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Brian Gunn On Walt Jocketty
Brian Gunn is a regular at Baseball Analysts and The Hardball Times, among other places. Recalling his fine "GM In A Box" piece on Walt Jocketty in the THT annual a few years back, I asked him to dispel his wisdom once again on the Cards ex-GM back in October of 2007. An excerpt of his piece follows.
WALT JOCKETTY
By Brian Gunn
New Reds GM Walt Jocketty was a big-game hunter with the Cardinals. He generally looked elsewhere for talent, and he landed some of the biggest names around. Here’s a brief look at his legacy.
JOCKETTY’S STRENGTHS
Jocketty built arguably the premier National League franchise of this decade. Since 2000, the Cardinals own more regular-seasons wins than any other NL team, won more playoff games, won more league titles, and, of course, won it all in 2006.
How did Jocketty do it? First of all, he was fearless. A master wheeler-dealer, nobody did a better job turning lemons into lemonade, often flipping questionable talent for marquee players.
Consider:
Jocketty landed, via trade, Mark McGwire, Jim Edmonds, Edgar Renteria, Darryl Kile, Scott Rolen, Dennis Eckersley, Todd Stottlemyre, Fernando Vina, Larry Walker, Will Clark, Adam Wainwright, and Woody Williams.
Here are the most notable players he gave up to get them: Eric Ludwick, T.J. Mathews, Kent Bottenfield, Adam Kennedy, Braden Looper, Pablo Ozuna, Manny Aybar, Jose Jimenez, Placido Polanco, Bud Smith, Steve Montgomery, Jay Witasick, Juan Acevedo, Chris Narveson, Jose Leon, one year of J.D. Drew, and the waning days of Ray Lankford’s career.
It’s an astonishing haul. Generally Jocketty would use the same formula: go after some established but underappreciated star, give up a few middling prospects for him, let him soak in the cozy St. Louis fan experience, win ballgames, re-sign the guy to an extension (often with a hometown discount), win more ballgames, then repeat the whole process as one big feedback loop. Jocketty was a master at that (and he was probably the best trading-deadline dealer there ever was – that’s how he got McGwire, Clark, Williams, Rolen, Walker, Chuck Finley, and Fernando Tatis).
Jocketty’s other big strength? Cobbling together a pitching staff on the cheap. It took him a while to get the hang of it – Cards’ hurlers in the ‘90s were usually awful. But Jocketty, along with rehab specialists Tony La Russa and pitching coach Dave Duncan, were able to buy low for arms like Chris Carpenter, Jeff Suppan, and Darryl Kile, and let them succeed in front of those reliable St. Louis infielders. At its best it worked beautifully. For example, in 2005 the Cards led the majors in ERA with a starting rotation that cost, altogether, $17 million – or less than what Roger Clemens alone made that year.
JOCKETTY’S WEAKNESSES
He was never that great at developing talent from within. Oh sure, he had his moments – he drafted and signed both Rick Ankiel and J.D. Drew when other teams wouldn’t touch ‘em for fear of being out-negotiated by Scott Boras. And of course, Jocketty was responsible for Albert Pujols, merely the best player in the league, if not all of baseball. But by and large the Cards’ cupboard ran rather bare during the Jocketty years. Baseball America has recently ranked them near the bottom of all major-league farm systems, and the Cards have been especially weak locating talent overseas. Perhaps that’s the flipside of Jocketty’s wheeling-and-dealing prowess – it gave him a sense that the team didn’t need to develop from within in order to succeed.
Jocketty’s other big weakness was that he tended to construct rather shallow rosters. Often the ballclub would be led by big shots like Pujols, Edmonds, and Rolen, while the margins were raggedy at best. Cards fans no doubt remember some of the team’s biggest playoff games left in the hands of shlubs like Craig Paquette, Garrett Stephenson, or Jason Marquis. To be fair, however, Jocketty improved in this area over the last couple years. The Cards’ bench and bullpen were among the best in the league this past year, and role players were crucial to winning the World Series in 2006.
JOCKETTY’S BEST MOVE
Landing McGwire was a masterstroke that rejuvenated the franchise, but I’d still go with the trade of Bottenfield and Kennedy to the Angels for Jim Edmonds. In 1999 Bottenfield was an 18-game winner while Edmonds was an underperformer clouded by “character issues.” But Jocketty noticed that Bottenfield’s peripherals were weak, Edmonds were strong, and he moved on a deal. Kennedy ended up a dependable starter in Anaheim, but Edmonds ended up the best centerfielder in baseball for a number of years.
