What's crazy is that there is still a number of Cardinals fans that wants LaRussa gone. Crazy. The beef Cardinals fans have with Tony is he's made a lot of boneheaded moves over the season that have costs us several wins. a) Kyle McClellan, career reliever with no success in minors starting, became a starter and after a month he was 5-0 or something, but his sabr's said he was just getting lucky with the abnormal amount of balls in play. It was completely unsustainable and his numbers suggested he should be below one of the top 150 starters in mlb, which means worse than replacement, a negative value. Many called for him to be pulled from the rotation for Lance Lynn so Kyle wouldn't give a bunch of games away and he could be used to save at the time what was a bad, bad bullpen. Instead Kyle was left in the rotation until the end of July and his arm was dead because of the vast difference in innings he had pitched over previous seasons. We can't even use what would normally have been a stud reliever in the playoffs because he's no longer effective. Had Lynn been subbed in back in May we probably would have won an extra two games. b) The relievers on the bullpen out of Spring training were bad. Pitchers you won't hear about like Augustein and Bautista were not as good as guys sitting in Memphis that were on the roster now. Franklin had a super long leash at closing when he was just giving up meatballs over and over in the ninth inning. These moves probably cost the team a win or two over the course of the season, and late inning losses are frustrating as hell for fans. c) Tony didn't seem to know how to handle Colby Rasmus. That trade is another discussion in itself, but Tony has a record with not getting along with good players like Brendan Ryan and Scott Rolen, running them out of town. Tony has almost flawlessly managed in the postseason though, but when much of winning the world series is just getting to the playoffs and a manger hurts your team by about five wins over the course of a season, that's a big red flag.
