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Walt Jocketty, Cardinals part ways

In a move that can only be called surprising, the Cardinals have decided to let Walt Jocketty go, as reported today on stltoday.com. 

Remember, this is the same Jocketty that was Executive of the year in 2000 and 2004, and had his contract option picked up for 2008 following last year’s World Series triumph.

Having watched the AJ Smith/Marty Schottenheimer debacle from my home in Southern California, I know first hand what a personality conflict can do to an organization.  I can’t help but think this is a short-sighted move by Cardinal management.  Unless they have the ability to attract someone of the caliber of Terry Ryan, the organization will most likely take a step backwards.

Rumors have swirled most of the second half of the season about the strife in the Cardinal front office; about the division of the staff into camps, most commonly called the Jocketty camp and the Jeff Luhnow camp; about the difference of opinion as to how the future roster should be developed/managed.  At the center of this is probably money.  DeWitt’s ownership group has been very reluctant to increase the club payroll over $95 million dollars, and one way to control costs is to sign young talent to long term contracts and develop through the farm system so they can eventually contribute at the major league level.  I don’t think Jocketty was adverse to drafting and developing talent vice the splashy free agent signing; however a lot of the Cardinal roster during their success these past few years has been built via free agency and trade for veterans.  There is no doubt that a philosophical struggle for the soul of the team had started sometime after the last out last season, and Jocketty appears to have backed a philosophy that had fallen out of favor with the ownership group.

I discussed the possibilities of LaRussa returning for another season as the manager yesterday (and below).  As the stltoday.com story above reports, LaRussa hadn’t tied his return to Jocketty’s fate necessarily, but the manner in which Jocketty and the Cardinals parted ways might have a large role to play in his plans.  Jocketty was fired today.  ’Cordially and respectfully parted ways’ is just DeWitt’s spin.  I thought yesterday LaRussa would return for 2008; I don’t think so now.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 9:50 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.