The Cardinals have reached a two-year agreement with esteemed pitching coach Dave Duncan, reports Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The contract includes a mutual option for 2013. There are some high-profile pitching coach openings this winter, but the game's best is staying put. Cardinals manager Tony La Russa signed a contract guaranteeing one year, but Duncan wanted more security.
Additionally, the Cardinals announced that Mark McGwire will return as the hitting coach, tweets Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports.
Good move by the Cardinals to bring him back. Not unexpected.
I’m kind of surprised Duncan would sign on for longer than Larussa is garaunteed to be there. About the only reason for keeping TLR was to keep Duncan, maybe they didn’t even need to keep TLR.
I agree…”Duncan wanted more security.”why would Duncan worry about job security anyway? he’s the best…unless he’s planning something crazy for this year like making Chris Carpenter throw left from now on…
haha….Yeah, I’ve always just kind of assumed if Tony left Duncan would too, maybe that won’t be the case.
haha….Yeah, I’ve always just kind of assumed if Tony left Duncan would too, maybe that won’t be the case.
[Sigh] Dave Duncan makes me wish there was cloning….
[Sigh] Dave Duncan makes me wish there was cloning….
There goes all the Duncan to Red Sox fantasies.
Sigh, no early Christmas.
Duncan to [insert every team here] fantasies is more like it.
There goes all the Duncan to Red Sox fantasies.
Foregone conclusion and all that, but it was nice being able to hold out blind, unfounded and unrealistic hope of the Sox scopping him up for that like 72 hours it lasted.
Foregone conclusion and all that, but it was nice being able to hold out blind, unfounded and unrealistic hope of the Sox scopping him up for that like 72 hours it lasted.
Cardinal nation stand up and cheer!!! Our very own Dave Duncan is coming back home!!!
Yes! This will be the biggest news of our offseason.
Yes! This will be the biggest news of our offseason.
more like Kyle Lohse stand up and cheer.
more like Kyle Lohse stand up and cheer.
Cardinal nation stand up and cheer!!! Our very own Dave Duncan is coming back home!!!
My only concern with them bringing back Duncan, it usually means that they aren’t going to spend the money on signing anyone worth crap. They’ll sign 4 Rich Hill types and hope that Duncan can work his magic on one of em.
If you throw enough pieces of crap against the wall, eventually some will stick.
But in this case, the crap that sticks is equal to an ace.
It’s kind of hard for them to sign much crap, as you put it, this offseason with 4 rotation spots already settled (3 of them extremely well) and a strong attempt being made to resign Westbrook.
I don’t consider Westbrook much more than a 5th starter. With Lohse in the rotation, maybe Westbrook’s 4th. I guess the bright side is at least he’s stayed healthy most of his career.
I get fed up of them signing guys and hoping they’ll find a diamond. It’s painful to watch.
But it seems to work out more than it fails. Remember back in 04 when they had a scrap heap rotation of some injured player named Chris Carpenter, a young head case in Jason Marquis, a wandering veteran in Jeff Suppan, and declining veteran in Matt Morris, and the old fart Woody Williams? Who thought that rotation would ammount to anything….much less 4 15 game winners and a world series appearance.
I will gladly take a rotation of Wainwright, Carpenter, Garcia, Lohse, and a scrap heap guy anyday.
Not really that surprising. For those of you wondering why he’s signed longer than TLR? Read between the lines a bit. Tony wants to do a year to year thing, but he’s 120 wins away from becoming #2 on the all time win list. At MINIMUM he’s staying long enough to get that accomplishment. Which would be 2 years. Tony signed a 1yr contract with an option for a 2nd. Also it’s no coincidence that the Cardinals signed both to a multi year deal, that will extend past Albert’s contract year. It’s partially a move to help keep Albert where he’s at
In terms of pitching coach fantasies, I wonder if Leo Mazzone still has the drive to teach? He’s the only other coach I can think of who has had the same type of success as Duncan
Yeah, McGwire did steroids, just like many other players in the STEROID era. Not saying he’s a great coach or anything. That remains to be seen. I’m just sick of hearing about this.
lol…really? still?