The only item I didn't like about that radio station's news item (linked to) -- and it's in viritually every item I saw out of the Arch city media -- is the reference to LaRussa as the Cardinals' "head coach."  Ugh.

I'd lay this on St. Louis being a football town but with no major Division I football schools in the area an no actual NFL team (wait, what?) that seems unlikely ...

Congrats to LaRussa on a fantastic managerial career. Probably the game's best manager over the past fifty years, despite all the criticism people love to throw at him over the internet. He becomes the first MLB manager to retire after winning a World Series title.

Also, this seems like an appropriate place to congratulate the Cards on a fantastic last two months. From their incredible regular season comeback to beating Halladay in Game 5 of the NLDS to two comebacks in the otherworldly Game 6, it has been a postseason for the ages. With all the dispatches from north Texas, the heroics of Carpenter, Freese, Berkman, Craig, Pujols and the revamped Cards bullpen hasn't received nearly as much attention as they deserve around these parts.

I still marvel at LaRussa's achievements with the 1983 White Sox. How this team won 99 games is still beyond me.  Somehow, he managed to squeeze a good offence out of that lineup (by doing the unconventional including having a 35 year old catcher bat 2nd) and then rode 4 above-average starters to that record despite a poor bullpen.

I am not a fan of the game that he helped usher in, with late-inning serial relief changes, but that has nothing to do with his status as a great manager.  He has had better players, most of the time, than most managers, but, on the whole, he did better than most managers would do with them. 

LaRussa had a perfect situation in St. Louis, and also made the best of it. Every manager would love to be in a place where it was absolutely clear that given a dispute between manger and player, the manager will win. While this often looks odd from a talent use point of view, that invisible part of managing, the people managing, making your players happy, keeping the clubhouse in order, etc. LaRussa seemed to especially excel at that, with the upper managemnet having his back. Knowing the guy writing the lineup card wants you there, because if he didn't, you'd be gone, is probably a large positive that isn't going to be quantifiable.  It's worth getting rid of the occasional talent if you can get the best out of everyone else, and LaRussa seemed to manage that remarkably well, from the fringe starters to the star players.

Aside from the bullpen management that he helped popularize and others imitated, LaRussa also gets a bit of credit for the steroid era - his A's teams were patient zero, and his justifiable silence on the issue, and subsequent hiring of McGwire all those years later, show that he above all else has the players back. I'm quite seriously calling this a plus for him as a manager, even if I also wish it hadn't happened.

Off Topic -

(i assume a thread will be forthcoming...)

MLBTR has the official elias ratings:

item - Kelly Johnson is a Type A - in other words, don't expect him back.

item - Dotel is a Type A, if he leaves as a free agent then that ups the Card's value in the trade, but Dotel has expressed a desire to return and odds are he'd accept any arbitration offer. if it's not offered, then that decreases their net value in the deal.

item - Francisco, Raush, Molina, and Camp are Type B (so is Frasor by the way) so assuming none of those accept arbitration, that's a significant haul even if it's a weak class.

With the Beede pick, that would give the Jays a potential for 8 picks in the first 50-60.

item - Kelly Johnson is a Type A - in other words, don't expect him back.

I think this makes him more likely to come back.  Why do you think he's less likely to come back?  Because AA won't want to sign him, and you're assuming he turns down arbitration?

Great news about the Johnson Elias ranking. I wonder what he'll do: decline arb and test the market or accept and try to rebuild value for the 2012 off-season. Either way, the Hill-Johnson trade looks like a deft move by AA.

Even if he becomes a FA, however, there are no guarantees he brings back a first-round pick. A team with a protected first-rounder might sign him. Or he might end up being a lower-ranked Type A signed by a team who signs multiple Type As. But a supplemental-round pick and a 2nd- or 3rd-rounder would still be valuable compensation, bolstering what looks like another potentially solid draft next year.

It's interesting that we've heard nothing about the negotiations for the new CBA which expires in a month and a half.  Free agent compensation may or may not be affected.  I guess you go on the assumption that everything will be as it is now or be grandfathered in.

In the Hall of Names department, Ghosts of Miracles Past division:

Last night, perhaps inspired by the costumes of the young people at my door, I remembered a line from an item in the Original Historical Baseball Abstract entitled Miracle on Western Avenue.  In the item, Bill James recounts the story of the off-season rebuilding of the 1962 Cincinnati Reds by Bill DeWitt.  With core pieces of Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson, DeWitt pretty much revamped the team with the key move being a three way deal in which he acquired third baseman Gene Freese and pitcher Joey Jay.  The line from James' piece that came back: 

No one was writing headlines: can Freese and Jay help Reds win pennant?

The piece de resistance: the current chairman of the Cardinals is Bill DeWitt Jr.