JOCKETTY’S WORST MOVE
I can still remember December 18, 2004, when the Cards traded starter Danny Haren, reliever Kiko Calero, and hitting prodigy Daric Barton for Mark Mulder. As others have pointed out (I can’t remember where), Calero for Mulder straight-up would’ve been a poor deal for the Cards, to say nothing of losing Haren and Barton. When I first heard the news I became literally sick to my stomach, and the feeling hasn’t quite gone away.
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Nice little piece, have to agree with the overall assessment of Jocketty's pro and cons. One thing you forgot to mention was that when Jocketty acquired Finley it cost him Coco Crisp as the PTBNL.
Posted by: grimace455 | April 24, 2008 at 03:29 PM
Thats a pretty accurate assessment of Jocketty's career as the Cards GM. The only thing I would say is that BA currently has the Cards farm system ranked 13th. Although most of that is the doing of Jeff Luhnow, not Jocketty...
Posted by: deeco3307 | April 24, 2008 at 04:14 PM
Does this mean Walt is going to be scared to deal with Beane again?
Posted by: speedchaser9 | April 24, 2008 at 04:24 PM
Nice summary.
As bad as the Mulder deal may be, it needs to be looked at in context.
The Cardinals were a World Series club whose starting pitching was shown up that postseason as woefully inadequate, especially when the clubs they faced were throwing guys like Clemens, Oswalt, Pettite, Pedro Martinez, Schilling and Derek Lowe against them. Add in the fact that Carpenter (not yet a Cy Young hurler) was coming off a mysterious arm ailment that no one fully understood and had prevented him from throwing the latter part of the year, and Morris had undergone shoulder surgery that offseason. In that context, the need for a frontline starter who could match up against opposing starters of equal caliber in the postseason, makes sense. It would have been irresponsible for a World Series team to go into the following season with a starting staff consisting of two injury question marks, Jason Marquis, Jeff Suppan and a young hurler with a career record of 6-10, 4.85 ERA.
The deal didn't turn out well, but it was a deal that had to be made.
Posted by: Devlsh | April 24, 2008 at 04:24 PM
Excellent piece, and timely. Thanks for putting that up, Tim.
To nitpick: I think you mean 'dispense' in your intro, not 'dispel'.
Jocketty's got a pretty decent track record overall, with some really great moves. I think the Polanco for Rolen deal is underrated, and to the extent that one can assign him credit for things like Pujols' ascendancy and the astonishing Carpenter turnaround, he's been brilliant at times.
But the Mulder deal is a huge black mark. Yes, you have to look at it in context, but let's not lose sight of the task of a baseball GM: winning games. I assume that Jocketty had some scouts and/or talent evaluators in his employ; if it was obvious to me as a fan that Mulder was cooked, I don't think it's unfair to expect the Cardinals to be aware of that fact. It quickly became clear that Haren was a better starting pitcher than Mulder from Day 1. Beane knew that.
I know it's a futile exercise, but imagine the Cardinals with Haren and Barton instead of Mulder? Better yet, imagine the Cardinals with Barton, Dana Eveland, Gregg Smith, Gio Gonzalez, Carlos Gonzalez etc. We'd be talking about the locomotive rampaging through the NL Central year after year.
Posted by: asm | April 24, 2008 at 04:36 PM
To clarify my main point about Mulder: The idea is to win games, not go into the season with a pitching staff that the media and fans feel confident about. If Jocketty went out and acquired Mulder just so he'd have a "name" starter so that people wouldn't criticize him for starting the season with a roster full of question marks, THAT's what would really be irresponsible.
Posted by: asm | April 24, 2008 at 04:38 PM
Great piece, glad there is somebody giving this move some press.
Tim - If you were a Cincy fan, would you agree with the move?
I have mixed feelings, but I think that it is good for our organization. I think our farm could lose a few of the top prospects, for a better chance at winning. With Cueto, Harang, and Volquez how hard would it be to put together an offense that wins??
Posted by: Dave from Louisville | April 24, 2008 at 05:51 PM
there is absolutely no way that Kiko Calero for Mulder is a fair deal. Where would Barton play? First? Haren...well...he's good.
Posted by: nic | April 24, 2008 at 08:02 PM
nic,
Barton was drafted as a catcher by the cardinals and was kept at that position in his short St. Louis career. A's converted him to a 1B. He can also play (a terrible) 3B.
He could arguably be in any of those positions if he wasn't traded.
Posted by: speedchaser9 | April 24, 2008 at 11:52 PM