WhittyBall?

[DaDitka]

A double steel with Albert and Holiday down by two with no one out in the bottom of the eighth??????

Officially color me interested in Cardinal baseball again.

[abc789987]

I think I woke all my neighbors in that last inning.

[DaDitka]

Yes, but you just saw in the ninth why I'm not willing to give Albert 30 mill.

Never...ever..comes through when it counts.

[DaDitka]

We're going to need extra innings!

[abc789987]

oh yess!!!



oh shit....



doh

[DaDitka]

I guess that's what I get for actually watching a game again.

The next time I feel the urge to watch baseball I'll be sure to simply put in one of my old hockey fight VHS's.

[cardsfan04]

-frustrating loss

-still not out of it. If we can beat the worst team in baseball twice in a row and the braves can lose 1 game against the phillies, we'll force a playoff. Seems more than plausible, possibly likely.

[Ruutu15]

Yes, but you just saw in the ninth why I'm not willing to give Albert 30 mill.

Never...ever..comes through when it counts.

Brad Lidge says hello.

I know that was years ago, but that's still the most impressive HR that I've ever seen.

As for the title of this thread, slap yourself. I don't dislike TLR as much as a lot of people do, but if Herzog was managing this team, they would have won multiple WS titles over the past 15 years.

[WindyCityBluesFan]

Never...ever..comes through when it counts.

Huge overstatement. Not saying I disagree with the not giving him $30m necessarilly, but to say he doesn't come through when it counts is just not correct. He has come through with a ton of clutch hits, maybe not every single opportunity, but a lot more than the average player. In fact, his two consecutive extra inning walk off home runs this year gives him 13 extra inning HR's and 10 total walk off HR's. He is tied with Micky Mantle with 7 extra inning walk off HR's.

That said, I seem to remember him being mediocre during the WS run, and again, I agree that signing him to a huge deal could end up really hurting the team overall. So could NOT signing him. They are screwed either way.

[DaDitka]

Never...ever..comes through when it counts.

Huge overstatement. Not saying I disagree with the not giving him $30m necessarilly, but to say he doesn't come through when it counts is just not correct. He has come through with a ton of clutch hits, maybe not every opportunity, but a lot more than the average player. That said, I seem to remember him being mediocre during the WS run, and again, I agree that signing him to a huge deal could end up really hurting the team overall.

They showed a stat in the offseason where something like over 80% of his game winning hits had come in before the 6th inning. That used to be greatly do to the fact taht teams would not pitch to him late in the game if the game was on the line. The last two years that has not been the case. Teams are coming after him in many of those situations and he's coming up small far more often then not. I know he had that walk off homer against the Cubs early in the years, but those moment are far and few.

Again, I'm not knocking they guy (per-say). In many sports you see guys that put up big numbers but come up small when it counts (Think Tony Romo and Curtis Joseph) and I think Albert is one of those guys. With the game on the line tonight I think there are probably at least 4 or 5 guys that we would rather see at the plate. Yadi, Puma, Holiday, Freese, even Descalso and TheRiot have been far more clutch this season.

[WindyCityBluesFan]

Never...ever..comes through when it counts.

Huge overstatement. Not saying I disagree with the not giving him $30m necessarilly, but to say he doesn't come through when it counts is just not correct. He has come through with a ton of clutch hits, maybe not every opportunity, but a lot more than the average player. That said, I seem to remember him being mediocre during the WS run, and again, I agree that signing him to a huge deal could end up really hurting the team overall.

They showed a stat in the offseason where something like over 80% of his game winning hits had come in before the 6th inning. That used to be greatly do to the fact taht teams would not pitch to him late in the game if the game was on the line. The last two years that has not been the case. Teams are coming after him in many of those situations and he's coming up small far more often then not. I know he had that walk off homer against the Cubs early in the years, but those moment are far and few.

Again, I'm not knocking they guy (per-say). In many sports you see guys that put up big numbers but come up small when it counts (Think Tony Romo and Curtis Joseph) and I think Albert is one of those guys. With the game on the line tonight I think there are probably at least 4 or 5 guys that we would rather see at the plate. Yadi, Puma, Holiday, Freese, even Descalso and TheRiot have been far more clutch this season.

I agree that his clutchness (is that a word?) has fallen off this year a little bit, but here is another stat I found that relates to his numbers prior to this year:

Clutchiest Cardinal. Pujols led MLB with 21 game-winning RBI in 2010. His 190 game-winning RBI since his 2001 debut are the most during that time and ranks in a tie for 16th all-time (with Sammy Sosa) since the category was first tracked in 1974.

Not sure how many he has this year, but still he does step up when it counts more than most and does not deserve the "not clutch" branding. Even if he does nothing else, that HR off Lidge was one of the greatest sports moments of my life...so yes I may be a little biased here.

[Ruutu15]

During this "stretch run" here, Pujols is hitting something like .375. If that isn't clutch, I'm not sure what is, and the Cardinals are nowhere near the wild card without Pujols.

[DaDitka]

During this "stretch run" here, Pujols is hitting something like .375. If that isn't clutch, I'm not sure what is, and the Cardinals are nowhere near the wild card without Pujols.

