Scrooged
December 13, 2010 by Daniel Shoptaw · Leave a Comment
My thanks to all that read and expressed such kind things about my recent foray into parody writing .  Unfortunately, one of those that did not read this (apparently) was Mr. John Mozeliak, because he completely gutted the piece by trading Brendan Ryan yesterday .
Everyone has immediately jumped all over Tony La Russa for this move, which may be the accurate reaction. Â However, I find it pretty interesting that TLR had reached out and invited Ryan to his house in the next day or so to have lunch and talk about things. Â I don’t think La Russa has done that for the other doghouse veterans that he’d run out of town, such as Scott Rolen or Anthony Reyes.
Then there is this quote from the GM.
“Changing the culture of the clubhouse was important to us. Â Given the personalities involved, we felt this an appropriate way to make a change.”
If we accept the premise that everything is done through the filter of keeping Albert Pujols happy and when you factor in that at least one teammate has anonymously suggested that Ryan needed to focus on his job a little more, could it be more that AP didn’t mesh with Ryan rather than TLR? Â Granted, I’d think it’d be hard to get along with one and not the other, but it’s a possibility.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that Pujols called up Mozeliak and said, “He goes or I go” or “Ship him off now” or anything of that nature. Â I just wonder if it was pretty obvious in the clubhouse that Pujols (or, to be fair, any of the big guys such as Matt Holliday or, as would be expected from the televised lecture, Chris Carpenter) really didn’t get along with that extremely hyper and bouncy personality, especially when the team was struggling.
Whatever the case, the team can say all they want about what they received in return, but the chances of a guy with those kind of numbers ever making the Cardinals is really slim. Â You just have to wonder what the Padres were offering last week that made the club turn them down. Â Right now, the proverbial bag of baseballs is more valuable than a wild flamethrower that gets rocked in the lowest of minors. Â You’d think he’d have been successful there just by reputation, because if he could get anything over the plate, it wouldn’t have been hit often.
It seems like the team is set for 2011, save the backup catcher. Â Now, I’d argue that with a payroll that is already too high for the team, apparently, using Bryan Anderson as a cheap and effective backup would make logical sense. Â However, besides the fact that logic went out the window when they kept Skip Schumaker at second base in all these maneuvers, it appears that at least one starter, according to Matthew Leach on Twitter, doesn’t care for throwing to Anderson.
In which case, their pursuit of Bengie Molina wouldn’t be a bad thing.  First of all, you never go wrong with doubling your Molina supply.  Secondly, B. Molina’s bat off the bench would be a wonderful thing.  I know he’s slowed down some, but he’s still provide more offense than we are used to in that regard, which might allow TLR to actually rest Yadi on occasion.
We’ll have to see how things shake out, whether Yadi can talk his brother into it over the Christmas holidays, but it’s at least something to get the taste of the Ryan trade out of our mouths.
