hansen wrote:twballgame9 wrote:eagle9903 wrote:hansen wrote:eagle9903 wrote:and LaRussa will manage no more. I will not lose sleep over this.
TLR is consistently disparaged but his track record speaks for itself:
Most postseason wins by a National League team during that span: 50.
Most postseason series won by a NL team: 12.
Most NL pennants won: three.
Two World Series championships, tied with Florida for the most in the league since 1996.
Some 1,408 regular-season wins, second in the NL to Atlanta's 1,478.
3rd most all-time wins.
I don't like him because he's annoying, whiny and makes the game more boring and slow. I know he's a great manager (Teddy doesn't think so, I think).
He does all of those things and he is an overrated manager. He's not a bad manager, but he certainly isn't great.
Let's put it this way, he's better than Francona.
TLR has had a huge impact on how the game is played (for better or worse). he redefined the closer position, led the current trend toward building and using a strong bullpen, etc. 9903 is right though; he does whine a lot (typically to his advantage) and the games are slower. a lot of people do not like him... however, after watching the results he has produced over the past 16 years, i must admit i am not in that group.
as for francona, the guy led the team to 2 world series title... and broke the supposed curse. i give the guy a lot of credit for that. would i want him STL managing? i can't really say as i dont know the redsox close enough to make an informed opinion. i do know though that STL organization is trending toward an statistics based approach with old school scouting mixed in. this heavy reliance on statistics alienates a lot of managers... the old school baseball types. that is why this hire will be very interesting.
Crediting LaRussa with redefining the closer position means you are either too young to know baseball or are blinded by LaRussa's self proclaimed genius. LaRussa was with the White Sox losing a ton and not looking like much of a genius when the closer position was redefined. From 1982 to 1987, Jeff Reardon had season save totals of 26, 21, 23, 41, 35, 31. By 1987, Reardon had 177 saves over his previous 7 seasons. He went on from 1988 to 1992 to post save totals of 42, 31, 21, 40, 30. Bruce Suter retired the year that Eckersly supposedly became the first close with 300 saves. Fingers had 341 saves. Gossage had 302.
LaRussa should be credited with deciding that closers can only go 1 inning; for that matter deciding that no relief pitcher should go more than a couple of batters. I don't see that as a good development, and one that was shattered for the most part during the early part of the greatest closer of all time's career when he frequently entered in the 8th inning.
And again, there was no curse, and the drought was broken with John Henry's money, not the genius of Theo Epstein or Terry Francona.
"We remind everyone that Boston College fired a perfectly good coach because he went on a job interview, and deserves all of this." Spencer Hall
