On their website, SI.com, Sports Illustrated has unveiled their view of the five best and five worst owners in each of the four major professional team sports, including Major League Baseball.
The only National League club represented on the “best” list is the St. Louis Cardinals. Chairman Bill DeWitt, Jr. (pictured) was singled out as the third-best owner in MLB, after John Henry/Tom Lerner/Larry Lucchino of the Boston Red Sox and Arte Moreno of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
The NL has two owners among the “worst” five, though neither is from the Central Division. They are Ted Lerner of the Washington Nationals at five and Jeffrey Loria of the Florida Marlins as fourth-worst.
The method used took into account both objective and subjective measures. Among the criteria:
- Willingness to spend money to improve the team
- Stability and capabilities of the front office and management
- Amenities at the team’s venue
- The club’s culture and interactivity with fans
- The team’s success or failure on the field
In recent years, several local media personalities and a vocal segment of Cardinals followers have hounded DeWitt for his alleged cheapness in matters of player payroll to the point of childish and unprofessional name-calling and worse.
They will be the last to accept the fact that team ownership is being recognized nationally as one of the best. Chances are the critics haven’t followed the club long enough to remember the Cardinals of the early 1990s, underfunded and non-competitive on the field.
Worse than that, how would they like to Cards to change owners with the cross-state Kansas City Royals, for example? (Hint: The Royals’ David Glass is number three on SI’s “worst” list.)
Some folks just don’t know when they have it good. Sadly by the time they realize it, it will be too late. The rest of us should continue to enjoy and appreciate the consistent competitive, winning baseball this ownership group has enabled over the last decade and a half.
In doing so, Cards fans do not have to stop yearning for improvement. I bet ownership would be the first to agree that they want the same. Yet expectations need to remain realistic, as in each season, 29 of 30 teams are destined to fall short.
Those who try to paint all Cardinals fans into one of two polarized corners – either “Kool-Aid drinkers” or “nay-sayers” – are as clueless as Baltimore’s Peter Angelos, baseball’s worst owner.
Loria may be dislikeable, in a variety of respects, but his teams can be surprisingly competitive, given how mean their payroll.
There is a big can of whoop-ass to be opened up here……….. but whats the point. The man has put a respectable baseball team on the field. They have made him more money than he expected is my guess. He is a social activist….. of a kind not usually lauded by compassionate people. But in all fairness, this can be a violent creation, and those of his philosophical persuasion have been expressing there “reproductive preferences”, and thats all it is, since time began. The scope of his activities in the greater world far out weigh the trivialities concerning Cardinal baseball operations. He runs this team now as an expression of his philosophy. It’s his. The cruel illusion here is that Ankiel, Glaus or Ludwick’s injuries should be thought the cause of the current swoon. The team has no balls. Tony’s has drained the life out the young kids already. They needed to feel that they were earning a position with there early heroics, like most other clubs or teams they have played on. Now, except for Colby, none know their future. The addition of the Alpha Male, C. Carpenter, will add some testosterone to a depleted rotation, but there is a good chance that he is one of the emotional obstacles that Wainwright has been dealing with all year. That is probably recognized by Dave D., thus the Carpenter discovery of the new solution to Waino’s problems. And Lord knows how thin the ice is around that situation. I know everyone likes McRae here, but at the bottom of all this, there is at least a severe communication problem. I have seen some adjustments lately that are encouraging but lets be honest. Pittsburgh pitching sucks, as will be seen when a professional hitting team plays them next. Watch. Some of this may seem very opinionated. Its not!!!!!!!! It all is………………
Some fans that “have higher standards” grade DeWitt (or the GM or manager) against a fictional idealized owner (or the GM or manager) who would make moves to win now without concerns or any other factors.
DeWitt is not an ideal owner, but I would hope that even his biggest critic would acknowledge that DeWitt has been one of the best owners in MLB over the period of time since he has purchased the Cardinals.
This blog needs a filter for the WC BS.
A bit salty for you dizzy. Buy a ticket. You don’t have to look through a knot hole to watch this game. Come on in, tell us whats next. I’ve put on a show for a week now. Step up! Your turn.
WC, your repetitive, often garbled posts are like the scene of a bad car accident. You really don’t want to look but your eyes are drawn to the sheets covering the bodies. If this site had an “ignore” feature, you’d be on my list.
As it is, I simply try to skip your posts. Alas, I’m not always successful.
WCBS serves in some ways, because he helps promote comments. He seems to be energetically thinking about Cards ball a lot, even if a bunch of the thinking lies on a spectrum from iffy to wacked.
About TLR draining life out of kids. A little tip: Barden and Thurston are not kids.
Here is something basic to learn. Platoons are effective. This is known based on the enormous mass of data accumulated across all the years of playing the game. Lefty swingers fare better against right handed pitchers, while the converse also holds. So when a smart manager has a couple of fringy ML guys who are not everyday players, like Barden and Thurston, he platoons them. TLR does this because he knows the odds. TLR’s head is not full of pop psychology. He has to be unemotional. Football coaches can scream and try to get the athletes all pumped up to slam into one another. But that is not effective in baseball. Its a different game. You have to play the odds, in cold-blooded ways.
At the race track, should a gambler plunk every dollar down on a long shot, just because it “feels” right and he feels lucky? He could win. But unless he has inside info, chances are, the long shot will not produce a winner. The prudent gambler will play the percentages. TLR’s been gambling, being a manager, for decades. He knows how to play the odds.
Returning to the actual topic of DeWitt……the free agent market is not an easy place to do well. TLR wanted Fuentes and Holliday, but they are not off to the greatest of beginnings. You can spend a ton of money in baseball and it can backfire. The Cards earn a lot less than some big media market teams, so do not want to try to beat the opposition via the free agent market alone.
Something TLR seems to do outstandingly is take vets who have suffered slumps for whatever reasons and get them back on track So TLR a great asset to have for a team that seeks good value in the marketplace for player services. The baseball market is very short-term oriented, players soar or sink in value abruptly, so undervalued talent can be found, but not all the time, to fill the positions you need.
DeWitt is smart to realize veterans need to be used selectively, by a mid-market franchise. Homegrown talent is absolutely necessary. The amateur scouting and development had to be improved. Some improvements have occurred, but one should never be satisified.
Bold, insightful, inspired, way to go Dizzy!!!!!!!! Alas????
For those that are watching…….Perdomo is coming into Cubs game, bases loaded 1out.
He throws hard but is Reyes wild. He is giving it up big time. No finesse at all. Just a live arm. 5 runs with no outs.
The Cards may pay the Padres $25,000 to keep Perdomo in their system. Or maybe we will pay them $25,000 and take him back to provide AA set up man depth. It seems unlike Perdomo is going to stay all year on the Padres roster. The Pads released Jim Edmonds, hard to imagine Perdomo sticking for an entire season. The Pads are going to need some fall guys.
I was watching the Cubs, too, and was very surprised when Perdomo was brought into a tie game with the bases loaded. He had nothing. There is certainly the possibility that Perdomo might be coming back.
The Cards seem to have good managers or coaches. They get to observe their players. They had to have recommended to Mo that Perdomo was not yet ready for the bigs. Even if a guy can impress a radar gun, its really hard to try to fireball it by ML hitters for 6 months. Gregerson is more ready, but his ERA had gone above 5 last I knew. Anthony Reyes is above 7. Some of these guys may end up making Welly look good.