This article from Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post Dispatch says it all. The Cardinals’ biggest problem this year was pitching, followed by injuries. Despite it all, LaRussa made the most of it, getting to within a game of first place late in the season before things fell apart. What should be done in the off-season? As the headline says, DeWitt needs to open “DeWallet”:
[Cardinals owner Bill] DeWitt owns the sixth-highest revenue producing franchise in Major League Baseball, and he has the third-highest ticket prices in the industry. The Cardinals drew a record 3.5 million fans to Busch Stadium this season.
But his payroll ranked 11th this season, same as last year, a drop from the No. 6 ranking in 2005. There’s no justification for keeping the payroll at its current level.
He ain’t kidding about those ticket prices, either. Since the Cardinals built their new stadium, ticket prices have skyrocketed. The fans deserve to see a better team out on the field. And they certainly deserve to see better pitching than what Kip Wells was serving up this year.
I’m hopeful Jocketty and LaRussa will be back next year with another World Series contender.
Even as a die-hard Cubs fan, I will say again that Cardinals fans deserve better than what ownership put on the field this year. Even a great manager like LaRussa and a good GM like Jocketty can only do so much with a shrinking payroll.
The worst outcome would be that LaRussa and Jocketty go elsewhere, and the greedy ownership hires cheap management and has a “youth movement” or “rebuiilding year”.
Shoot, they lost like half their pitching staff to injuries or death. Rolen was out at the end… every time you turned around, someone important was ripped up. LaRussa deserves manager of the year for keeping them from losing 100 games.
You danged Cardinal fans are way too demanding.