I would be remiss to not weigh in on Jock’s departure, so here’s my 2 cents for what it’s worth-
Obviously, Walt Jocketty has permanently etched himself in Cardinal lore, so it’s pretty sad to see him fired after everything he’s done for the team. On the other hand, I feel like I can breath a little easier this winter now that he’s gone. I’m pretty excited to see what the club does in the near future. The way this free agent class was forming, it was rather obvious Walt wanted to sell the farm to “win now”, as always. But GMs have gotten wiser and he isn’t going to be able to fleece them as he did in the past. In more recent history he’s been the one getting fleeced, IE Billy Beane. And we know if it wasn’t for Beane and Moneyball changing the landscape of front offices around the league, Luhnow wouldn’t have a job with the Cardinals right now.
On the other hand, I’m not 100% sold on the job Luhnow is doing. Don’t get me wrong, he’s added considerable depth to a barren farm system that was in many ways was laid to waste by Jocketty’s friend Bruce Manno. But he’s also been known to reach a bit in the draft and has been too eager to draft quirky players like Jon Jay or Eddie Degerman based on their college stats, not on the consensus of many scouting reports you see. And while there are some interesting arms in the system, all too often we are seeing many players the Cardinals could’ve had reach the majors in a hurry.
The future GM has a decent sized mess they will be inheriting with some of the contracts the Cards have saddled themselves right now. On the plus, they’ll have a pretty good budget, an organization who prides itself on winning and us crazy fans. Some of you have already dropped a few names of who you’d like to see as the new GM. Me, I haven’t really looked around, however Chris Antonetti seems like the perfect fit with DeWitt and Luhnow.
I’m sorry to see Jocketty go, but a house divided and all…Best of luck to Walt, and thanks to him for putting together so many great teams. I’m glad the team is committed to the future, and it’ll be interesting to see what transpires over the next few weeks.
Filed under: Walt Jocketty
erik
azruavatar
fewgoodcards
roarke49
theredbaaron
Any chance at Paul DePodesta? I know he’s a West Coast guy, but I’d love for him to go to the Cards.
I really like Logan White of the Dodgers as well.
http://www.whiteyball.com
From what I understand of this Walt had the philosophy that his job as GM was to run the major league club and not to really care about the minors. DeWitt felt like you need to focus on both and not spread out the responsibility too much. If that is true, since it is only one side I don’t know how true it is, but if it is true then this is a good move since we are going to be moving younger and we can’t sell off the young talent for a win now anymore. Moz though looks like the guy that bridged both camps throughout this season, he signed Franklin and Ludwick and I think I also saw that he signed Springer. If he can work with Lunhow on running the minors and with the Manager (Tony, Jose, whoever) and try to have the best organization possible then I think he might be the man for the job, I don’t want a pure minor league guy or as Walt was (assuming again here) a pure major league guy.
So who are we going to get. This is a more interesting conversation than any talk we have had about free agents in the last few years. My thinking is that the Cardinal’s GM job is probably the best two or three in the game. We could get anyone we want. I am wondering if there are any established GM’s that we would want and would be interested?
Wouldn’t we all like to take a look at DeWitt’s inbox? I have to think he’s getting a lot of “why don’t we get together and chat?” emails right now.
From a pure player development point of view Arbuckle wouldn’t be bad. He was largely responsible for Atlanta’s sucess in developing players.
i’d like to see someone young and fresh get the job. we don’t need a guy that has bombed out elsewhere. hell we had one of the best gm’s in baseball for the last 13 years. a change was made, so let’s bring in someone young, fresh, and ready to take on the world.
like bjm said, this is one of the 3 or 4 best jobs in baseball, we should have no trouble finding a perfect fit.
Does anyone think that Terry Ryan would have interest. He built Minnesota into a annual contender with less money. He has the ability to make great trades and build a farm system that at a few points during his tenure was one of the tops in baseball. I think he would fit perfectly into our build for the future strategy, without totally sacraficing the present.