Again, I'm not saying he sucks. I was merely stating that if I was going to pay 30 mill a year for a guy I would expect him to be THE guy I want at the plate with the game on the line in the 9th inning. I think most (if not all) die hard Cars fans that pay attention would admit that he does not fit that description.

Yes...he is the best hitter in the game. Yes, he's been hitting the ball well down the stretch.

Here, look at it this way.......

There are a lot of guys that shut down opponents in the 7th and 8th innings but are not nearly as effective in the closer's role. IMO Albert is not a 'closer'.

Sure, he's had his moments...just like Salas had some nice saves.

Again...he's still the best hitter in the game and he'll put up huge totals. I'm merely pointing out one flaw in his game. Heaven forbid the guy have a flaw.

[Ruutu15]

No, I hear what you're saying. I have MLB.tv every year so I can watch the Cardinals all season, so I definitely understand. At the same time, he's still the guy that I want up there when it matters. He has the ability to do something amazing every time. Doesn't always happen (and I know it seems to happen less these days). If you need to pick one hitter against any pitcher in baseball, I'm going Pujols every time.

Just to make it known, I'm not a blind Pujols supporter who thinks he's immune to all criticism. I love the guy and I hope the Cardinals re-sign him at any cost, but Yadi Molina is my favorite player in baseball.

[DaDitka]

but Yadi Molina is my favorite player in baseball.

And the hottest bat in this line-up right now.

[goon attack]

Yeah, that Albert Pujols just isn't clutch. The way he muscled that ball over Rollins's last night for the game winning RBI was just lame.

[cardsfan04]

Yeah, that Albert Pujols just isn't clutch. The way he muscled that ball over Rollins's last night for the game winning RBI was just lame.

Yeah, but that's just cuz they left Lee in too long. They brought Lidge in after that, and there's no way Pujols could ever do anything clutch off of him. I mean, there was that one time in 2005, but that was just luck.

[DaDitka]

Yeah, that Albert Pujols just isn't clutch. The way he muscled that ball over Rollins's last night for the game winning RBI was just lame.

That's just happenstance.....Like Jackman getting blocked shot because he's too slow to get out of the way anymore.

Albert sucks and the Cardinals suck, and as long as they keep proving me wrong I'm going to keep saying it.


Too bad this 'prove me wrong' - reverse psychology thing doesn't work on Jacks.

[thedoc]

Yeah, that Albert Pujols just isn't clutch. The way he muscled that ball over Rollins's last night for the game winning RBI was just lame.

That's just happenstance.....Like Jackman getting blocked shot because he's too slow to get out of the way anymore.

Albert sucks and the Cardinals suck, and as long as they keep proving me wrong I'm going to keep saying it.


Too bad this 'prove me wrong' - reverse psychology thing doesn't work on Jacks.

You have to say it in Canadian.

[cprice12]

As for the title of this thread, slap yourself. I don't dislike TLR as much as a lot of people do, but if Herzog was managing this team, they would have won multiple WS titles over the past 15 years.

I Disagree.
I love Whitey (not Whitty like in the thread title), he's my favorite manager of all time...great, great manager in his day. But players today couldn't play for him.

Whitey quit the game because he could no longer get "today's players" to buy into the style of ball he wanted played. Those are his words.
He'd ask guys to give up personal stats for the benefit of the team...like the bullpen by committee, tons of sacrifice bunts, plays designed specifically around advancing runners and not necessarily getting on base, taking numerous pitches so a guy can steal a base, slapping a ball to the right side of the infield so a guy can go from 2nd to 3rd, etc.
Get 'em on, get 'em over, get 'em in.
That was Whitey ball...and it worked nicely in that era.

But today, with crazy salaries, players don't want to give up at bats as much as Whitey would have wanted. That would mean less impressive stats and therefore less impressive contract offers.

When the salaries started to really take off...that killed Whitey ball.
He'd have to completely change his managerial style to have managed a team over the past 20+ years...and who knows how that would have turned out?



BTW...I'm a LaRussa supporter. He just wins. Sure, he makes controversial decisions sometimes, and sometimes they backfire but the vast majority of the time, they work.
LaRussa just wins and he wins a lot, and the end justifies the means every time in sports.
He gets more out of his players than any other manager by putting them in a position to succeed based on situational matchups. He's a huge stat and matchup manager, and it's worked for him.
If he returns next year, he will move into 2nd place in all-time wins. I'm not sure what else people want.

From my experience, most folks (not all) who think someone else could come in here and do a better job than LaRussa has done, are taking some personal bias way too far and not looking at the big picture at all.
We've been to the playoffs 8 times in the last 11 years, been to the WS twice and won it once.
I know some folks have come out and said they don't like him because he doesn't live in St. Louis and he's a "California guy". Wha? Who the F cares?

To put it bluntly, Cardinal fans who complain about LaRussa are spoiled brats. They don't know how good they have it.
They have obviously forgotten the era before LaRussa when we weren't very good.
In the 8 years prior to LaRussa, there were no playoff appearances. We only topped 80 wins 4 times, topped 70 wins twice... and had 62 and 53 win seasons the two years prior to LaRussa when Torre was manager.

The best thing for the Cardinals is for LaRussa to return next season. It's a shame that a lot of folks don't get that.

Sorry...just felt like ranting.