dusty's far from stupid, and has been around for going on 39 years. Guarantee he'd blow you away with baseball knowledge.

[frostwyrm]

Guarantee that there isn't one manager or player in MLB that thinks like you do.

 

Dusty's far from stupid, and has been around for going on 39 years. Guarantee he'd blow you away with baseball knowledge.

 

You may think I'm exaggerating for effect, but while watching the NLCS I actually wondered if Dusty was mildly [expletive]. I'm not joking.

[Soul]

Guarantee that there isn't one manager or player in MLB that thinks like you do.

 

Dusty's far from stupid, and has been around for going on 39 years. Guarantee he'd blow you away with baseball knowledge.

 

You may think I'm exaggerating for effect, but while watching the NLCS I actually wondered if Dusty was mildly [expletive]. I'm not joking.

 

Me too.

 

And by the way, I'm not trying to be a MLB manager. I'm sure Dusty's baseball knowledge blows me away any day. That's hardly the point, Jake. You're just offended because I called Dusty stupid. Compared to Tony LaRussa, he is IMO.

[JakeSlater]

Thing is, your idea of stupid is ridiculous because you call Dusty on judgment calls time in and time out, meaning that you don't have a clue if YOUR idea would work any better.

 

Those calls don't make a manager stupid, they make a manager a manager.

[Drew Doughty]

But he is a very bad manager and tends to make calls that don't work out. It's not if we know if our idea will work, it's that he makes glaringly stupid mistakes (Neifi at the top of the order) all the time.

[Soul]

Alright, then I back off calling him outrightly stupid, as a person.

 

It's just that as a manager, in the heat of a ballgame, he makes a lot of decisions that make very little sense, and he makes them LOTS more than a manager like Tony LaRussa.

[XZero771679666304]

Thing is, your idea of stupid is ridiculous because you call Dusty on judgment calls time in and time out, meaning that you don't have a clue if YOUR idea would work any better.

 

Those calls don't make a manager stupid, they make a manager a manager.

 

Dusty's judgment has been called into question repeatedly, and far more than the average manager. Many of his decisions simply defy common sense. This isn't an intelligence issue, it is an issue of methodology, philosophy, and plain old obstinance.

 

He sticks with methods that consistently fail him, yet he fails/refuses to recognize and adjust. That isn't being a manager, that is being incompetent.

[UK1679666180]

I think LaRussa is a better manager than Baker, he is more aggressive than Baker and uses stats to make decisions rather than traditions that sometimes have been proven by stats to be incorrect (Remlinger vs. LH'ers).

 

The 1st thing that came to mind was last year in a close ballgame. The leadoff hitter for the Cubs reached 1B, so the 2nd hitter bunts the leadoff hitter to 2B. Next, up is Lee and is BB'ed to face Burnitz who fails to advance or score the runner on 2nd and the follwing hitters fails likewise.

 

Next inning, same situation for the Cards, Eckstein gets on 1B. 2nd hits swings away, I believe he didn't advance the runner, but the Cubs had to pitch to Pujols and he burned them.

 

Baker the took the bat out of the best hitter in '05 for an avg. hitting Burnitz, that's called failing to look ahead.

[MPrior]

First off, I don't think many people out here idolize TLR. In fact, I've heard more people on this board criticize him than praise him. But it's pretty clear that Dusty has made an exceptional amount of undeniably stupid decisions. The manager's job is to put his team in the situation which is most likely to lead to success, and he repeatedly does just the opposite - it sometimes even seems like he's trying to. And it pisses me off.

[stitchface]

Guthrie vs. Lowell in game 1. After the game Dusty said he put in the lefty Guthrie because the Marlins had LH-swinging Lenny Harris on their bench. He preferred to face Lowell.

 

Mark Prior, the most overworked pitcher in baseball at the time, throws 116 pitches with an 11 run lead. After the game Dusty said he had Prior on a 115 pitch count. Apparently the 11 run lead meant nothing to Dusty.

 

Prior subsequently melts down in the 8th inning of his next start(game 6). The closer Borowski watches from the bullpen as the 3 run lead disappears.

 

A laboring Kerry Wood stays in game 7 for 5.2 innings and gives up 7 runs. Zambrano and Clement, both on several days rest, are spectators.

 

Veres(.359 BAA vs. RH batters) faces Gonzalez. Dumbest pitching move I have ever seen.

 

And the year before, Dusty's Giants had a seemingly insurmountable 5-0 lead and he let it to the bullpen early. Look what happened there.

 

I am not saying it's right or wrong, because I'd say he left Mark in too long. I'm saying that I see his point. When he says "you never know", he had experience.

 

 

and this is your argument defending baker - he made the wrong decision twice! or perhaps not the 1st time but anyone could see prior was out of gas.

[Soul]

First off, I don't think many people out here idolize TLR. In fact, I've heard more people on this board criticize him than praise him. But it's pretty clear that Dusty has made an exceptional amount of undeniably stupid decisions. The manager's job is to put his team in the situation which is most likely to lead to success, and he repeatedly does just the opposite - it sometimes even seems like he's trying to. And it pisses me off.

 

That's what I was trying to say. I shouldn't have called Dusty himself stupid, just the decisions he makes.

 

I was...........stupid to frame it that way :oops:

[stitchface]

Dusty runs his starting pitchers into the ground, one of his worst traits. I don't really know that much about LaRussa in that respect, maybe one of our resident Cards fans can elaborate.

I can't think of any guys who have had recurring injury problems beyond normal pitcher's issues (a tommy john or shoulder surgery here and there).

 

Dusty and TLR both live and die by the Lefty/Righty bullpen matchups. Dusty follows them almost blindly(see Remlinger and Farnsworth). TLR I'm not as familiar with, but he is ridiculously obsessive with L/R matchups, using 3 and 4 relievers in an inning even when not necessary.

Tony keeps notecards with him of all his pitchers stats against the opposing lineups. He goes with the lefty/righty matchups but not blindly.

 

IIRC, TLR and Duncan have chewed up more than their share of arms.