No waymo could have been preparedto lose the two most counted guys in the pen.  He has a chance to adress it now tho.  They need a started and another bullpen guy.  

more should get some credit for adrressing left handed relief.  You didnt mention scrabble sucked as well.  If mo didnt address the left side of the bullpen thing would be iffy there to.

Max wrote:

Here is the problem, guys.  The bullpen coughed up 8 ER in 3.1 IP.  Obviously that's not good neough.  Unfortunately, the way Matheny used his pen over the past few days left him in a vulnerable situation.  So we can keep on our rant, that Matheny doesn't know how to use his pen, etc.  But if we do, HE will take the fall.  Is that really what we want?  Is the problem that Matheny doesn't know how to use the bullets in his holster, or that the GM didn't give him the right assortment of bullets?  Or that bad luck resulted in a number of bullets going bad in the holster?

Time to be careful in our speech, gentlemen.

As I've aged I have struggled to rein in my natural tendency to criticize people whose jobs I don't understand. For the most part it's worked, but often I feel there are costs: grinding teeth, etc. I'm willing to bear these costs if it makes me a better person. Pro sports has always been a venue where "Joe Six-Pack"'s "right" to complain about - and even insult - highly-skilled and talented workers is considered sacred. So, every now and then, I may vent a little steam in a particular Cardinal's direction. I also get to briefly feel smarter than I am, and they ultimately win by earning huge salaries and our attention for doing what they love. Hopefully, nothing we say here has the slightest chance of impacting anyone's position and, if they were to chance upon these criticisms, they long ago learned to take them with a large grain of salt.

With all that being said, I only expect to gripe when the failing seems obvious and is repeated. The injuries certainly mitigate the blame to some extent. I really want Matheny to succeed.

JV wrote:

Pro sports has always been a venue where "Joe Six-Pack"'s "right" to complain about - and even insult - highly-skilled and talented workers is considered sacred.

Classic!  LOL!

artie_fufkin wrote:

Bill Parcells used to say "You are what you are." Right now the Cardinals have the BRIB, the best run differential in the majors and a 2.5-game lead over a team to which nearly everyone ceded the division title at the beginning of the year. Anyone else expect that on April 1? I know I didn't. Would you have expected them to be in first place if you knew they were going to lose Motte and Garcia for the season, Westbrook for a month and Boggs was going to have a double-digit ERA? I would have said they would have been lucky to be .500.
What I like about this year's version of the Cardinals is they battle. Scoring a couple of runs in the bottom of the seventh inning of a 7-1 game that they know is probably a lost cause may not seem like a big deal, but I've seen other teams - and maybe even some past Cardinals' teams - give up in similar situations. La Russa always used to talk about giving a "hard nine." This team gives a hard nine every night. Last year's team did, too. At least part of that has to be a reflection of the manager's mentality.

good take.  I dont think mathenys faults lay in his mentality or ablity to lead.  Tactically he is no tlr.  Agree or disagee with tlrs moves he had purpose.  Sometimes he didnt let known what that purpose was but i believe there was always purpose.  I think matheny will learn to manage a bullpen and when to take risk on the pads.  He will learn how to fine tune st so the cardinals dont fail at simple task like bunting (2012), or rundowns(2013).  Id rather have a good leader and a guy the players will play for rather then a tatical genuis.  tlr was both.  Someday may matheny will be.  Idk

To me the issue is not what failures the cardinals have had on there road to the best record in baseball but how the issues are addressed in the near future.  

forsberg_us wrote:

Please don't take my issues with Matheny's handling of the bullpen for my suggestion he's a bad manager that should be fired.  I don't believe either of those things to be true, and his positive traits certainly outweigh the negative.

It's not that I don't agree.  It's that I don't want to agree.  It's as though Hitler won WWII and made life better for everyone.  

artie_fufkin wrote:

They're drawn to shiny objects and build them up only to tear them down later in the name of their own small-minded entertainment..

Yes, yes, yes.  And that's what I am concerend the owners are doing. They are commercializing the brand, pumping up its value, and probably won't care when the bubble pops because they will have sold and be back in their penthouses in NYC, or wherever.

I am more familiar with how it works in pop music, but it seems that many bands follow a marketing trajectory that begins with a gradual build up of credibility and integrity, followed by commericial breakout.  Then they have a very limited time on that plateau before their own commercial success damages their credibility and integrity to the extent that they have one last chance for a sell-out album, and then they either hang it up, or fade into the shadow of their former stardom.  Think REM, U2, many, many others.

DeWitt and Co did not own the franchise during its 100 build up of credibility and integrity.  I think they bought that at a time when it was undervalued.  Now they are producing success, but at the cost of the credibility and integrity, I fear.
 

"DeWitt and Co did not own the franchise during its 100 build up of credibility and integrity.  I think they bought that at a time when it was undervalued.  Now they are producing success, but at the cost of the credibility and integrity, I fear."

Yeah, it's a shame DeWitt can't be a standup guy like Freeloadin' Freddy Saigh.

"I think they bought that at a time when it was undervalued."

I don't know that it was "undervalued" so much as it had little value due to the way the organization was being run by Busch III.

That's the irony of your view of DeWitt.  All the characteristics that you ascribe to DeWitt were actually much more accurately attached to his predecessor.  Busch III never cares two shakes of piss worth about the team.  In its last 2 years under Busch III's ownership, the team went 53-61 and 62-81 (the strike year and the year after the strike) and averaged only 24K fans in 1995.

You speak in terms of tradition, credibility and integrity.  DeWitt hasn't ruined any of those things--he restored them.

forsberg_us wrote:

I don't know that it was "undervalued" so much as it had little value due to the way the organization was being run by Busch III.

One of the hallmarks of the vulture capitalist age we live in is that the predatory capitalists see value everywhere it exists and try to liquidate it.  One of the hardest things to watch has been the value of "reputation" liquidated.  In a great irony, even Goldman Sachs had a valuable reputation before it went public, and the employees from the old days are scathing of what the new people have done to the reputation of the firm.

I suspect someone somewhere identified "Cardinals baseball" as an undervalued brand name, perhaps for the reason you mention. 

Well, I don't know that the Anheuser Busch brand name had much value outside of a few neighborhoods in south St. Louis. It was sort of the opposite; for their flagship brand they stole a name from an obscure  brewer in the Czech Republic.  

DeWitt hired Jocketty and La Russa, of course, and I was a fan of his when he treated his responsibility as owner as being done once he hired people to run his club.

It gets into the ego issue again.  It is just possible that DeWitt felt like the credit for success was going to Jocketty, La Russa, and Pujols, and he wanted the credit for himself.  If he makes it work for 11 years, we can discuss whether he deserves it.

Yes.  I think WJ had to go get permission for those things.  I think he's much more involved now than merely giving a thumbs up or thumbs down to a contract.

If he was involved in putting together the personnel that has the BRIB then he's a pretty outstanding owner.